Can an MP3 player be sexy?
Written: Dec 22 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Looks good
Cons: Needs more memory
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| slimtae's Full Review: Rio 600 (32 MB) MP3 Player |
I held off on buying an MP3 player for two reasons, memory and price. The first generation MP3 players had 8 MB of memory and sold for over 100 buck. An average MP3 song is about 3-5 MB...you do the math. Recently, prices have come down while memory capacity has gone up. So, I recently bought the Rio 600 MP3 player for about 150 bucks. At 32MB, it holds about 8 songs (still not a lot).
The main reason I bought the Rio over the host of other players was its size and styling. It is about as big as a pack of cigarettes. It has a sleek, curvy, sporty look and come with a color faceplate that can be replaced with other colored faceplates. The blue color faceplate that come with the unit looks very attractive. The controls are very easy to navigate. I barely looked at my instruction manual for 5 minutes until I had learned to operate the thing. The USB connectivity allows an average MP3 song to download in a few seconds. It has basic random/repeat controls and you can control bass/treble settings. On a single AA battery, you have 10 hours of play time. It comes with a snug-fitting satchel which you can use to clip onto your belt or clothing. The earphones that come packaged with the unit are a pair of individual hook-like device which fit snugly around the earlobe. You'd probably have to get punched in the face, hard, to get it knocked out. So, if ever you want to listen to music during a fist-fight, this is the unit for you.
I was pleased with the sound quality. Honestly, I'm not an audiophile and I really can't tell the difference between MP3 and traditional CD format music. I suspect that the two most important factors in sound quality is the quality of the encoded music itself and the type of headphones you use. The earphones that come packaged with the unit seems to do a good job. I also bought the 20 dollar car adapter kit, which works like a charm on my car stereo. Again, if you held a gun to my head and told me to differentiate between CD and MP3 on my car stereo, there's a fair chance my brains would end up on the dashboard.
There are a few things I don't like about the Rio. It only has 32MB, but again you pay for more memory. You can buy an expansion memory pack, but it's proprietary, and manufactured only by Rio. Other units use more conventional compact flash cards or smart media cards to expand memory. A 64MB memory expansion pack will set you back 80 or 90 bucks. Also, the bundled MP3 utility software that come with the unit may not be the most stable program around, my computer has been acting funny every time I run the program and I don't mean ha ha funny.
In summary, the Rio 600 delivers the goods in a sleek, stylish package. You spend a little extra and get the Rio 800 which has 64MB. In the end, this might be the better purchase, since I will probably end up getting the expansion memory pack in the near future.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
slimtae
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Reviews written: 95
Trusted by: 11 members
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