Being old fashioned and stuck with the portable CD player for the greater part of the 90s, I figured that half way through this decade would be a good time to move up to a portable digital player. As with most electronics, the choice of companies to go with was almost endless, and seemed pretty tough to narrow down initially. However, after starting to finally sift through the choices, I realized that a hard drive based player would almost be out of the question, considering how this player would primarily be used when running and working out. This pretty quickly narrowed down the market, between such companies as Mpio, Creative Lab, iRiver, and Rio. I originally wasn’t thinking of more then 128MB of space, but decided to stick with a lil more, considering most of my music is ripped a 192kbps. That said, I narrowed the pool down once more the only a handful of players, and demanding some type of armband and very small and light finally brought me to my conclusion…the Rio Forge 256. Being a flash based player, the player uses an internal “chip” that stores the memory, so there is no moving parts to break. Obviously the 256 stands for 256MB of memory. However, don’t fret, cause memory is expandable up to a 1.25GB simply with the purchase of an SD or MMC external memory card. Findings of this little work-of-art have been rather bittersweet, so in more depth, I’ll try to explain my findings

Appearance

I must say that the Rio Forge 256 was indeed, quite the shiny little looker from the start. It’s casing has changed from it’s predecessor, the Cali. Gone is the more rugged body, replaced by a shiny chrome material surrounding the screen and button overlay. The actual sides of the player remained rubber as before, but aside from that, the overall design was cleaned up to a much more cleaner, sporty looking design. The control buttons are located on the right hand side of the player, and are in the shape of a circle. A very helpful little idea was to add light red backlighting to the buttons when pressed. Also when activated, the screen would also light up in a glowing white shade. Even though I don’t use the player all that much in the dark, it seems like a great idea for anyone trying to use is in the dark. The LCD screen, for how small it is, can display A LOT of information, and you can scroll through a lot of other info by pushing the info button, left of the control ring. The power button is located at the top, and must be pressed in and held in for about 3-4 seconds before the unit powers on or off. To the left of the power button is a switch that locks the unit either on or off. Once in locked position, all unit controls will not function until the switch is turned back. To the right of the power switch is the volume controls, which ranges in units from 0-30 of volume. The overall design of the Forge looks very sharp and cool, but in a way, just doesn’t seem very solid. I figured that it’d just be my observations that would prove to be wrong, however the opposite would soon prove to be true.

Functions

Surprisingly, I found that the Forge really does seem to sport more functions then I’d have really imagined. For such a little device, it functions almost as an MP3 player on a computer would, such as Winamp, or Windows Media Player. The unit supports both MP3 and WMA formats. Some of the follow functions found on the Forge are the following:

FM Tuner - Although the signal is rather weak, that’s almost expected from such a small unit without any type of antenna. Updating firmware has proved for others to be a very useful upgrade, and claims to be able to give slightly better reception. However…not really one of the stronger points of the unit. Then again, who’s buying an MP3 player for a radio anyway?

FM Record - Very unique to the Rio family (as of 4/05) is the feature to be able to record radio broadcastings on the unit, then being able to play then back at later times. Obviously going hand-in-hand with the radio though, this option is pretty limited to the luck-of-the-draw of getting good reception, which seems to be a miracle in itself.

Stopwatch - This is an option that I really do seem to be a fan of though, and with it’s easy-to-adapt –to directions, its really not that hard to get the basics down. Most of the time I run with the Rio on my arm, which makes it a lil tough to use the stopwatch…however, if in need, it’s so small that it fits in your hand like a stopwatch, making it a very nice addition when needed.

Equalizer - This was another nice lil trinket to add to the Forge. There are 5 pre-set equalizer curves that allow the music to instantly transform to your liking of music styles. There is also a “custom” function that allows the user to customize each of the 5 different levels of audio equalization. Very nice for quickly changing music styles.

Play Music – Track Organizer - One of the most simple, but very nice features is the fact that you can rearrange all the music on the player quickly and easier from the MP3 player itself, simply by choosing to arrange by the following: Play All (original order as downloaded), Track Name, Artist, Album Name, Genre, Year, New Music, Spoken Word, or FM Recordings. Very helpful option when trying to change everything up without a complete shuffle.

Shuffle/Repeat - Pretty Simple and to the point…you can chose to shuffle all the songs, and/or repeat all music if chosen. Obviously, these 2 options can be used separately, or together.

Bookmarks - Although I find this option to be kind of obsolete, I suppose that someday someone may find a use for it. Simply allows you to bookmark any part of any song so that by selecting that bookmark, you will be able to instantly return to that same spot later on. I suppose it may be useful when listening to very long classical music, or maybe standup comedy that you enjoy.

Time/Date - Not so much of an option, but more of a basic function. The player also does keep the time and date straight, just incase you’re time heavy without a watch…or maybe if you come down with a sudden case of amnesia, and forget what year your living in.

Battery Life

Bragging a very generous 18 hours of playing time on a single AAA battery, the player does bring a lot to the table when it comes to battery life. However, results have shown that listening to the player at about 4/5 volume for most of the time (which is about right for working out) yielded only about 15-16 hours tops. This is still rather acceptable, comparing to my previous CD players, which were lucky to cross the 8-hour mark for 2 AA.

