If it's in your MP3 player budget, read on.
Written: Mar 30 '03
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Pros: Price for quality ratio is in your favor.
Cons: The buttons are funny.
The Bottom Line: There's too many good things about the RCA Lyra to ignore. If you do choose it, you won't be sorry.
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| dsbocco's Full Review: RCA Lyra RD1080 (128 MB) MP3 Player |
The RCA Lyra RD1080 is a well rounded MP3 (and WMF) player with quite a bit to offer. This particularly small player offers everything you would expect in a digital audio player plus an expandable memory from an already sufficient 128Mb and a cool little display to boot.
The size is quite a bit smaller than most in its class, 2.4”x 2.2”x 1.2” to be exact and only 2 oz. This makes it easily slipped into a pocket, strapped onto your arm (for all you joggers out there) or clipped onto a belt without having to worry about it bouncing around.
The buttons are easy enough to learn. Like most MP3s, the buttons are multifunctional so what they do depends on where you are in the firmware. A word of caution, there’s something called tactical feedback. It’s the click you feel when pushing a button that let’s you know that the button did its job. This doesn’t have it. Also, I can’t tell if there’s a delay in the commands but more often than I’d like, I find myself having to repress the buttons.
The display is….well…cool. Basically, the characters on the side are smaller than the middle so when the song titles scroll across they almost jump out at you. The display backlights when you press a button. It doesn’t bog you down with useless information. When a song is playing the screen displays the track number, time into the song, battery power level, bit rate and DSP mode (I’ll get to that). The artist and title are scrolled across the screen for about 10 seconds before it stops on either one or the other. I still can’t figure out which and why. The disadvantages here are there’s no play list screen and when the name scrolls the artist and title don’t fit at the same time.
As operation goes, you have the ability to scan through the songs. Instead of an equalizer you can set the tone via the DSP button. You can select play mode (repeat one, repeat all, shuffle and so on) and program tracks from your play list and more. There’s also a lock to protect against accidental pushing of the keys.
The headphones are the neckband type. I’m not a great fan of these types of headphones but that’s me. To a large degree, I believe the headphones make the music quality. The quality of the music is pretty good. It’s just not great. I wouldn’t let this be a deterrent. There are plenty of advantages to go around here.
Downloading files….. ah yes… downloading files. This MP3 player requires software to download songs and comes with musicmatch jukebox. I’ve had jukebox before the MP3 player and I’m loving it. If you don’t get this MP3 player, get jukebox. But hey, that’s a whole other review. There was a little effort in getting it to program the player but I muttled through. It’s not drag and drop but once you do it the fist time you’re set. By the way, the extended memory is courtesy of a multi media card (MMC) flash memory which is a bit pricey.
Did I mention the FM radio? It has good reception and good range and you can preset 10 stations.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 129.00
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Epinions.com ID:
dsbocco
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Reviews written: 20
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