Sony's portable MP3-CDRW drive available

told us using the newssubmit that Sony's CRX10U/A2 CDWriter is available Laptop Battery right now. This "baby" uses USB to communicate with the system to be used as an 4x CDRW drive.
Without the USB cable connected the drive is to be used as an portable MP3 CD player. It can handle CD text, ID3 tags and MP3's up to 320kb/s.
Well it's a cool gadged, but tests Sony laptop battery have proved that this drive ain't that good at all. Almost every burn ended up in a buffer underrun..... that's not what we want!
Let's put it this way: the idea sure is nice (especially for laptop owners) but it still needs some laptop battery work. Maybe some other competiting companies (Plextor?) can start producing drives like this one... sure would be nice...
About the price: no info yet! I guess it will be quite expensive....
Iomega brings us a new external CD-RW drive. An external CD-RW drive is very usefull when you make a lot of backups. Iomega has chosen for the Firewire interface because it's a lot Hp PB994A battery faster then the now populair USB 1.1 standard.

Iomega's Predator CD-RW drive with FireWire connectivity has a rated performance of 8X4X32X (8X write, 4X rewrite, 32X read) and supports additional popular interfaces by using detachable and interchangeable adapters.
Users will be able to easily switch Hp PB991A battery among any of four hot-swappable connection types: USB 1.1, FireWire, and PC Card and USB 2.0 when available.
These choices will give Predator owners the freedom to transform their drives as needed laptop battery for different desktop and laptop interfaces.
Iomega's Predator series CD-RW break the mold of traditionally heavy, brick-like external drives with a sleek, lightweight and Sony PCGA-BP1N battery stylish design.
Sony Digital Relay CD External CDRW/MP3 Player

arnesr used our newssubmit to tell us about Sony's Digital Relay CDRW an external USB/CDRW drive. Have the best of both worlds next month($400USD)
Sony says you can expect 2 1/2 hours of Sony PCGA-BP2NX battery playback and from my experience I think that's about right; this is sufficient for most uses; I didn't often run out of batteries except on longer trips. It would be nice to have an extra battery, but because this unit runs on a 40$ camcorder battery it's not so laptop battery easy to keep extras. If the unit either used AAs or came with a spare battery I could be charging one set while using the other, and my music wouldn't be interrupted at the end of my semi-regular 3 hour commutes.

I found the sound quality of the Digital Relay to be very good. I especially liked the AntiShock protection; the unit never skipped once, even Sony PCGA-BP2NY battery with me constantly shaking it. Thinking I just wasn't shaking the unit consistently enough, I put it on top of my subwoofer and then used the Relay's output to drive the bass, but I still couldn't get the unit to skip. Needless to say, I was impressed.
Check out the review for more info. (Click source on the top of this newsposting)Sony PCGA-BP2R battery