Well I have the FD-8 and I am very happy with it. But the Boss machine just came out so I really havent looked at it yet. The Fostex unit is very easy to use , thats why I bought it. I suggest the 250 Zip Drive for the Fostex
They are both cool.
I had the VS880 and now the VS1680. I think the FD 8 has undestructive editing??. The BR8 is a good low price unit. The unit should have a scsi port though. That way you can hook up external hard drives. The 100 MB Zip will only hold a few songs if they are in any way full.