Before You Buy, Read This
Written: May 06 '01
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Pros: A reasonably cheap way to listen to your MP3s
Cons: Everything else
The Bottom Line: The folks at RIO obviously rushed and cut a lot of corners to get the Volt on the shelves. You might want to consider shopping around before buying this player.
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| stenrude's Full Review: Rio Volt SP100 Personal CD Player |
I hope this helps in your decision:
The Body:
The player is constructed of lightweight plastic that feels flimsy and looks cheap. I fear that without extremely gentle care, the casing will break.
The Display:
The display is very poorly designed. While the characters are big and easy to read, the window is too small to allow both the artist and title of a track to be seen at the same time. To view the full information, you have to scroll to the right which takes a while due to the fact that scrolling occurs at a rate of about one to two characters per second. Also, there is a graphic of a dancing man at the bottom of the screen which, as far as I can tell, is only there to take up screen space and drain the batteries faster. It cannot be turned off.
The Interface:
Control of the device is accomplished through one multi-function button. Most of the functions are not marked on this button and operation is not intuitive. It took me a good five minutes to figure out how to navigate through the tracks. Once you figure it out, however, it is not too difficult to operate. Although, the buttons feel flimsy to the touch and when you press them they feel wobbly on the way down.
The Firmware:
The firmware, or software that operates the device, is lacking but upgradeable. Currently, the player cannot view sub-folders. This means that when you make a cd full of MP3s you cannot organize them more than one folder deep. Also, the player takes roughly 10-15 seconds to boot up and when you leave it on pause or stop it, it turns off and does not save the information about what track you were on. This means that you have to turn it back on (10-15 seconds) then locate the track you left off at.
The Guts:
The volt's guts are very low quality. Even the laser device is low-end. I dont think that this device was engineered to live more than a year or two.
The Accessories:
Headphones: Low sound quality, uncomfortable
Secondary Control Device: Attaches to the player through the headphone jack and then attaches to headphones. Cheap construction, hard to operate. Flimsy buttons.
Carrying Case: Very cheap, no means to attach it to anything save belt loops. (How often do you wear a belt when you are running). Device barely fits inside.
The Function:
Well, you're probably thinking that after all these negatives at least the device will perform well... Sorry, no dice. The anti-skip protection (which can be set at 10 seconds or at a battery draining 40 seconds) does not work all that well and the recovery time can be up to 20 seconds!!! The sound quality is average but the level of output tends to waver.
Well, that is about it. While CD-MP3 players are definitely a cool idea and a great way to enjoy your music, the Rio Volt is a poor product and I would recommend that you search for a better player before you open your wallet.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 170.00
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Epinions.com ID:
stenrude
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Reviews written: 9
Trusted by: 1 member
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