Rating: 
Summary: It's better than the rest...
Review: I've been using the portable MP3 player since it was first introduced to the market. I've tried just about every MP3 portable devices out there, so I know the pros and cons..Simply put, I think the Riot is the best MP3 player your money can buy provided that the sound quality is your priority. This one has the BEST sound quality - strong BASS. Of course, I would defintely recommend you to replace the headphone (Koss KS35 or
Port Pro). If you want the best sound, just use the Windows Media Player to encode your CD using the WMA (160K bitrate) option. Forget about EAC/LAME.. The realjukebox software which comes with this player's a joke. It has mind of its own - it will basically try to take over your PC, very annoying. I only use it when I have to transfer the songs and I will soon get rid of it if there is 3rd party software which I can use to transfer the song.
Rating: 
Summary: RIO RIOT AND WINDOWS XP
Review: THIS PLAYER IS A GREAT CONCEPT,BUT THE REALITY IS ANOTHER ISSUE.MY PLAYER AS I WRITE IS ON IT'S WAY BACK TO SONICBLUE.AFTER MY 5TH OR 6TH CALL TO TECHNICAL SUPPORT,I FINALLY GOT A SUPPORT AGENT WHO ADMITTED THERE ARE SERIAL BUS TRANSFER ISSUES IF YOU ARE RUNNING WINDOWS XP.THIS RESULTS IN TRANFERS BEING CORRUPTED IN MANY VARIOUS WAYS(DIGITAL POPS,SONGS CUT OFF,ETC,ETC).THE SUPPORT AGENT BLAMED MICROSOFT,BUT SONICBLUE IS THE ONE THAT SAYS THERE PRODUCT IS XP COMPATIBLE.I WAS ALSO TOLD THEY HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH MICROSOFT FOR THE PAST 3 MONTHS TRYING TO RESOLVE THESE ISSUES,BUT WITH SONICBLUE'S PLAYER BEING BUNDLED WITH REAL JUKEBOX SOFTWARE(A MICROSOFT ENEMY),DON'T EXPECT A SOLUTION SOON.
Rating: 
Summary: Huge capacity - cheap execution
Review: I've been looking for a good mp3 player for awhile now. Pre-ordered Rio in February. When i received it in April(!) i was immediately pleased and disappointed. 20GB, FM radio, very nice "DJ" feature - these are the good things. What you really need to read is the bad things.
- The little wheel used to do pretty much everything in the player slides under my fingers - if your hands are always moist, you'll love it.
- Headfones are ugly, but decent sounding.
- "Hold" slider is the same slider that turns unit on and off. I tried it a few times and accidentally shut the player down. Ooops - this being a hard drive based player - it takes a while to load.
- This monstrous size and no remote? Gimme a break!
- In the twighlight conditions the "backlight" feature is useless - you can't see anything.
- The thing that made me pack it - it crashed in the beginning of my 1-hour commute home and i wasn't able to recover it. After one day of usage...
- If you "like" Motorola's cell fones - you will love this menue-driven toy. With soooooo much empty space, Rio could put some more buttons on the surface! The fact that it takes half a second or so to load a song onto the disk: who cares! - you only do it once. Bottom line: Huge storage, FM radio, great software taht really entertains, cheap looks, bad execution. See for yourself and you'll understand.
Rating: 
Summary: Great idea but poor design!
Review: I was looking for a 20 gig player and the Riot looked like the one for me! It only took me about 2 days to really hate this thing. The concept is great, but seems like it got lost in the design process. The USB 1.1 interface for transfering music files is painfully slow, I still cannot figure out why the designers did not use USB 2.0 or firewire? You have to use Real Jukebox to transfer music files which makes it more difficult than ever. On the brighter side was the menu layout and controls, very nice to use. Sound quality was acceptable. ...P>I ended up buying the Archos 20 gig Jukebox player/Recorder and I really love it, it has it's quirks too but all around a much more pleasant experience to use
Rating:
Summary: Features Looked Great But. . .
Review: I'll start out by saying that I'm returning this thing immediately. The included software is Real Jukebox and the drivers disable it from working with Windows Media or even being recognized as an audio device by Windows. ... Aside from the software issue, the transfer speeds are sloooow. How about firewire or USB 2.0? Although the screen is nice and big, the navigation is lacking. No ability to queue up songs and playlist management is difficult (also playlists cannot be managed by the software, only the player). The deal breaker is the battery. It is without a doubt low-tech. Each time you use the Riot you end up having to recalibrate the battery (takes about 13 hours). The worst detail is that the battery continues to drain even if the player is turned off! Save your money and go with something smaller. The Rio Riot would is a waste of money...
Rating:
Summary: *Sigh* If Only There Was a Perfect MP3 Player
Review: I have tried the ARCHOS recorder and found it to be not too user friendly (esp having to go thru s/w based menu to change volume just to change volume did not appeal to me). The RIOT is much better when it come to simple things like that. It has some really nice features like the Rio DJ which generates a playlist and plays songs, the "memory lane", "top tune", "new music", "sound of...", and "random play" do give the users a neat option of being "entertained", but i wud like to emphasize on the bulky size, bad backlit display, bad display info like battery life etc. Also XP/Win2K users may have problems configuring the device(driver issues). I have also had it "freez" a few time on me. One BIG problem is once the music is in the RIOT its difficult to manage via the PC and the organizer on the RIOT itself is very trivial and FLAKY (there is a option to delete a album .. this *does not* delete all the songs for that album atleast in my case!) once the music is in the RIOT the realjukebox does not let u sort by album/category/date or ANYTHING! just difficult if u want to get rid of something. Claimed battery life at 50% volume of 10 hours is questionable. If ur music is id3 tagged nicely the RIOT is really neat. I tend to find music easier on the RIOT than my PC. Transfer speeds are not impressive either.
