Although this is the holiday season iPods go completely mainstream, I find myself focused on Flash. For me, this is the year I give my hard-drive players a rest and get a tiny flash unit. After laboring with playlists asnd high-capacity transfers for a couple of years, there's something sweet and easy about a small device that holds just enough music to keep me interested for a single day's wandering in the world. In particular, the gym requires that miniature footprint and no-moving-parts smoothness of operation.

I like the iRiver iFP-799 and iFP-899 units, the 1GB top of their respective lines, costing $250 each. One gigabyte is an attractive product niche, and these models include FM reception, FM recording, voice recording, and line-in recording. But recently I've noticed a couple of dirty bargains crying out for attention.

In Circuit City on Black Friday, I noticed the SanDisk flash players at extraordinary prices. The 1GB unit, which mimics iRiver's features (but without the line-in jack) are selling for $169.

If you care to strip it down further, look at the deal TigerDirect is offering for the Ultra thumb drive with MP3 playback: it's a 256k flash player with FM reception, voice recording, a language tutor (!), a built-in e-mail program (!!), and SD/MMC memory card expandability. It's 69 dollars after a rebate. Buy a one-gig card for 80 dollars (also at Tiger), and you've got a 1.25GB player for $150. The main drawback— USB 1.1 transfers, which are slower than 2.0. But this isn't a 40GB machine. How fast to you need to get out of the house with 200 songs?