Tuesday Morning, Jan 25th Update: For those interested, here's the latest on the MusicPad Pro device that I'm currently auditioning on 30 day trial.

The original unit I received has a slight 'physical positioning' screen alignment problem where the screen is positioned about 1/8" 'below' the top edge of the screen frame of which effectively hides the bottom of the screen 1/8" below the lower frame. I didn't even notice the defect until a friend of my pointed it out. All other features of the unit are fine, but I contacted Freehand Systems and they subsequently sent me a replacement unit. Unfortunately, though the replacement unit's screen alignment is fine, I immediately discovered that this replacement unit doesn't reliably recognize my external 1 GB Lexar USB Jump Flash drive. I called Freehand Systems and they claim there may be a software glitch with the MusicPad's OS which may be causing this. Funny thing is that my original MusicPad Pro recognizes the same Lexar Jump Flash drive fine, yet running the same OS version 3,12. I personally suspect the problem on the replacement unit is a USB 'hardware issue', but the Freehand R&D staff is feverently working on a software fix for this and hope to have a patch by the end of the day. We'll see I suppose. In the meantime, I now have two MusicPad Pro units sitting here in my studio and await Freehand System's reply. I'm really enjoying the MusicPad Pro so hope that Freehand Systems will get this glitch resolved, either via software patch or yet another replacement unit. For now, I'll continue using my original unit sent to me as it works fine except for the minor screen misalignment. Will keep everyone here posted.

Scott