Rio Nitrus 1.5 GB MP3 Jukebox

Rating:
Summary: Not Worth The Trouble
Review: After about 3 mths of use the Rio Nitrus completely crapped out on me. If I hadn't purchased the extended warrranty (which it took 3 mths to receive back the product) I wouldn't have had the opportunity to experience the second failure. It is the same problem; all of a sudden the product will not turn on, it just doesn't work. I will not purchase another Rio Product again.


Rating:
Summary: do not buy....
Review: I bought this mp3 player for about 200.00 retail. Six months later, it no longer works. It stopped working again. I turned on the power, and the Rio splash-screen appears for about 60 seconds. It then starts making these weird clicking noises, displays the text "upgrader" on the screen and remains completely unresponsive any input. When I reset using a paperclip, it turns off, but powering it back on again yields the same results. The knowledge-base on RioAudio.com suggested that I upgrade the firmware, so I downloaded the latest and plugged in. My computer recognized the USB device, but the updater (RioNitrusFlash_123.exe) said that the operation timed out. Then I tried the same thing on a different computer, my laptop. Same result. I was advised by Rio Cust Support that the player can no longer be used if the firmware cannot be updated. Buy another product...

Rating:
Summary: One star is too high
Review: I spent over $120.00 for this item. After 1 week it began clicking. After 1 month it died. I would never buy another Rio product again. It was difficult to program and interfase with my PC.
Joe Bauza

Rating:
Summary: This Item Rocks
Review: Ok so I got my Rio Nitrus for Christmas from my parents and was blown away by the item. For one thing the sound is awesome my favorite feature being the customizable synthisizer. It also packs a great amount of songs i have over a hundred and am nowhere near having half way filled. Though there is one problem with this product you have to be very careful when handling it because it isn't sturdy enough to be making a lot of falls. I have a lot of cds and its great now I don't have to carry them around anymore. Though it is a good product due to the fact that it isn't good with drops I give it a 4 out of 5

Rating:
Summary: Two thumbs up
Review: I bought this player after a friend got it, and I was amazed at how much music he could carry in so small a machine.. at the time I had a old Flash-based Lyra 2 player that could only carry about 20 songs max (based on 64MB of memory) and was full of bugs. In any case, I bought the Nitrus and have had it for a month, and it's quite impressive. It holds enough music that I don't have to repeat on any of my bus trips (and then some), and it sounds good. I hooked up a pair of Sony earbuds I had to it, and they sound better than the ones that come with it IMHO.. but that's the case with the headphones that come with almost any music player, IMHO! LOL

The controls are simple, and adequate (the joystick is cool, I just wish they'd have made the jog dial on the side a little less sensitive to clicking), and one thing I like is that it has a playlist feature in it, so you can better organize music according to your mood. A lot of the time though, I'll just set it for Shuffle and Play All - you never know what will come up if you do, unlike players that only have a few songs.

The battery life is more than adequate for my needs, although since it's built-in, if you were to take it on a multi-day trip you'd want to take the adaptor and charge it at night if you can.

I'm buying a pair of headphones that are the kind that combine an earplug with earbuds, I'll be looking forward to trying those with this player.

One caveat about the software package though - Rio Taxi WOULD NOT install, no matter what I do... and I had to download the firmware update, software package, and driver from the Internet, because the CD bombed out on me. Once I did that though, it worked fine. I don't really care much about Rio Taxi... I bought the Nitrus as an MP3 player, I don't need it to carry data. I have a keychain drive for that.

The Music Manager that comes with it is great BTW... I prefer to do my encoding with Winamp Pro though. The Nitrus has no problems playing high-quality MP3s encoded with LAME, provided you use either alt preset standard or extreme. It has problems with the CBR out of LAME for some reason.

All around though.. it's a great player, you won't be disappointed, as long as you don't mind it not holding an entire 20GB+ music collection in its entirety - which doesn't bother me at all.

Rating:
Summary: Worst Ever
Review: WARNING- Don't ever buy from this company.
Was sent faulty component. After much talking on the phone with someone in another country, was sent a remanufactured player. It worked until I updated it. Has not worked since, and the warrenty expired right after I received the replacement. Big mess. Worthless product.
One star is the minimum rating, but does not even deserve one.

Rating:
Summary: Will never purchase RIO product again!
Review: I purchased a Nitrus Nov. 2004 and it failed in Dec. 5 weeks later. The replacement they sent me took 7 weeks to arrive and had a "Refurbished" sticker on the back of the device. This player stopped functioning after 3 days. Neither of these devices were abused in any way. I listened to them while in my vehicle on the way to and from work, and while working at my desk. Dealing with RIOs customer service is a nightmare in itself, they are absolutely of no help what so ever. I personnaly will not purchase a RIO product again and if I can dissuade anyone from purchasing a RIO product, anywhere or anytime, I will.

Rating:
Summary: Garbage
Review: This product was one of the worst MP3 players on the market. I have this product and it went bad with in two weeks. I called there support and they were no help. They told me to hit the item in order for it work and you always have to upgrade the product. Upgrader keep coming on the players screen and didn't allow any of the functions to work. The online upgrade didn't help at all. I am disappointed in the Rio Nitrus. I was a good idea for a product but too many flaws in the item.