Rating: 
Summary: Check out the Nitrus
Review: I'll second pretty much everything that Rory, the previous reviewer said. The Nitrus is a great player that fits my needs perfectly! I initially was looking at the bigger Hard Drive players such as the Ipod, Karma, Zen NX, etc.. but after seeing the Nitrus I was sold. I haven't been disappointed with my purchase at all and love the small size and actually have no desire to have more than the 1.5gb storage on the Nitrus bigger player with more capacity. The Nitrus is much lighter and smaller than a large capacity HD player and yet, it holds a ton of music in pretty much the size and form factor of a small capacity flash player. I take the Nitrus running and it doesn't skip at all and sounds fabulous! The only CON to the Nitrus is that it does not come with a case. Frankly, Rio needs to buckle down and get a case made for this player. Not having a case or clip attachment in the package is really crappy. I'm using my old Rio 500 case for now, which works fine.
Rating:
Summary: bluzman
Review: The Rio Nitrus has unbelievable sound, incredible battery life, and excellent software. Given that I am nowhere close to a tech geek speaks volumes, given that I learned to use this product and began downloading music onto it just 10 minutes after I charged it. The last time I bought a portable player of any type was in 1999 -- a portable CD player!!The only thing that would make the Nitrus better would be a clip and earbuds with a longer cord. Happy Listening!!
Rating: 
Summary: Not good enough
Review: OK, I've been holding off with this review until I've used the Nitrus for a couple months just to be fair. The small size is great and the 1.5 GB is enough space for me to have at any 1 time. The USB 2 interface moves files to the Nitrus quickly and the battery life is excellent. For those who have been comparing this to the IPOD, I think you're nuts. I don't have an IPOD, but I can't believe that the Nitrus sounds better. The sound is tinny, even after tweaking with the equalizer. The headphones are most likely an embarrassment to Sennheiser. I've already ditched the headphones for a pair I already own. The Rio Music Manager software is clumsy at best. It allows me to choose certain features (such as "least often played" when choosing Content Deletion properties), however, when synchronizing it tells me that this feature isn't support by my $249 player. Again, I would be shocked beyond belief if the IPOD's software package were as clunky as this. Lastly, there is no clip for the player. I either have to hold it or put it in a pocket or set it on something. It is very light and when the headphone cord is pulled slightly, the whole case goes flinging. Seems like a $2 clip would have been included, but it is not. My only hope is that perhaps firmware/software upgrades will solve the sound quality and music manager issues. I may just use some rubberbands for a clip somehow. All things considered, I would shell out $100 more (really only $80 after buying my own headphones) and buy an IPOD... Sorry Rio, but it's just a disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Love this product. I use it everyday.
Review: Sooo small and just enough space for my liking. For those who don't need 10+ gigs of music on the player, this is perfect. The battery life is almost 20 hours for me and the sound quality is awesome. They even give u great earphones, the MX300. The only thing its lacking is a case, but rumor is that its to come. Go get this small gadget, i'd say its better and more practical than the other 1.5 gb players cuz of its size, features, as well as price.
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Summary: as good as it gets in a hard drive player..
Review: I own several mp3 players. A 10GB iPod, two Rio 500's, an iRiver 195TC and I owned a Rio Karma. I love the iPod but like other large capacity hard drive players it has marginal battery life, no bookmarking feature and isn't what I consider a truly portable product. The iRiver is a wonderful, go anywhere, solid state player but I want more than 512 MB's of storage. The Karma had major functional issues. I returned it, took a chance and bought the Nitrus instead. After the my experience with the Karma (~ 5 hours battery life, poorly designed scroll wheel, sloppy joy stick navigation and excessive heat) I was skeptical about the Nitrus. I bought the Karma and Nitrus for one reason. They have a bookmarking feature, something absent in every other brand. For audio books and long home made recordings a bookmarking feature is a must. The Nitrus sits squarely between solid state players and large capacity hard drive players. The hard drive in the Nitrus and several competing products is a new generation drive of smaller size and with fewer parts. It is evidently much more energy efficient than the drives found in the iPod and Karma. I'm getting at least an honest 12 hours of battery life. This kind of battery life is truly useful and is about what I get with my iRiver solid state player. Very impressive. There is no noticeable heat, an indication that the design is efficient. The joy stick used for navigation looks like the same joy stick used in the Karma but unlike the Karma it feels more precise in the Nitrus. The Nitus is smaller than it looks. The design is a very pleasing to handle clam shell shape. It fits perfectly in my hand and is easy to use one handed. The rubber strip around the edge helps to prevent drops. It's extremely light weight. Amazing to think there's a battery and hard drive in there somewhere. It slips into a pocket and once there is virtually unnoticeable. No case needed if you have even a small pocket. Ergonomically there is very little that could be done to improve on this design. The Rio Music Mangager software is stable, intuitive to use and well thought out. This is a product that seems to have been designed by enthusiastic engineers and marketing people. Nice work Rio. Tweak the Karma design and I'll order another one of those. If 1.5 GB is enough storage I can wholeheartedly recommend this product. Especially considering the price. I've seen it for as little as 199 USD online.
