I have to admit that this is the coolest toy that I bought in a
while.  I saw it talked about on the BYU Unix User Group mail
list, and today I stopped by Costco with my friend Doug Knight and
picked one up.

The Virtual Reality Sounds Labs VR-3 MP3 FM Modulator
is an amazing little product for only $25.   Although it is
advertised as being an FM Modulator – to allow you to play your MP3
player through your car FM radio – it is even more … a complete MP3
Player!  It has a USB slot on it, and will accept any USB Flash
Drive that contains MP3s and play them.  So it actually will do
both!  When we went into Costco, they had a huge pile of these
things … and they are in some pretty basic packaging.  The
packaging has a small picture that indicates that this is more than
just a FM Modulator.

I bought one and immediately took it back to the office to grab my USB
Drive.  I put some ITConversations on it, along with a couple of
good tunes.  I was still a little skeptical as I got to my truck,
but it really worked well.  I plugged it in, tuned the FM radio to
87.7, and got clear audio.  After work I listened to it the whole
way home.  It really worked well.  Mark Calkins brought out
his iPod and we plugged that in … again, it worked well with good
sound quality.

There are a couple of limitations, like the way that you navigate your
songs.  When powered up, it starts to play from the first song
that you copied to the USB Drive.  You can skip forward and back,
but if you power down it starts at the beginning.  There is no
display to let you know what song it is on.  In my truck, the
cigarette power jacks stay on, even after the truck is shut off. 
I found that I can just hit the “stop” button and resume playing when I
get back to the truck.  If I loose power in the middle of a long
ITConversation there is no way that I can find to fast forward back
into the MP3.

Overall … it’s a good buy for $24.95 at Costco!