Sonic Rio Sport S35 MP3 Player - Hours of skip-free music for Runners
Written: Mar 30 '04 (Updated Oct 15 '04)
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Pros: Light weight, easy way to have portable music. No skipping. Great for runners!
Cons: FM radio is worthless. Crappy earphones.
The Bottom Line: Ideal for working out, easy to use and worth the price. Buy yourself some better ear buds and save yourself the aggravation.
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| zzJulia's Full Review: Sonic Blue Rio S35 128MB MP3 Player |
I walk or run an average of 15 miles each week. That's not very many, but it can get pretty boring when you are indoors on a treadmill.
After a few months of rain and using the treadmill at my gym, I decided to get serious and add some music to my routine. I spent hours trying to decide how much to spend and what was the best MP3 player for working out. My resulting purchase was the Sonic Blue Rio Sport s35 for many reasons.
1. Weight and Portability
I did not need to carry around my entire jukebox of music so an iPod was out of the question. The riosport is a few ounces and can be strapped to my arm with the armband (included) or hooked to my waistband. When strapped onto my arm, it's not huge (it easily fits into the palm of my hand) and doesn't bang around.
2. Playtime
With the 128mb built-in memory, I get easily 2 hours of music play time. That's enough for me because my workouts rarely go for longer than 1.5 hrs. The unit is also expandable, though I haven't purchased the MMC additional memory. When I bought the unit, it looked it was upgradeable to 256mb total, based on the marketing materials but other reviews here have said 512 mb. I have been keeping my eye on the prices of the cards and they are coming into the $40 range on eBay and about $60 at CostCo.
3. Ease of Use
The software was simple to install, and upgrades were available from the company support site. I was ready to go with music on my device in less than 1hr. The menu is simple with only a few options and the play, stop, forward or back buttons on the dial are all I need to figure out to play my music.
The display is nice, and even can be backlit. The name of the song, artist and length of the song is displayed. You can also scroll to get the time and date. Everything is guided by a simple menu.
Though I have never used it, there is also a timer function. I have a racewatch for this and don't want to contort my arm or neck to use this stopwatch feature on the riosport.
4. Cost
I had watched these MP3 devices for years and vowed I would not buy one until they came down in price and could hold more music. At $120, for 128mb, the riosport was right in my sweet spot.
Now we get to the CONS of this device:
1. The earbuds suck.
Nobody has ears shaped like a vulcan and those ear pieces pop right out during the most inopportune moments! You will be jogging away and *POP* the stupid thing will fall out of your ear. When you are on a treadmill, this can be almost life-threatening because the wire is very long and can get caught. Definitely need to invest in something better.
2. The FM tuner bites.
Static, static, static. The radio is completely worthless and deafening. In fact, any time you touch a button, the backlight comes and creates a high-pitched buzzing noise. Why did they bother? It allows you to set 8 presets given the obstacle of finding 8 decent static free stations.
3. The plastic cover doesn't fit
It's just plain annoying. They have been making these for years and they can't measure the plastic to fit over the holes? It makes it hard to fit the USB cable in or even the ear buds without serious manipulation and possibly making you break a nail.
4. Proprietary software.
Yes, if you want to download music at home and work, you have to install the software on both machines. Can be a drag because you need to remember to bring the USB cable with you back and forth.
Songs can only be arranged on the computer software list and not on the device itself. That means if you want to "delete" a song, you have to wait until you get back from the gym and hook it up. However, you can do "shuffle" and replay on the riosport.
Also, the software doesn't seem to pick up all the available music on the computer, ie, not all your .mp3 files.
5. Adding Extra Memory
After I bought my mmc off eBay to expand the additional memory, I went to add extra music. This is what I realized, you can only add music to the card separately, so on the software, you must select your "drive" in order to copy onto the card. It is not seamless with the internal memory. It's just a minor annoyance.
5. Battery Life
Not great. I get about 8-9 hours from the AAA battery.
OVERALL:
This was a great purchase and I have really enjoyed having it when I go to the gym. From a cost and functionality perspective, I got everything I needed from the Riosport. I had looked at the iRiver and Nike Sport, but decided against them even though they were similar in cost. I felt that the RioSport had been out on the market longer and any user complaints would be addressed quicker. This may not be true, but it was more of a consumer brand recognition for electronics factor here for me.
I purchased mine at Buy.com. It was priced at a few dollars higher than Amazon but Buy.com was offering a $5 coupon and free shipping. I also went to BestBuy to look at them at talk to a Rio rep. The prices at Bestbuy were good and with the added benefit of same day purchasing but I didn't want to deal with rebates to get my better price.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 119
Recommended for: Athletes - Lightweight and Portable, Perfect for the Gym
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Epinions.com ID:
zzJulia
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Member: Juls W.
Location: Sunny California
Reviews written: 130
Trusted by: 229 members
About Me:
Silicon Valley Girl.
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