hypnoticangel's Full Review: Rio Nitrus Street (1.5 GB) MP3 Player
First off, thank you for reading this review and I will give you all the important info you need to know before buying this product.
If there was ever a time that a first impression mattered, you might want to read this thoroughly before thinking about buying this player.
Some of the reviews you might have read came from recent purchases made probably in less than a month. Why does this matter? Well there is a major problem with this mp3 player when it comes to durability. First I'll explain my Experience, then the pros and cons in detail.
--- My Experience ---
I bought my mp3 player about 4 months ago for $149.99. My experience for the first week was amazing, I couldn’t let go of this player and I kept listening to it at work. Every night I would pack 300 songs (128kbps) through the Rio Music Manager.
Side note: If you pack higher quality songs (i.e. 192kbps-320kbps) you can put less songs or lower quality songs (i.e. 32kbps-96kbps) you can put more songs.
In the program there is an option to do "Rio DJ" which basically mixes all your songs so you listen to them in random order not filename order. In my opinion the program isn’t all that great but it’s easy enough to do file transfers and formatting. Those are probably all you really want to use anyways.
It also comes with Music match, which is the program you use to create mp3s with. Music match basic is available online if you want to try that first at http://www.musicmatch.com
After 4 weeks my player started shutting off and restarting at random times. Each and everyday it kept restarting more and more frequently in the middle of songs that are played. I called tech support and upgraded the firmware and did everything they said and the problem still happens. Now I should have learned the important facts before buying this player. It’s possible the hard drive crashed. After pointing out that info, the tech guy told me that the player cannot be moved when it’s on. I told him that’s ridiculous, and that it’s a mobile player!
After the convo I decided to ignore the little paper that comes with the box not to return the product and marched back to the store and exchanged it. With the 2nd player in use, a couple of months later an "UPGRADER" warning came up in the screen and froze my player. I remember the tech guy saying to upgrade the firmware if the "UPGRADER" screen came on. So I stuck a pin in the little hole to reset the module and plugged the player in to the USB and upgraded the firmware and it worked again. A couple days later I ended up with the same problem as my first player. THIS time however I did not move my module while it was on; I kept it in a cool temperature room and used it probably about less than 100 hours. So I don’t know why I kept getting the same Restart problem as the other one. This happening after the 90 day period which means the warranty, the store exchange and everything else is pretty much over. I’m frustrated and unhappy and I cannot recommend this product to anyone especially having to suffer through 2 brand new players.
--- Pros ---
* Good Storage, Moderate Speed Transfer Rate -- Actual Storage Disk Space 1,393MB (1.39 GB) not 1.5 GB. Little bit over 300 songs in 128kbps. It also comes with 24 preloaded songs in case you don’t have any mp3s to test out the player
* Small Sized -- Fits in your pocket easily and the Headphones that come with it is lengthy enough.
* Software -- Easy to Load, Easy to Use, no problem.
* Quality Sound -- Better than any mp3 players I know. I recommend you buy better headphones for the player instead of the ones they give you if you’re not satisfied; it seems a bit low in sound compared to the Phillips HE215 headphones I bought for $10.95.
* Rechargeable Lithium Batter Life w/ AC Adapter -- The battery life is exceedingly amazing. I got 15 hours a day from using the first one I got and it only takes a few hours to charge! This was one of the reasons why I choose this player (the other being the price), cause I was spending so much money using AAA batteries on the previous one.
--- Cons ---
* Anti-Mobility -- If your planning on exercising or moving around allot with this player in your pocket or hand you might want to think twice. It has a built in Hard drive which means any fast movements you do while its playing can damage the spindle in the built in hard drive. (It’s just like a computer, which is also not recommended for moving the CPU while it’s on.) You might think and wonder why it doesn’t come with a clip? I think now you know.
* Bad Durability lifespan -- After doing some research online and reading other reviews and seeing how I gone through 2 players with identical problems, I could see how this player isn’t durable at all in my experience. The average customer with the reviews I read doesn’t recommend this product and had problems after the 90 day warranty expired.
* Poor Red Knob Control -- Have you ever played a arcade game at a store or perhaps Gamecube or Xbox with one of those rounded controls or stick controls you use to control the game? Well the feel I get from using the controls on this player is similar to that. At times I would hit diagonally to change a song. If you think about it, hitting diagonally on a video game would make the character your controlling go diagonally. If you hit diagonally on this Rio for example North-West, you would either choose up or Left. Controls at times get stuck, so be careful. There is also a Lock mechanism on the back of the player if you want to lock the keys.
* Foreign Tech Support -- I just hope you have some good experiences from them if you ever decide to buy this player. In my experience and if your unfortunate as I was, you might have a little visit with them in a few months.
* Problematic -- The player will say it needs to be upgraded and give you an "UPGRADER" warning. From there you’re going to have to be a bit computer savvy and a mechanic and upgrade the firmware.
--- Bottom Line ---
HIGHLY NOT RECOMMENDED
If you’re fortunate and lucky enough, maybe your player will last years. I wasn’t. I don’t recommend this player to anyone. Spend some money and go with the ever so popular iPOD. The IPODS battery life isn’t as great as this one, but its worth that extra buck.
If you already purchase this player and find just one little minor problem with it, DO NOT hesitate to return this product to the store or demand Rio to replace it. After 90 days RIO isnt responsible for the player.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
1.5 GB HDD plays over 25 hours of MP3 of 50 hours of WMA music Includes Sennheiser earbuds 5-band adjustable equalizer with pre-sets 16-hours continuo...More at Amazon Marketplace
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