Rating: 
Summary: Awsome MP3 player
Review: The Rio 500 is one of the best MP3 players out on the market. This is one of the only ones that offers 64 megs of internal RAM and Audible.com ready. It never skips and the music quality is better than any other portable music player. I personally think the included Rio software is great! It helps you organize your music, is quick with the transferes, and never freezes. A definite must have for all music lovers! One word of caution...the Rio 500 eats batteries incredibly fast, so be sure to have plenty of AA batteries on hand!
Rating: 
Summary: "Well worth my money"
Review: After using the rio 500 for one day, i experienced the "checkerboard screen" which occurs when you transfer files and the battery dies. Gladly enough, their customer service emailed me a recovery program specifically for that problem. I thought I would have return the player, but the prog fixed it.Their software is... ok. I tried transferring 2 specific mp3's but the program just kept constantly crashing. It's strange how they can't even let me add tracks to the portable device list. The reason I gave this player 4 stars was because of its hardware. It's small, rugged, and the usb makes transferring fast. I also like the backlit display and the ability to sort your music through folders. It's well worth my money ...
Rating: 
Summary: 64MB external, only a promotion joke?
Review: as a samsung yepp owner i desided to complete my mp3 park with the rio 500 for expanding memory and ability to recieve audible formats. rio promotes with the audiomanager 3 and firmware 2.12 the 64MB external use. a joke: olympus 64MB and ONT 64MB are not formatable (the rio recognize the 64MB, but after start formation, the rio hangs and can be only relocked by removing the bat). the rio tech support is insufficient, compareable with the rio song quality. i resume: samsung has the only ultimate 5-star yepp-sound and i have had better kept my fingers away from rio. now i am hearing my audibles from my hp jornada, sitting on my rio to hide them. schumacher, md samba@swissonline.ch
Rating:
Summary: Lemon
Review: I bought one of these, it "crashed" at the end of the first download of music. Display was frozen. All attempts to reset it (pulling out battery, all possible combinations of holding down various switches while powering up, etc) failed to bring it back to life. Too late, I checked user reviews in a few places and discovered this is a VERY common problem. Do yourself a favor and do NOT buy this unit. I returned mine for credit. And I certainly will think at least twice before I ever buy a product from Diamond again.
Rating:
Summary: This is sweet!
Review: This thing is sweet. I have had no problems what so ever with my rio 500. The program it came with is pretty good but I use real jukebox instead. The headphones it comes with are not to bad but I'd buy new ones. The USB is really fast(it takes about ten seconds to download a song). If you need an MP3 I would have to recomend the Rio 500.
Rating:
Summary: Not too bad . . .
Review: When I first received the unit it did not work correctly. The backlight wouldn't work and occasionally the unit wouldn't turn on. However, I returned it for a replacement unit. This new player works great! It plays nearly all of my MP3's although for some odd reason there are a few that it simply won't play. The MP3 player on my PC has no problem with any of these songs. The Diamond Rio 500 is extremely easy to use and the software that comes with it is extremely helpful. The USB interface is GREAT! The player is perfect for jogging, mine even came with a small pouch with a belt clip that is ideal for this purpose. Ignoring a few minor issues, the player is great.
Rating:
Summary: Buy the Nomad II instead.
Review: I owned a Rio 300, and after awhile, it became very sensitive that the slightest touch would stop it from playing. So I exchanged it for the Rio 500un, which worked great til the next day when trying to download songs into it, the Rio 500 went dead. After getting a new Rio 500, the same thing happened after two weeks. Technical Support said that if the battery is low while downloading files, the player dies. Apparently, 2 out of 50 calls Tech Support recieves are due to this problem. Don't waste your time with the Rio 500, instead spend the extra money and get a sturdier and more reliable MP3 Player that also has many extra features, the NOMAD 2.
Rating:
Summary: Great Hardware, Documentation and Software Needs Work
Review: Major gripes for the Rio500 seem to be headphones, software and Audible.com support. Just got mine in and immediately I updated the Rio500's firmware to 2.11 (it ships with 1.04) to allow for Audible.com support and support for 64MB flash cards. Next you must download Audible.com's AudibleManager - the software that ships with the Rio doesn't upload the Audible.com sound files themselves. The software (RioPort) was my biggest complaint... after I registered the 2.x version that comes with the Rio500 (gotta register the 2.x version FIRST), I upgraded to the 3.x version. Works okay... but some tracks seem to be getting stuck in the middle of downloading tracks to the MP3 player (RioPort just freezes up). Never tested the headphones... heard so many bad things about them... immediately ditched 'em and got a nice pair of Sony earbuds. Sounds great to me. Sound quality and hardware: very nice. Software and documentation: needs work.
Rating:
Summary: Good hardware, but the software really IS crap
Review: The player itself is fantastic, I'd rate it 6 stars if I could, but the software that came w/ the player is a bunch of crap, I needed 45 mins to get the first selection of MP3's on the player... The earphones aren't the best either, but if you'Re willing to spend a little extra money on better software (Real Jukebox maybe?) and a better headset it's a wonderful player!
Rating: 
Summary: Save your pennies for something better.
Review: The Diamond Rio is already outdated like other MP3 players... they COULD give you more memory, but they'd rather add 16 megs one model at a time so you have to keep getting new models or purchasing expensive memory cards so you can store more. Would the same 12 songs over and over really keep you entertained on a road trip? I suggest you save up for the HanGo Personal Jukebox or a similar item (Creative Labs is coming out with a big one for less), which will hold a good 1500 songs- at the very least, more than 12! The software also is terrible with Rio and it seems to be a lucky buyer thing... half the time they break after working fine for a month or so. In conclusion, wait for the next generation of MP3 players or pay the price to experience the future now, but don't waste your time on something that will be like the 8-track compared to a CD player in a few weeks.
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