The New #1 Hit In The USA is "I Want My MP3" By Diamond Rio
Written: Feb 14 '02
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Pros: Sounds Great, Expandable Memory, Sleek Styling, USB Friendly, Easy To Use!!!
Cons: Original Internal Memory Low, Software Is Lame!!!
The Bottom Line: It is not the size of the ship...it is motion of the ocean and this little guy is a mover!!!
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| mafazio's Full Review: Rio 600 (32 MB) MP3 Player |
Listen Up!!!
The Diamond Rio 600 is very curvy and its sultry shape, along with its sleek finish, sold me on it right away!!! Beyond its dashing good looks, the MP3 player is easier to handle than your girlfriend and its features score big, really big!!! Let us take the navigation buttons, for starters; play, stop, forward, back, and select. Pretty simple, eh? They are located on a circular control that fits the thumb nicely. If you have "big" hands, like myself, you might get a little frustrated (your girlfriend might not though!!!). No more struggling to change songs while your messing around under the sheets. Vision always helps, in many circumstances, and the back-lit LCD screen is reasonably large and offers track information such as song title, compression ratio, and volume.
On the whole, the Alternative Rock and Trance songs I tested with the player sounded good with the supplied headphones. An upgrade in headphones will not hurt you, especially if you a bass junkie!!! Sound quality, however, is unbearably affected by ambient noises like traffic "polluting" the music while you are on the go. Tracks such as Natalie Imbruglia's "Wrong Impression" presented a good amount of highs and cleanliness. Not fairing so well was "Unafraid" by Jan Johnston...damn Trance song had too much bass for this little guy to handle. Think H E A D...P H O N E S!!! Spend that little extra cash and get yourself some...
I used MP3 tracks encoded in 128kbps and 160kbps compression ratio (more than good enough for most of us), although the player supports songs encoded at up to 512kbps. Apart from MP3 tracks, the player supports WMA songs and audio books as well. Two very nice touches if I may say so myself!!!
Supportin' Mac
Like the older Rio 500, Diamond's new offering supports G3 and G4 Macs, as well as Windows PCs. Mac users are offered a nice SoundJam MP bundle, which lets them rip their CD's into not only MP3, but QuickTime format as well. Not a bad idea!!!
Plus, with ultra-speedy song transfers, the Rio 600 is surely one of the better MP3 players for USB equipped Macs. I could hardly believe it when my Powerbook G3 downloaded 4MB MP3 songs (encoded at 128kbps) in about 15 seconds. Gone are the long waits for a song to be transferred via the "lame" parallel or serial port for both Macs and PCs.
For PC users, Diamond's RioPort Audio Manager software is a joke to use. It "rips" your CD's into MP3 tracks, but it also categorizes your "sound bank" according to artist, track name or length for quick reference. I will use Windows Media Player 7 though for my PC transfers. The RioPort Audio Manager is clumsy and a pain in my astronaut to get use to!!! Use what works, that is my philosophy. Windows Media Player to the rescue!!!
Size Does Matter
The major problem I have with the Rio 600 is that it only has 32MB of built-in memory, which translates to slightly over half an hour of CD-quality music. If you are lucky ,and a math wiz, that might give you 8 songs...but that might even be a little "white lie".
Music junkies have the choice of upgrades in the form of "Backpacks", snap-ons that replace the current AA-size battery housing on the players back. For starters, a 32MB Backpack with rechargeable battery and power adapter costs $99.95 American dollars. In addition, Diamond says it is offering Backpack memory upgrades of 32MB, 64MB, 128MB, and 340MB. The 32MB and 64MB ones are based on either SmartMedia or Compact Flash. The 340MB add-on is really an IBM MicroDrive, which might give the player the biggest storage capacity for its size, for true music fans!!! No pricing and shipping details are available for these accessories at this time, to my knowledge.
At around $170 now, the 32MB Rio 600 shoots most MP3 players out of the water, offering MP3 fans a solid value. If the upgrades are bundled cheaply with a "souped-up" version for true gear heads, it might just corner the market!!!
Get it while you can, it is "future-proof" and should be around for quite sometime!!! What was that song again? Oh yeah, the new #1 Hit in the USA is "I Want My MP3" by Diamond Rio...it is already a classic!!!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 81.00
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Epinions.com ID:
mafazio
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Location: Henderson, Nevada USA
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
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