Small and compact
Written: Nov 04 '01 (Updated Nov 25 '01)
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Pros: Size and ease of use
Cons: Headphones
The Bottom Line: Good value for the buck with easy memory expandability. Throw away the headphones that comes with it.
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| slimtae's Full Review: Rio PMP-500 (64 MB) MP3 Player |
I actually came to own the Rio 500 because it came bundled with an HP CD-RW drive I recently purchased. The whole package cost me about 200 bucks. The CD-RW drive is not the fastest on the market, but I bought it because it came bundled with the Rio 500.
I also have a Rio 600 unit which was a Christmas gift. Although the Rio 500's external appearance is not as sleek and eye-catching as the Rio 600, it has two major advantages over the 600. The first is internal memory. It comes with 64MB of internal memory. That's good for about 12 to 16 songs in standard MP3 format using 128/44 encoding. The other major advantage is the SmartMedia card slot, which can expand memory to whatever size your media card will be. The Rio 600 can be expanded also, but annoyingly, it uses a proprietary memory pack manufactured by the same company which is pretty expensive.
The unit is very easy to operate. I really had no need to read any instruction manuals to learn how to use it. The only instruction I need was to learn how to transfer songs from my computer to the player. A convenient dial at the side of the player has multifunction capabilities which acts as a volume control, scrolling tool, and select button. Basic equalizer controls are present, and repeat/random modes are available...all present basic functions and features.
The Rio Audio manager software that comes with the unit was never installed on my computer. I've had bad experiences with the software when it came with the Rio 600, and I wasn't going to use it again. It has an annoying tendency to freeze up, or semi-crash on my system. I actually use a third party software with supports hook-up with the Rio 500.
Sound quality is fine as far as I can tell. The one major negative about this product is the headphones which ships with it. When I first used it, I thought the entire player was the problem. There was absolutely no bass, and everything had a tinsel, high pitched quality which sounded like it was coming out of a cheap pocket transistor radio. When I used a different headphone, the sound quality was much more rich and pleasant. I've since thrown away the original headphones.
The other gripe I have with the player is that it only plays MP3 files, and not WMA files. Microsoft claims that a WMA file half the size of an MP3 file still retain comparable audio quality. I've tested this on my computer, and I think it's close...although to my ears, the MP3 file has the edge. Still, the subtle loss in audio quality may be worth the price to fit twice as many songs on the player, but that option is not available with the Rio 500.
Overall though, it is a superior product to the Rio 600, mainly because of the memory availability and expandability. It's only negatives are inability to play WMA files and exceptionally bad headphones.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): came bundled
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Epinions.com ID:
slimtae
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Reviews written: 95
Trusted by: 11 members
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