Just got one!
Written: Dec 12 '03 (Updated Dec 16 '03)
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Pros: Small and light, great for workouts...quality of sound very good
Cons: Battery life,uncomfortable earphones,fm tuner ok but not great
The Bottom Line: My final recommendation is that, for the price, this is a very good value for the money as long as it doesn't break!
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| fanmandavid55's Full Review: Rio Sport S30S (64 MB) MP3 Player |
I just purchased this unit 3 days ago and I am thrilled with the sound and portability compared to my cd player.
Eventually I will probably purchase a hard drive unit for the larger memory but right now I am too cheap to buy one of those so I went for this.
Tuner does not seem so good but I did not buy it for the tuner. It is okay for most situations.
On my Rio, there is an annoying buzz when you turn the tuner on but that only happens when the backlight comes on.
The earphones, for me, are not real comfortable so I will take some other posters advice and get a new set of earphones, eventually.
The main thing I want to let people in on is advice about the software that came with the unit. I found it to be very good and fast transferring files from my hard drive to my player and you will also. However, I was looking to squeeze some more songs into the memory card and internal memory because I like to carry a lot of tunes with me when I travel and I find my cd player and cd's getting a bit to much to lug around. I also like to fish while listening to music so carrying my cd player and and cd's with me for that purpose became a chore.
I think I have found a couple of answers to address my problem.
#1... I found a better way to compress files by using the windows media player. You can use the file/copy/copy to portable device feature to transfer files at a lower kbps rate to get many more songs onto both memory storage centers on the device. (Click on the little I button and you can change the bitrate but don't use the tools/options/copy music option since that won't work for this application).
I experimented on transferring a 192kbps file to my rio and took it down to 32,64,128,160 and 192kbps and then listened for the difference in quality of sound. This way is a little slower than the rio software but still not too bad.
I realize you can do pretty much the same thing with the real one software provided, but I just hate using that stupid little intrusive program because it always deposits itself into my startup file whenever you turn the thing on!
My conclusion: 32 is not real good but it might be okay for audio books. I have not tried that yet.
I could tell a difference between the rest, but it did not seem a whole lot different to me and I expect, with better earphones, it will sound even better.
After filling up the memory at that the 64 rate, I got twice as many songs since most of my song files are at the 128kbps rate (Duh, just do the math)!
Of course converting my songs to wma files also helped!
#2 answer would be just to buy a larger sd card because 32mb's just ain't big enough to store much of anything!
I have a palm device that uses the same kind of card and you can bet the next digital camera I buy will use one also.
All in all, I believe this little unit will become one of my favorite tech toys!
I bought the unit at my local Costco store for $89.99
I also noticed they are selling a 256mb sd card at Costco for only $64.99!
I have noticed the dollar stores in my area have tons of AAA batteries but you might have to look harder for the alkaline type.
I just found out if you have a BIGLOTS store near you a pack of 4 triple a batteries cost $1.49! For me, that's about 40 to 50 hours of power for a buck and a half. Not bad.
I figure why spend more for a new unit with bigger flash memory when you can just upgrade this unit with a bigger card!
So far,I am a real happy camper!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 89.99
Recommended for: Athletes - Lightweight and Portable, Perfect for the Gym
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Epinions.com ID:
fanmandavid55
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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