Rating: 
Summary: GREAT player, TERRIBLE software
Review: the rio 800 exceeds expectations on sound, ease of use, battery life, and aesthetics. i was one of the first rio 300 users, and did not finally upgrade till i saw the 800. the main features i found appealing were: 1) 64MB memory, plenty of memory for more than 12 songs 2) rechargeable battery, probably one of the main reasons...i can't even count how many AA batteries i have gone through with my rio 300 3) USB support, much faster transfers than with a serial port...too bad most PCs only come with 2 USB ports though. 4) ability to record - great for note taking, phone numbers, etc. my main points of complaint revolve around the overengineered and hard to use software. to transfer files to your rio, you must first drag files from explorer into the player in a "database" and then drag that onto your player. with the old software, this was a one step process. also for whatever reason i can't reorder the songs on my rio. i'll probably figure it out, but with the old software all you had to do was drag the song up or down. secondly, the software is way too commercialized and is not nearly as lightweight as it should be. other than that, the rio 800 is a great upgrade. one other thing, my old rio 300 still works fine despite having been dropped many times (hey, i had it since '98)...we'll see how well the 800 holds up.
Rating:
Summary: Love My Rio!
Review: I waited five weeks to get my back-ordered Rio. The wait was worth it. I haven't left my home without a new daily playlist that takes me only a few minutes to create with the great Sound Jam for Mac software. Like any electronic device it takes a little time to get familiar with all the buttons and methods of the gadget. The sound is great. It's feather light. The rechargeable battery is quick and reliable. It will take those not well versed in CD burning and ... downloading a couple of hours to learn and you may need a little help from someone who knows more about these processes. But once you get the hang of it, it is a music lover's dream. However, they can definitely improve on the earphone design and its cord. If you love traveling with music, walking and excercising with customized song lists and have had enough of the hassles of portable CD players' sizes and skipping problems, you will not be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: 3rd player??
Review: Well lets just say this product is a joke. Two weeks after I bought the first player, it devolped an echo sound and seemed like only half of the audio was there. So I exchanged it for my 2nd player. Less than a week later, the same problem reappeared. Yesterday, I received my 3rd player and there is no backlight display. There won't be a fourth....
Rating:
Summary: Dead on arrival
Review: The Rio 800 I ordered didn't work - no display, no backlit, not a thing. So I immediately called Technical Support, walked them through the problem and they agreed the unit was defective. I was asked to email customer service, quoting a case id #, asking for a replacement unit and an airbill to cover the expense of the return of the defective unit. So, I sent off my email and waited. I waited some more. I called customer service and was told to wait a little longer - the customer service rep actually said "we only have a couple of guys answering email and they can only get through about 50 emails a day." So I waited some more. And some more. After a week I called customer service again. Nothing had been done, they'd lost my email. I'm returning the unit and will buy a player from a different manufacturer. Maybe Rio is a good company with good products but I saw no evidence of that and would recommend you wait a bit until some of the initial problems with the Rio 800 are resolved and Rio gets it's act together. The Rio 800's styling is great but what good is that if it doesn't work and the support is bad?
Rating:
Summary: 64MB is a must
Review: The Rio 800 is a tad pricey, but 64 MB really is a necessity. The 32 MB on the other models really is very little compared to the amount of music most people want to have accessible. Plus, it's expandable!
Rating: 
Summary: WOW, thank god, something that works...
Review: Well I'm Impressed...I had recieved the rio "600" for christmas...it was cool...stylin headphones...but it broke within 3 days...and i'm not particularly rough on my electronics, So i return it...get another one...same stylin headphones...luvin the music...broke in a week...grrr...i go for it one last time...and this time i buy the extra backpack to give me even more listening pleasure...when this one started skipping i was completely and utterly fed up...I had to wait for 3 weeks before i could finally get a Rio "800" because i had to shop around for one in stock. I finally got this baby home, and I am almost glad the others didn't work...I don't think i could ever be this happy with the 600. The sound quality is superb and I am happy with the remote...works well to conceal this baby and still have control over the volume...Buy this...
Rating:
Summary: TIGHT
Review: Ok, first off: This is TIGHT... just look at it, it looks great(that's good because there are so many tacky ones out there). The quality is even beter than the looks. This is a MUST buy, MUST hear MP3 player. It's the best out there and an outstanding price for its quality. It is a bit pricey, but think about it, it's not going to get outdated. It will always be great. And MP3 players are one time deals. Its good, all the way around.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't work
Review: I bought this product, the power kept going on and then off. Finally frustrated I returned it. I had the original Diamond Rio 500 so I figured this would be as good, but it was not. Returning something that does not work is never fun.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD
Review: THE RIO 800 US THE BEST MP3 PLAYER ON THE MARKET. BEST FOR ITS PRICE, GREAT SOUND QUALITY, EASY CONTROLS, EASY TO USE REMOTE, USB IS VERY FAST. CARRYING CASE, AND EVERYTHING. THIS MP3 PLAYER WILL TAKE OVER THE MARKET SO GET ONE FAST. ONE NOTE. THE SOFTWARE SENT SORT OF MESSES UP THE NAMES OF YOUR SONGS.
Rating: 
Summary: Work well when it's "working"
Review: I owned two of these units. The first one I got had battery problems and even after callibrating it a couple of times the things would play 2 or 3 songs and then die. Back to the store where I exchanged it for another. The next unit's battery worked but had the common discharge problem if its not used in a week. The volume control on the unit was a little finiky. If you didn't press on the control in the right place the sound just didn't change up or down. In general I wonder about the quality control Rio has because from reading othe sites and reviews they seem to have issues. I wrote them about getting the replacement charger, submitted my info and support never got back to me and never replaced the charger. So much for good support. Pros
-All my MP3s splayed perfectly on the unit.
-Random and Repeat worked fine.
-The weight and size was also acceptable.
-Comes with a belt clip Cons
-Throw out the headphones, absolutely useless and they hurt the head. -Software that came with it sucked. Windows media player worked OK but had the occasional crash where the media player would not longer recognize the unit.
-Overall poor quality.
-Crappy support. I gave the unit 2 starts out of 5 because over the two years I had it working I was sorta happy with it. Then recently this unit just stopped working. It's the battery the playback was messed up and all you could here was sound in MONO or something. So that's it for Rio. I can't recommend you get one. I'm moving to a mini-disc player and recommend you do the same.
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