Rating:
Summary: The Rio Nitrus Is the Best MP3 Player on the Market
Review: This player has not garnered much attention in the media, but it is truly an astonishing product. Very small footprint, about the size of a credit card (but thicker), has outstanding software and is designed with excellent controls. Powerful, clear sound. Highly recommended. I love mine 100%! (P.S. The Nitrus is often compared to the iPod. But the iPod is like a desktop PC -- but the Nitrus is like a subcompact laptop. Less capacity, but sleeker and easier to carry.)
Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: I did not have a good experience with this product. It basically lasted about ten minutes. Out of the box, it seemed to work fine. I was able to play some of the preloaded songs without problems. It was when I connected it to my PC and tried downloading my MP3s to it that the problems began. After downloading a couple of songs, Rio Music Manager (RMM) started giving "Operation timed out" messages for every song. After disconnecting the USB cable, the player would refuse to start up; it would hang at the startup screen, would not respond to buttons, and emitted a constant clicking noise from the internal disk. The only way to get out of it was to use a paperclip to reset the unit. I was able to get it working again by reloading the firmware from the Rio website. But I was never able to get it work completely. Among the problems: (1) Would only play the first 3 seconds of a song before resetting itself. (2) All songs on disk would mysteriously disappear (possibly caused by firmware updates, which I had to do repeatedly in order to recover from the startup hang). (3) "Player full" messages, even though RMM showed that the device was empty. (4) "Bad Rio command" messages. (5) Constant "Operation timed out" messages. I tried running the latest version of RMM, I tried reformatting the disk, I reloaded the firmware at least a dozen times, I tried the lastest beta firmware, all to no avail. Other than these issues, it is a very nice product: small, lightweight, good looks, and good sound quality (what little of it I was able to hear). I obviously received a defective unit, but am hesitant to take another chance on this.
Rating:
Summary: I love it!
Review: Personally, I love this thing! No batteries to buy, it's small, it holds a lot of songs, and it sounds good! My only complaint is that fingerprints get on it easily. Buy one!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent sound, and super lightweight!
Review: WARNING: I wrote this super-positive review, but then see the bottom for my warning... "This thing rules. It is so much smaller and lighter than the iPOD, and it still holds a ton of songs. The sound quality is AMAZING. I used to own an older Rio player and the sound is 10X better on the Nitrus. (Of course, you have to buy real headphones because the ones that come with it are junk.) I exercise with the unit all the time and have yet to have it skip. In fact, I've owned the unit for a month now and it has never locked up. File transfers are a breeze and since it supports USB 2.0 they are super-fast. What more do you need to know? I highly recommend this unit." ADDENDUM: literally the day after writing the review, the thing broke. What a piece of (...)!
Rating:
Summary: Defective product
Review: Received player on Friday. It worked wonderfully for two days then the player started to delete all the mp3 files when hiting the play button. Contacted Rio and they suggested several fixes. After following their instructions, the player became unusable. They diagnosed the problem as corrupted software in the player and suggested a product return. The player was sweet when it worked and the technical support at Rio were wonderful. However, the player I received ended up being a very expensive paper-weight. The player is on its way back to Amazon.
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