Shipping: Now

Over the course of the past two years the audio compression format known as MP3 has literally exploded in popularity thanks to the growth and global access to the Internet.

Hundreds of thousands of full length CD-quality MP3 songs are capable of being downloaded by users literally at the click of a mouse button from hundreds of MP3 websites that offer the latest legal (and illegal) MP3 songs.

Unfortunately the challenge to MP3 aficionados who begin searching for a song they want to hear quickly turns from being able to find the song, to actually being able to play it, because at this point MP3 support from major consumer electronics manufactures has been all but non-existent.

Thankfully this is changing as major audio companies like Sony and RCA have adopted the MP3 format as a standard, and a whole range of MP3-compatible audio devices will appear next year for use at home, on the move, and even in your car.

Today we're looking at the first MP3 portable player from a major manufacturer, RCA's "Lyra". The Lyra offers some great features along with some penalties in its quest for your MP3 pursuing dollars, and while it does include interesting technology it may not be the right portable for everyone's needs.

When the first portable cassette player arrived in the United States in 1980 it was met initially with curiosity which was quickly followed by tremendous sales growth and revenue over the next 20 years. Portable MP3 players are just entering their own curiosity stage, as the average consumer (not to be confused with you sharp readers of Sharky Extreme) is just now becoming aware of the MP3 music experience.

So far several portable MP3 players have been developed, mostly by Asian-centric technology companies, but few have seen North American shores besides Diamond's popular PMP300 and Creative Labs' NOMAD.