Rating: 
Summary: Some very major flaws, but otherwise a fun toy
Review: First, the good: lightweight and TINY, take it to the gym, or on a plane, and it won't be a nuisance. If you download a firmware upgrade from rioport.com a lot of the bugs are fixed and the interface is improved. Now the BAD: headphones included are crap -ditch them and get new ones right away. Holds about 15 songs on its internal memory - get firmware upgrade to allow you to plug in a 64MB smartmedia card. Everywhere you look it says you can only plug in another 32 but don't listen to that. All in all, I love this thing, its compact size makes it great.
Rating:
Summary: Good Hardware, Bad Software
Review: Great little device, much better than the 300 (which I also have), though not quite as intuitive (meaning I had to actually look at the instructions). More memory, backlit display, track description and USB are all great improvements.The software however leaves much to be desired. I still haven't quite figured out how to use it, and probably won't bother. Another reviewer mentioned that MusicMatch Jukebox also download to the Rio. I haven't tried this yet, but if it works, it's the way to go.
Rating:
Summary: Almost excellent
Review: Having just purchased the Rio500, I must say that I am pretty impressed with the design, ease of use of the unit and the quality of the playback, provided other headphones are used.Two points to note. The Audio Manager is a pain to use as quite a few steps are required to transfer each piece of music. Facility being the watchword of the Rio, this seems a bit of a shortcoming in the software design department. Also, I have not yet been able to transfer 2 hours of music from any source to the Rio. One hour and forty minutes is the most I've been able load before I reach the saturation point of 64megs. Just a couple of things to be aware of if you are in the market for an mp3 player.
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD while it lasts...
Review: Hello! i Bought this MP3 player 2 years ago and I was very satisfied with it, until yesterday! It just stopped 4 no reason and It won't turn itself on! I contacted Tech Support but nothin! Watch out!
Rating:
Summary: Great product with a few caveats
Review: I am pretty satisfied with my Rio500. But there are a few things toconsider when purchasing one. First of all, don't bother with theRioPort Audio Manager software, it's nowhere near as easy or as intuitive as MusicMatch Jukebox... MusicMatch also downloads directly to Rio, at whatever bitrate you specify. If you're buying this to listen to Audible books online, be aware that Audible has caused nothing but problems for me. First of all, their software didn't start supporting Rio500 until 2 weeks ago (the Rio hardware was ready and Audible happily sold me books without a way to upload them to my Rio -- bad advertising). Audible only has their Rio500 software in Beta, it's extremely buggy and crashes often. And here's the kicker: If you have an Audible book on your Rio500, you CAN'T have any mp3's on it! It's either Audible or MP3 until you delete the Audible files and go back to MusicMatch to upload your mp3's. Audible says they're "working on it". We'll see. Given the choice again, I probably should have just waited until the new PocketPC's that support mp3's came out. Especially for the price.
Rating: 
Summary: A very good thing to own
Review: I bought my rio500 about 2 years ago and it has done nothing but make me happy. With the 64MB it has already, thats just the right amount of music for a nice car trip, but if you are like me and need a lot of music, then you can buy an inexpensive smart media expansion card. I had many cards and could have about 5 hours of music all in one pocket...I enjoy how the screen says the title of the song, the amount of time that has passed, and the battery life. I didnt seem to have a problem with the included software, except that its just a demo. But recently i guess i got a virus of some sort, so if i want to format my media card, it would lock up my computer, and i would have to turn off my computer at the tower, which is not good. There are other kinds of software for it that you can download for free online, so please dont let the bad software come in your way from purchasing it. Please read the other reviews because i read them and some have some good points. As for the ones that say that the froze and stopped working, well, thats only if you abuse it too much. My friend had an identical player, and he dropped it into pools and lakes, dropped it down stairs, and other horrible things, so it froze finally.... so, if you take good care of your player, it will serve you well. I hope i helped!
Rating:
Summary: Bad product
Review: I bought this last year and it was working fine for about 6 month. Then it suddenly froze and didn't react to anything. I spend several days trying to fix it. I downloaded a program from the website that is supposed to fix that problem. It turned out to be useless. Of course they do not have a tech support you can call. So after a lot of e-mails I was allowed to return the product and got it back after 3 weeks. It was fine for about 2 month and then the same thing happened. In summary this is a bad product manufactured by a terrible company with bad tech support. Don't make the mistake to buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Don't like this product
Review: I find this product too expensive you should be able to get an MP3 player that has a gig of space on it for the same price. You can only hold 15 cd-quality songs on it upgradeable to 20. one gig could hold about 200. They have the memory cards to do this but they just don't so that they can make money. I'd wait a while before you buy a MP3 player from anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Just OK
Review: I got mine in June and it disappointed me. There are better ones for the money. Software is simply awful but it's moderately easy to use.
Rating:
Summary: wait a while for a better price/performance one
Review: I own one for several months but leave it untouched for the last 2 months. It works okay, but just too battery consumption, especially when you download songs from PC. My $20 walkman lasts 5 times longer than Rio-500. Other than this, everything is fine. I think this price deserves a better design.
|
