Rating: 
Summary: Best MP3 Player on the Market!
Review: The quality of sound on the Rio 500 is amazing. I bought it and I loved it. All I have to say is that you slould buy it.
Rating:
Summary: BY FAR THE BEST MP3 PLAYER ON THE MARKET
Review: Before buying this product i did a lot of searching for the best one. After about 2 months of shopping and getting different oppinions I came to the choice of my RIO 500. I definately dont regret this choice at all. This Rio is VERY durable for i have dropped it many times and it never got a scratch. Many of my frends went out and bought MP3 players after they saw mine. A lot of them got different ones though and even after using theres the RIO 500 doesnt have ANY flaw. Some say that the software sucks. The only time i had a problem with it was when i tryed installing it on my friends 100mhz computer, a very old one. I have also heard many times on these reviews about the RIO just not working anymore. About six months after my purchase I had this problem but about 2 days later I realized that the battery juust came loose(probably from the falls) in the back i simply took and exacto knife and made the spring longer and it was fixed for good. The RIO is so small that I would carry it around with me almost wherever i went cause it was smaller than my wallet, so you never notice it. One day i realized i had left it at a movie theater and never got it back. To this day even after the RIO 600 and the upcoming RIO 800 i have been reading about I am still about to buy another RIO 500, even over the other highly acclamed MP3 player, the NOMAD II whcich i have used many times. SIMPLY THE RIO 500 is the best MP3 player on the market and i dont see any upcoming ones beating it.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I had one in college!
Review: When the Rio 300 first came out, I couldn't believe the freedom that I was buying myself. After years of relying on cassette tapes and endless times of rewinding to hear a song again or fast-forwarding past a song that I wanted to hear at the time of taping but changed my mind when I was on the road, I would finally have the random access that a CD gives you along with the flexibility to mix artists that a cassette has. Sure you could burn a CD, but then you're going to wind up with a bunch of CDs every time you want to add a new song to your traveling collection.When I got a RIO 500, my musical freedom grew. The Rio 500 has the ability to store up to 4+ hours of quality audio with the Rio's built in 64megs or an hour of high quality music. Adding an additional 64 megs doubles that capacity and will allow you also listen to 2+ hours of music at other times. Battery life is quite decent. About 4+ hours of listening time before a change. And besides, since it only takes a singe AA battery, a spare in the pocket doesn't take up that much room. Battery life will depend on the volume you play your songs, if you use the backlight, etc.. Are MP3s CD quality? Only those recorded at 160kbps or greater. Unfortunately, MP3s at that setting will use up your ram within a few songs. I tend to aim for 128 or 96 bitrates. In a quiet room with no other background noise, if you're familiar with the piece, you'll be able to note the difference. If you take mass transit, are on a plane, on the road, or in the streets, you'll be pressed to hear the differences between a song encoded at 96 or 160. Once you upgrade the firmware, you'll be able to control the equalizer, backlight options, and playlists. The firmware upgrade is available at the Diamond Rio site. I also recommend you look into audible.com for audio books. Since the Rio 500 has the ability to save it's files to folders, you'll be able to have a folder with an audio book and have another one with music. I was never a fan of audiobooks, but I've been won over. Try it while commuting and you'll see what I mean. The Rio software is quite weak when it comes to organizing your song library. I recommend Real Jukebox (the free version can categorize up to 1000 songs). If your digital camera also accepts smartmedia, then you can share any extra memory you purchase between your camera and Rio. A thing to note is that the RIO's internal memory and the external memory act as two independent recording mediums rather than a single seamless one. What this means is that you have to record tracks to the internal memory and to the external memory separately. If you happen to use Real Jukebox as your Rio interface, Real Jukebox will automatically flow the extra tracks to the external memory when you use up the internal memory. That's a great feature, but if you decide that you want to delete a track from the internal memory, tracks from the external memory are not shifted over. In essence, you need to treat each RAM module as an independent recording medium. Things I don't like about the 500: 1) I don't like the case it came with. You can't control the volume or anything else that well though it. 2) The 500 has a spinning wheel to control the volume and some of the menu options. The 300 had no moving parts whatsoever. 3) Sometimes when you just want to rewind a section, you can easily jump strait to the beginning of a long passage instead. This can be quite annoying when you're listening to a long section on an audiobook. 4) The Rioport software should be more flexible. 5) I didn't like the headsets that it came with. Get this and you'll be the envy of all those people who still use cassette tapes and bulky CD-Players. Besides, it's so cool!