Software

I personally found the software to be very friendly and simple to use. I didn’t even read any instructions or follow any of the tutorial help that was offered. Simply run the included CD, install the software, and run the program. Everything on the setup is “drag and drop”, meaning that any file you want to add can just be dragged and dropped onto the screen representing everything on the Forge’s memory. Using USB 2.0, the Forge is rather quick, transferring around 1MB per second. Some don’t find this fast enough for their taste, but to me, I can barely pick my music fast enough to keep up with the writing. If you get ahead when dropping and dragging, the software remembers and building a queue list of songs that will keep loading until caught up. Very friendly protocol, and problem free software so far.

Durability

Now we come to the biggest shortcoming of this unit, which sadly has singly-handedly almost ruined the Forge name already. As if you haven’t heard from almost any other user reviews, the Forge comes VERY short on durability, because of problems with the design of the battery compartment. First off, lets get a very short understanding of how batteries connect power. The negative terminal of the battery always sits on a spring, and the positive terminal usually directly contacts some sort of plate, thus completing the “circuit”. The flaw with the Forge is quite simple to identify. Unlike it’s predecessor, the Forge put the spring on the bottom of the compartment, not the top. This problem has caused MANY headaches, because when moving and jogging, the unit bounces up and down…making gravity aid in the compression of the negative terminal spring. Because of this, the positive terminal, which was touching only a solid metal plate, comes off the plate for only a millisecond, thus cutting out the “circuit” of power. However, when powering such a device (such as an MP3 player) that has no other power buffer, ANY cut out in power will cause the unit to turn off INSTANTLY. This is the error that Rio made in designing their unit. The Cali had the idea right with the idea of turning the battery on end, so that the spring was on the top, making it much less prone to keep tuning off. Having quickly identified the problem, I made a VERY quick solution that has YET to fail me. Take a very small sliver of cardboard (such as the cardboard that came with the player) and slip it in between the very top of the batter case and the positive metal clip. This basically pushed the metal clip down more, tightening the gap that the battery sits in so much that there is NO movement allowed on the spring. As my suspicions figured, I could now drop the unit from almost 6-7 feet and still have it running fluently, as opposed to dropping (or jolting) it about a foot before, only to have it power off. VERY SIMPLE FIX FELLOW FORGE OWNERS!

Aside from the aforementioned power problem, the rest of the unit seems to work great. Most seem to claim that the included headphones aren’t very nice, but me, being somewhat of an audiophile myself (rip all songs at 192kbps) find them to be very close to accurate with almost all volume ranges. Sure, bass isn’t gonna be all that bumping, but for a workout set of headphones that came WITH the unit, you won’t hear a PEEP out of me.

Overview

The Rio Forge 256 really hasn’t let me down very much at all. I bought the player without knowledge of its power issues, and was able to fix the problem before it really got me too upset. Granted that Rio should think twice about a recall on this defect, I’m not gonna get too worked up about the problem as of now. The player performs well on every level, and offers a battery life that’s not really to complain about. Audio quality (obviously) depends on MP3 birate quality, but ultimately, playback on the unit is very accurate to the actual ripping of music from a CD. Options may not be near as abundant as with iPods or maybe other similar models, but for a workout unit made to be a runner’s companion, I’d say that it hits everything right about on mark. With it’s rebate available right now, you can pick on up at your local Best Buy for about $110 (after rebate), or only for about $95 (after rebate). Keep in mind the issue with power problems, and if it really bothers you, think twice about ordering online. Best Buy offers 30-day total refund guarantee, so really, you have nothing to lose if you think this might be right for you! In conclusion, I must say that Rio has made a player in a class that seems to stand out, despite its shortcomings. I would recommend this unit to ANYONE looking for a great unit for running and working out.

Update (8/13/05)

After having used this MP3 player vigorously for about 4 months, I can no longer stand by and allow this review to be inaccurate. About 2 months in, the player started acting up, and even shut itself off at one point, and would not turn back on. I had to plug the USB up to the computer just to get it to turn back on. I assumed it was a one-time thing, but unfortunately, it did happen again. Aside from that, it also started to have some new problems on top of that. As I’ve heard from others, the headphone jack must be faulty, because even when not even moving the unit, sound will soften or cut out completely of one, or both jacks simultaneously. This seemed to happen for no apparent reason, just as the power issue. You’d turn the headphone plug in the jack to slightly adjust it so sound would pass, but only temporarily. It would eventually do the same thing again. While trying to fandangle around with it, I was almost plowed into by an oncoming car the other day. This Rio product has VERY disappointed me. It’s decreasing MSRP should also be a red flag…almost ½ the price I paid for it 4 months ago. Why Rio doesn’t recall this line and save their name is beyond me, but for your own sake, I wouldn’t think twice on boycotting this product. Very chinsy craftsmanship, and way too many ifs, ands or buts for my liking. I’ll more then likely sell mine upright on eBay and take the loss to buy a Cowan iAudio U2 (top rated flash player by not only epinions, but also CNET). Save yourself the headache, and the money…just pay a little more for a nicer one upfront.

Just as the title states, this product was successful in that it’s an MP3 player, but unfortunately a failure in that it doesn’t function right. Heed the warning, this product is a dud.


Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 109.95
Recommended for: Athletes - Lightweight and Portable, Perfect for the Gym

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