I received the 1GB RCA Pearl for Christmas from my mother. I use it fairly regularly, maybe 3x a week for the gym. I took good care of it, but it didnt take long for it to start acting strangely. It would skip songs suddenly and just start shutting off. I assumed it was the batteries. I have gone through several packs of batteries, and have determined its not the cause of the problem. The player will shut off ever few minutes and sometimes it can take an hour for me to be able to turn it back on. It's not fun when Im in the gym and it keeps shutting off on me.