Rating: 
Summary: It was nice when I bought it
Review: I've owned the Rio 600 for about a year now. It worked well back then and it was working well until a few days ago. I'll outline my history with the Rio below:A few days after purchasing the Rio, I dropped it (accidentally) from a height of about three feet onto a tiled floor. The magnitude of the damage shocked me: the on/off sliding switch flew out of its socket, the battery backpack detached, and the door covering the battery appeared to have broken away from its position. I pushed the sliding switch back into its socket - amazingly, it worked - and I found that although the battery door had detached, nothing had broken. Then I slid the backpack back into place and it was almost as if nothing had happened (the on/off switch was still a little loose). I decided to use the included carrying case whenever using the device outdoors, and not coincidentally, there were no more breakage incidents. About five months into my Rio experience, I decided that 64 MB of space wasn't cutting it anymore. The Rio could only hold 50 songs at 32Kbps compression rates - it sounded terrible. When I hooked this up to my car using one of those nifty cassette adapters, I found that the sound was simply terrible. It was very quiet, and when turned up, it was tinny and annoying. It sounded like the very low and the very high ranges didn't even copy to the device, which leads me to another peeve. You have to use Windows Media Player (on PCs, anyway) to use the Rio, and this is not the most reliable method of copying. Anyway, back to the storage issue: I purchased a 64 MB backpack from SONICBlue's website for an outrageous amount of money. After installing it, I was chagrined to find out that only 95 songs could be put onto the device in total, leaving me with a gaping amount of space at 32Kbps compression. It was annoying, to say the least. One thing I liked about the 64 MB backpack was that it included a rechargeable battery. This worked fine until the recharging Rio was sat on by one of my friends. This knocked the recharging port out of alignment, and that was it for the rechargeable battery. I hadn't registered my Rio so there was no warranty, and even if I had registered it I would have been out of warranty anyways. With my dead Rio in my hand, I decided to get a 5 GB iPod, which I received recently. To my gleeful amazement, I put 563 songs on it, and it's not even half full. I can say with certainty that the iPod is a superior product. The bottom line: while a year ago I might have recommended this product, I simply can't anymore. The amount of space isn't enough for any serious music fan's needs, and the compression rates aren't high enough to listen to in a car. Go with an iPod instead of this product.
Rating: 
Summary: Awsome!
Review: When I baught this, I was worried, 'cause I'd heard there were a lot of battery problems and such. Not so! I've had no problems at all. The great thing is, even though it doesn't have more memory than its competitors, it plays WMA files, so you can fit tons of music on it (I got 51 songs, and they sound great!). Also, the earbuds are much better than you think. They look really funny in the picture, but they are actually quite comfortable. It also has great internal software. Instead of cycling through information for the song you're listening to, they gave the screen good enough resolution that you can see everything about the song (name,format,lenght,bitrate,volume, track number, etc.) on there at once. It doesn't take a second or two to move through menu options like some, either. I've owned several mp3 players, and this one has more thought put into how it works than any other I've seen. Also, it's really customizable, and upgradable for future formats, more memory, lots of stuff. It has great sound quality.The one thing that could be a little annoying is that the buttons are kind of small. This doesn't bother me, but if you have big hands, this may not be the player for you. All in all, this thing is a great value (especially if you get it used, like I did). In short, get this one! ; )
Rating:
Summary: I personally do not like this player
Review: I am only speaking of my personal experiences, and i cannot necessarily speak for anyone else here when i say that i really do not like this player. Some people think that this player is flawless, but from my experiences, and my two friend's experiences, i can say that this player is not worth a cent that you spend on it. I am not a liar, and maby they fixed the problems that i speak of, but i would not reccomend this player to anyone. i have gone through 3 of these players, and none of them have worked correctly, unless you call shutting off after an hour "working correctly." and the 3rd one i got didnt even start up! and the customer service for SONICblue is terrible. if you can get through to them, ill tip my hat to you! the player randomly deletes my playlists, and hey, 64 megabites is not a whole lot guys. you could buy many other mp3 jukeboxes out there with 50x the memory for the same price. personally, i went the way of the mp3/cd player. they can hold about 240 songs per cd, and you can also play normal cds on them (just in case all of your friends dont have the tecnology that you have and you want to listen to one of their cds). i reccomend a phillips mp3/cd player; i havn't encountered any problems with mine. i hope my review has opened your eyes to the flaws in this mp3 player, and i think you should consider all the possibilities before you choose this one.
Rating:
Summary: This player is flaless what are these people talking about
Review: What are these people talking about! This player works geart. Nothing anyone has said bad about this player being bad is true. If you want a player that you can really use and that is durable get this one. I got this for 100 bucks and its a great deal. If you like music then buy this.
Rating:
Summary: Works but I really can't recommend
Review: I purchased this player and have used it now for several months. The player & software work but based on my experience I really can't recommend purchasing this unit. My reasons are that 1) the battery life seems very limited and the player stops working usually after about 2-hours of play. I constantly have to change the batteries and the old ones still have life and work fine in my Walkman. 2) the player's software seems to be problematic and will lock-up on many MP3's that play perfectly fine on my computer. Sometimes the player will just stop for no apparent reason. 3) finally, the menus are a little difficult (bass & treble) to operate when exercising and the skip forward and backwards features to not seem to operate effectively.
Rating:
Summary: So much for quality control...
Review: I would love to write a review of the performance of the Rio 600 MP3 player, however, I could not get mine to work. I purchased the product brand new and sealed in it's packaging. There was no slide switch for ON/OFF, so I had to package it back up, and am now attempting to return it. Just a note to beware of this product -- great price, but at the cost of flimsy construction? Maybe it's great, but I've seen multiple reviews to the contrary regarding durability and battery life.
Rating:
Summary: I Love my Rio600
Review: I love my Rio 600, Hate the software that came with it. After a search for freeware online I found A music player called dBpowerAMP and they had software on their website that you can download so you can point to a song right click the mouse and convert the song to whatever format you want, and download it to your rio 600.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor Quality Control
Review: I am the IT manager for a large company so I am fairly technically adept. I received a RIO 600 MP3 player for Father's Day this year. I installed the software, which was not user friendly at all. I then installed the battery and noticed how paper-thin the plastic parts of the player were. When I plugged the player into the USB cable to download songs, there was a loud "pop" and smoke came out of it. I returned it to the store and bought a Creative Labs Nomad II C and love it. It is built well, the software is very easy to use, the controls are intuitive. The Nomad is a great little machine.
Rating: 
Summary: Not too darn bad!
Review: I think this product (Rio 600 64mb) has a very specific application. I'm what you'd call a geek on the go, i always have access to a computer and yet i'm out doing stuff. So for this application, it's great to have a couple hours (i suggest WMA-64 encoding, good space saver for this amount of storage, and sound quality is nice) of music for me to access. Reason I gave this 4 stars is the price was a bit steep (100 bux) and the included headphones are a bit lax. However, just purchased sony street wraparound headphones and they do a great job. The sound reproduction from the Rio is brilliant, the belt clip holds solid, and AA batteries are cheap. If this situation sounds like you, hook it up. I'm very satisfied so far.
Rating:
Summary: Rio 600 64 MB Works Great with Audible
Review: ...I had previously had the Rio 300. This is a very nice product and works well with the audible.com audio. I actually look forward to my 1 hour commute thanks to both of these. The battery life is great, downloading material is fast. I highly recommend... the rio 600 64 MB...
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