Seems The Best Of What's Out There So Far
Written: Oct 10 '02 (Updated Oct 26 '02)
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Pros: Great sound. Compact and perfect for the gym.
Cons: Battery, Battery, and Battery. 384MB Model No Longer Offered
The Bottom Line: The Battery Issues With This Unit Are Its Only Real Nemesis
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| dmz7's Full Review: Rio 800 (128 MB) MP3 Player |
This MP3 player is the perfect sound machine for walking, jogging, or the gym. Easy to transfer songs from my laptop. The SonicBlue web site still describes this unit in different memory configurations including the 384MB (the one I really wanted) despite the fact that they've long since stopped making it in that memory configuration. My calls to customer service about this months ago have failed their changing this info on their site.
My only real complaint is the battery, and it's a big one in this case. The life is no where near the 'up to 11 hours' they claim. I get 2 if I'm lucky. In fact, the battery indicator that displays when you power on can also be highly misleading. I've seen it show full or near full charge when in fact I only got 2 minutes play time before it died. A tech support rep of their's said the battery needs to be calibrated regularly for maximum performance. I've found that to be the understatement of the century. Calibration instead of just regular charging is absolutely essential! Furthermore, the auto-off function to save battery power is another joke as the battery power will deplete anyway....just at a slower pace...so the next time you turn it afterwards (especially when you've just arrived at the gym and gotten on the treadmill) you freak out only to find the battery is dead......even though you only used it for a few minutes since last recharge.
I also own a Rio 900 192MB model and have similar battery issues with it. Display readability on both models is also an issue if you have any kind of sight problems, so don't be surprised if you need a magnifying glass in order to navigate the meuns. All in all, if you can remember to Calibrate and live with the 5 hour recharge/calibrate time every time you need to recharge it, you'll be OK.
Update - 10/26/02
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Someone at SonicBlue obviously read this as they've all of a sudden removed the 384MB model option from this item's page on their site. As I stated above, I also own the newer Rio 900. Having used both units under similar circumstances, I unfortunately have to say the newer 900's similar battery problems are actually more severe.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 149
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Epinions.com ID:
dmz7
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Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 9
Trusted by: 2 members
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