Rating: 
Summary: Exactly what I wanted.
Review: I use this unit to play talk radio I record and encode at 24kbs mp3's. The file size ends up being approximately 15MB for 2 hours. I bought the unit blindly not knowing if it would play such a low bit rate... but it worked out great and plays them flawlessly. Another thing I was concerned about was that the unit had only 64mb of memory and I read somewhere that it could only take another 128mb. I decided to get a 256mb card anyway to see if it would take it. It worked flawlessly too! I now have excellent little 300mb player that's small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. My one beef is that there isn't a button lock on this unit so you could hit the stop button accidentally. UPDATE!!! The player does have a button lock option, i just didn't read the directions. All you do is hold down menu then enter to lock the buttons. Overall a great player.
Rating: 
Summary: Close... But no cigar
Review: I got this product because of the size, expandability (now it can supposedly take SD Cards up to 512MB), radio (not a high priority), and wearability (is that a word?). Right off the bat, the radio is worthless, as everybody has said. Don't buy this product for the integrated radio. Secondly, the way it handles the expansion memory seems wierd to me.
1) When it comes time to transfer music over to the player, you have to choose to transfer to the internal memory or external memory, separately. This makes it difficult to build a playlist and just move the whole thing over.
2) It has a custom format for the memory. I would like to use my external card reader/writer to move music over and then put the card into the player. Unfortunately, after formatting the card in the Rio, my PC cannot read the card anymore. The arm band was also not well thought through. All it is a velcro strip that you have to wrap AROUND the player. So when the player is attached to you, you cannot see the display or hit the buttons easily. Nike's PSAs have really well thought through arm bands (not everything else, though). To be honest, I'm not sure I'm going to keep this product. The size and expandability do not disappoint. The sound quality is great. If the above issues were resolved, this would be the perfect MP3 player.
Rating:
Summary: Great!!
Review: I received this mp3 player for Valentine's day! I love it!! It's great for the gym, etc. I can download music easily from my other software programs and load it into my rio in less than 5 minutes. I love the size and the armband keeps it conveniently out of the way when I lift weights!! The only drawback, as in any other mp3 player is the life of the battery. I need to buy a rechargable battery and it'll be perfect! Great job!!
Rating:
Summary: Great Unit except for Earphones
Review: I read the reviews this afternoon, went to Costco to get the one with a free 30MB card and here I am. Here's the review after using it for 1 hour: Pros - Easy to use software - Great, Great Sound (see below though) - Great compact size - great feel - great value (129.99 with free 30mb card at costco) - excellent interface and controls on the unit Cons - Headphones absolutely [horrible]. I am using an old pair of sonys I have that really show what this baby can do. RIO are hurting themselves by putting in these cheap headphones although ergonomically they feel great. It gives the first impression that the sounds is poor. I am lucky that I read a post on here about the cheap phones otherwise I would be taking it back due to lack of knowledgde. Anyway, overall, go out - get one - you'll love it.....come on baby !!
Rating:
Summary: MP3 good, FM terrible
Review: I got this thing for working out. I love the basic design, and for MP3s it seems to work pretty well. The headphones have OK sound, not great. Personally, I like the hang-over-the-ear headphones, because I always have problems with the ones that fit into the ear. These don't easily fall off and they don't hurt, and they're not the over-the-head type that will cause problems with helmets. The FM radio, though, which was one of the main reasons I bought this unit, is absolutely terrible. Even after a firmware upgrade that was supposed to improve reception, it went from "I can only hear it if I stand facing the wall next to the kitchen door with my arm in the air holding up the headphone cable" to "I can hear every other word if I stand really still and drape the cable around my neck." I also think there's a hugely missing feature for athletes -- there's no lock switch. I have to be careful where I put it so I don't bump the control button during playback, and even so I periodically hit it with something and skip tracks or worse. Battery life so far is acceptable, though I haven't tried it with rechargeables. Overall, I'd say that this is a moderately decent device, unless you want FM. Since I specifically bought it in part for the FM, I'm disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: For the price, its a good buy.
Review: With all the negative reviews, it is not all that bad. After considering all other MP3 players, I decided to get the RIO for its features. Initially I was not impress with the sound, but after changing the ear phone to PANASONIC HV297S, it sounds great. I am very please with it now. One needs to understand that digital sound is the same or similar no matter which machine it uses, the difference is on the delivering device, which is the ear phone. A good ear phone will sound good on any decent MP3 player.
Rating: 
Summary: a runner loves this
Review: I'm a runner and a techno-phobe, but when my old radio finally bit the dust I decided to move up to an MP3 player. After carefully reading the Amazon reviews, I selected this player and promised myself I'd write a review with my honest thoughts about it. The verdict: It's fabulous. It was easy to set up, and after a few false starts I was able to transfer music effortlessly from my PC to my player. I use WMA files from MS Media Player and can get four hours of music into this baby. The sound quality is nothing short of wonderful--this is what I always hoped it would be like when listening to music during a run. The headphones are terrific--I don't know what the complaint is. The disadvantages of this player are: 1) the radio is worthless, but who cares? I knew that when I bought it and believe me, I've had it with commercials during a long run anyway 2) the software does not allow you to manipulate the order of songs easily so you cannot shift them around once they are in the player--you have to unload it and reload another order 3) I haven't found it particularly easy to find FREE music that I want on the web. So far I'm downloading my own and that's ok, too. One more thing: the durability of this player is nothing short of amazing. I dropped it in the toilet the first day I had it, but was lucky enough to grab it out quickly (double luck: clean water!). After a day's dry out, I turned it on expecting the worst but it fired up with no problem and has worked flawlessly since. Buy an extra memory card when you purchase this--you;ll want it. For a runner who doesn't like the learning curve for new technology, this is a terrific product.
Rating:
Summary: Works great !!
Review: I'm not sure about people that said its horrible... But this works fine. I use it to work out and lift weights. Sound quality it awesome and don't have any issues! Working with electronics my whole life, This unit is awesome and the people who said it's junk and sounds horrible are people who don't know how to use eletronics!
Rating:
Summary: Be prepared to install Firmware updates...
Review: Reliabliity is bad but getting better with firmware updates. Bought unit in October and had intermittent USB connection problems and playback lockups. These problems got worse until unit finally died on Dec 30th while trying to upload files. Tech support is non-responsive at best, so it may be many months to resolve a replacement issue.
Update on Feb 24: Finally got through to tech support, somewhere in India. They told me to download latest firmware and flash ROM...that worked - it unlocked the unit and I was able to use unit for several days before it locked up again. Downloaded newest version of firmware again to get unit working again. This firmware version addresses the lockup problem. At least SonicBlue is working on the problem...
Rating: 
Summary: Stay Away
Review: I purchased this MP3 player as my first one and I wish I hadn't. First off, the sound quality is horrible, I hear the backup vocals better than the lead vocals. I made every adjustment possible to equalizer but it still sounded like [that]. To make matter worse, the songs would pause themselves every 3 or 4 seconds. And finally, the FM reception is really, really bad. I definately would not recomend this player.
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