Rating:
Summary: Brillant
Review: EXECALLANT many many options (after updating firmware) i don't know why people complain about sound it is PERFECT great quality.. although i do wish it had 96 megs o' memory it dosn't really matter.. the headpones it comes are dog-do but that dosn't matter. I do tend to find the usb transfers to lag a little but other than those it is absolutly brillant!! HIGHLY RECOMMENED
Rating: 
Summary: Rio Bravo
Review: This player rocks! If you want a durable MP3 player you can't go wrong with the 500. I take oRIOn (cool name huh?) with me on bike rides. One time I was riding down a stretch of road and while replacing the batteries and it flew out of my hand and skidded down the pavement. I thought oRIOn was dead! Needless to say he was AOK (just a little scarred up). PROs Tough as nails. Plenty of memory. Button layout. Volume level range. You can actually hear the music! USB. CONs Software - Can't delete multiple songs from the database with a single selection. Battery is a little tough to get to (see above). The moral of the story? Don't replace and ride.
Rating:
Summary: Best In Its Class!
Review: The Rio 500 is still the best player in its class, and the cheapest, to boot! I took a long time to decide which player to buy, and I've never been anything but completely satisfied. The design is slick, the battery life is long, the screen is clear and backlit, the buttons are convenient, it has 64 megs expandable, and the USB port is great! It's true that the enclosed headphones, software, and carrying case are pure junk, but are easily replaced. (Use MusicMatch or Riorio to upload songs.) The firmware is upgradable, and version 2.15 now has more functions (like ID3 support) and more detailed functions, as well as a volume control up to 25 now. The one thing I do wish this player had, though, is an AC adapter. However, even without one, this player is still great and well worth your money!
Rating:
Summary: Rio Customer Service
Review: I just bought my rio in a bulk config from sonic blue. I had several questions concerning setup with the unit without a install disk. I emailed them saturday morning. James at riohome got back to me Tuesday morning and answered all of my questions. As for the software, it's nothing spectacular but it works. Media Jukebox and Music Match Jukebox have crashed my win98 system several times. All in all I'm impressed with service, the player and the software will work.
Rating:
Summary: Except for headphones.... great for the price
Review: I was going to say that the volume was so low at the highest setting of "20" that it wouldn't be a good buy. But fortunately I read some of the other reviewers here who spoke of the lousy headphones included. I tried some others I had handy and ---- low and behold, new improved volume! So.. Now I would only say that it was an incredibly dumb marketing more to bundle a quite decent mp3 player with beyond tacky headphones! 4 stars to the player, 3 stars to the software that wants to "get all over your drive and make things complicated" instead of just letting you transfer files directly over, and a "0" star (as in complete fizzle) on the headphones.
Rating:
Summary: Great MP3 player - and a TRULY GREAT way to read audio books
Review: I owned the first Rio PMP 300 and it was novel. It was enough to get me interested in a website called Audible.com (now a direct link from Amazon.com under the talking books section). To make a long story short, when the Rio 500 came out earlier in the year I simply had to own one. It holds up to 26 hours of audio for audio books. That means you can get up to 4 whole books in the unit at once! Unabridged books, if they are short. If you are a "books on tape" person, you should look at the Rio's Audible Manager software that comes with it and you should check out Audible.com's 14,000 titles (again, a direct link from Amazon.com's talking books). When I commute, I don't have to fumble with tapes and I can listen to my books. I can also have them on airplanes and in hotel rooms. About the size of a single cassette, this little jewel is sized for portability and travel needs. Don't overlook this potential benefit when shopping for MP3 players.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect for audible books
Review: I use my Rio for audible books, not MP3, but I must say it's fantastic. Amazon apparently doesn't carry it anymore but it was Amazon that sent me an email directing me to audible.com to buy it there. The unit was(...) [inexpensive] after rebate. The sound is wonderful because they included a free bonus cassette player adapter so I can listen in the car w/out headphones. The loud pops refered to in a previous review can only happen if the Rio is set at its highest volume and the cassette player at its lowest. A little common sense and patience is required when you buy any new gadget. The software included is very easy to use. The Rio 500 is easy to carry and use and the 64MB is upgradeable to 128 which is hardly necessary since the 64 holds about 30 hours of reading material. I thought it was a pretty sweet deal considering the price of the unit and now the ability to download audiobooks at a fraction of the price and no bulky tapes to lug around.
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