Rating:
Summary: Just what I was looking for
Review: I can understand some of the negatives that others have written about, but this product exactly met my needs. I wanted the 20GB of space to put several thousand songs at 192kps quality (the sound quality is great). I wanted the ability to program playlists into the player itself when I'm on the road. The physical size of the player doesn't really matter to me--I use it at work, on an airplane, in a hotel, etc. Likewise the transfer rate via USB 1.0 doesn't bother me. Basically, after a couple of weeks, the drive is full and I won't be moving anything onto it. Also, I only have firewire on the computer I use for video editing and I like keeping that computer clean. I may get another player to supplement this one after my CD collection builds up again. The shape of the product is nicely ergonomic and I have not had any difficulty navigating using the buttons and the wheel. Now, it's true that I can't stand using Real software just because of their incredibly annoying advertising/upgrade behavior. However, it is technically sufficient for this purpose (even though WMA files can be compressed more at the same quality). And I do wish that the firmware allowed me to queue songs up while one is playing. But overall, I'm very pleased with the performance of the player and its features.
Rating:
Summary: The Rio Riot rules!
Review: First of all, stop comparing this to the iPod. Of course it's slower, the iPod is firewire and the Riot is USB. Some of these reviews seem surprised by this. Yes, USB speed will never match firewire, got it? This is by far the best, top of the line, largest capacity MP3 player available. This is one player to last for many years, and it has an FM Stereo receiver built in. The size is comprable to the Archos, if you want the size of the iPod, have fun with your 5GB. Don't be swayed by the reviews, the Riot has never claimed to be ultra-compact or firewire, it simply is what it is, and it rules.
Rating:
Summary: Best gadget I have bought in a long time
Review: Before I get into my review, here is a list of positives and negatives of the player: Positives:
* Very intuitive user interface, which is nice to have on a 20GB player.
* Speaking of 20GB...it's got plenty of room for your songs. I know I'll never fill it up.
* Very long battery life between chargings. It lasts me all day long at work and into the evening.
* Plays both MP3s and WMAs. This may not be important to some people, but it was to me since I have several songs in WMA format.
* Backlit display. I read in other reviews that this wasn't so good. But I used it the other night in my car and it was great...it was very easy to read the display.
* Auto turn off feature. The player can be set up to turn off automatically if it is not used within a certain amount of time. But it won't turn off if music is playing, which is a very nice feature.
* No bugs encountered in player or software. Read below about my experiences with the Archos 6GB player to know how much I appreciate this! Negatives:
* The player is larger than other MP3 players. But the clip on its protective case makes up for this one. See below how I use this clip...
...* The player is costs $$$$, But you get what you pay for. Ok now for the review:
The first MP3 player I ever bought was the Archos 6GB Jukebox. I won't review this player here, but to sum it up, it is a very buggy player with a very poor user interface. Trying to find a song on it is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. And attempting to copy songs onto the player is like a throw of the dice...sometimes it works, sometimes it gives errors and won't copy the files. Ok now on to the Rio Riot. I started reading about the next gen of multi-gig MP3 players. The Apple iPod seemed to be the best, but it is Mac only. Then I saw the Rio Riot. It seemed to have a great user interface, it had 20 gig of space, and it played MP3s and WMAs. It seemed perfect...and it was! The user interface is really what makes this player shine. It is so easy to find any song I want to hear. It uses MP3's ID3 tags to easily sort music. You can sort by Artist name, Song name, Album name, Genre (the one I use the most), or even Year (if you want to listen to all your 80's songs for instance). It also allows you to create custom playlists. And another nice feature is its ability to play new songs (like songs you have added to the player within the last 3 days). Another bright spot with this player is that it is not buggy like the Archos!!! I have transferred several gigs of songs to the player, and had no problems whatsoever. Also it is not as slow as people say it is. When you first transfer your songs to the player, just go and so something else, when you get back, the transfer will be complete...no biggy! I mentioneed the clip on the protective case in my list of negatives (that the player is too big). I use this player in 3 ways: In the office, riding on my bike, and in the car. In the office, I just put it on my desk, so it doesn't matter how big it is. For my bike, I mount it on the handlebar, using the clip, which makes changing songs while I read easy. And for the car, I mount it on the dash, again using the clip, which gives me easy access to my whole music collection while I'm on the road. To sum it up, if you want an easy to use player with a ton of space and you have a PC, then get a Rio Riot. If you have a MAC, then the Apple iPod might be another option. But the Rio Riot does have the iTunes software, so MACs are supported too.
Rating:
Summary: Great Mp3 Player
Review: This is the best Mp3 player ive ever Had !!!!!!! i HAVE AN ARCHOS JUKEBOX BUT IT HAD A FEW FLAWS BUT THIS ONE HAS NONE WHATSOEVER . I RECCOMEND THIS TO ANYONE WHO IS A REALLY BIG FAN OF MUSIC.
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