The short version is that Compaq has made a very nice audio player. No moving parts, backlite screen, removable memory cards and quality construction all make this player a joy to use.

Battery life has been pretty good and the audio quality is good. The controls are easy to use and the LCD screen is easy to read even in bright light. And night the backlite is a life saver.. even more so on plane flights during the movie run with all the shades drawn down.

A caution is the cheapo plastic door covering the memory. Handle with care or you will find yourself with an extra part..i.e.. broken door. The memory itself is very easy to get in and out of the player.

This player is pricy but with some careful shopping and coupons coupled with Compaq's 50.00 rebate, I managed to get the player for 160.00 retail.

With the accolades, come some bad news. The Rio software (ver 3.3) is very poorly designed from a user interface and has a very clunky feel to it. I would expect mcuh more to be packaged with the Compaq name. The software is rather picky about it's configuration and the docs are bad. When I first loaded the software on a Compaq desktop, I ran into trouble right away since the software would not see the player plugged into the USB port. With some digging I found that even with the automatic finding of hardware, it's strongly suggested to place it into manual and tell the Rio software that you have a COmpaq player.

Once I did that, I was able to see the player. The ripping of CDs is slow but if you already have ripped or have MP3s ready to roll, it's not too bad on the upload speed. Just remember that your uploading time is time against your battery life and there is not any AC adapter for this player.

The moving of songs from database to player is klunky at best. No drag and drop here. I hope that in future releases, the software interface is cleaned up. It has a "DOS" look to it.. wide menu bars, fat fonts and the like. Nothing sleek or clean about the design which is surprising given how nicely shaped and designed the player is.

At this point, I have only been able to get the Rio software to run on 98. It doest seem to work on my COmpaq M700 laptop running Win2K.. which does work when booted into 98. I dont know yet if it's Win2K issue, laptop issue or Rio software issue. Time will tell..


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 160.00