Gary I agree with you about the card storage. I'm not sure I'd want the limits of the older smart media cards.., but I think they should be making these things to take SD cards rather than use USB thumb drives.

Being able to leave that card in the drive was very nice and was like having a little hard-drive in the keyboard. My old Casio WK-3500 used smart media cards (along with the floppy). I loved that little SM Card as load time was quick and the card was always in the unit

Why aren't they using SD cards more on these arrangers? Don't some of the Casio's use SD cards now? I would much rather have an SD card than the thumb drive option.

I still think a good thing to note is the improvements in the S-710. The new "better contrast screen" and the poly bumped up to 128 notes, AND it now having USB audio recording are VERY good upgrade features. I was very surprised to see these jumps in a model coming in under the S-910. Both models now having better screens, sharing USB audio recording, and the same poly count is a good move by Yamaha.

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 07-24-2009).]