Sonic Blue should have done better.
Written: Apr 16 '02 (Updated Apr 17 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good Sound, MP3 and WMA, Build-in-mic
Cons: I dis-like the case, buttons and display Battery problems, Lousy Software.
The Bottom Line: You may not mind some of its short comings, but the file transfer software is so bad, you will likely wish that you got another brand.
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| techieguy's Full Review: Rio 800 (128 MB) MP3 Player |
I got the Rio 800 as a replacement for a defective Rio 500 (now obsolete). I use it for music, and audio books.
Case and Buttons
I suppose that everyone has their own preferences about case design, but I prefer the simplicity of the Rio 500. The designers probably thought that it was a cool shape, but I find it more difficult to operate - especially the positioning of the buttons. With the Rio500, I could operate it while driving without having to look at the display. Several of the buttons (ie. volume) on the Rio 800 are flush with the case, and you can't feel them. The fast forward and reverse are difficult to operate without accidentally pressing the wrong button. Now you have lost your place, and you have to search to find where you were (especially irritating when listening to long audio books)
Display
Has lots of information, and a good backlight, but the lousy case design has a small oval window that makes reading the display difficult - especially in the sun. The case causes a shadow on the display!
Battery
The player has a built in AA NiMH battery. The battery never lasts anywhere near the rated capacity of 11 hours - more like 3 or 4. NiMH type batteries have special charging requirements, and I think that the charger is shutting off before it is completely charged. The Battery Charge Calibration feature didn't help ether.
Sound Quality
Good - assuming that you use a better set of headphones than the ones supplied.
Recording Feature
Yep - you can actually record from the built in microphone, perhaps useful if you want to record a conversation, but it's low quality - even for that purpose.
Other Features
Bookmarks - can be made to make it easier to pick up from where you left off. This is essential if you listen to audio books. Sonic Blue sells a cheaper model, the RIO ONE (32MB) which does not have this feature.
Software
The RIO800 comes with some software called The Audio Port Manager this is used to transfer songs to the player. It is awful! It's awkward to use, and crashes a lot - or fails to detect that my player is plugged in. Sometimes it stops in the middle of a transfer for no apparent reason.
Finally...
The Rio 800 can come with 64MB internal or 128MB internal or a whopping 384MB (externally I assume). External memory is in a removable back pack that also holds the battery. Here's the gotcha - you can't take advantage of the dropping prices of memory to add to your rio 800, you can only use Sonic Blue's proprietary backpacks $$$ It's too bad that Sonic Blue didn't take the design of the Rio500 and improve it, but instead gave us a new product with a list of new problems.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
techieguy
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Reviews written: 6
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