Rating: 
Summary: Good buy
Review: I bought this 4 days ago and have been using this since then. First unit I got was not working properly (meaning, files transfered ended up with corrupted files) and I returned it to the store. The replacement one is good so far.
Pros :
Battery Life, All my music can be carried in my pocket, awesome sound output, Line out in addition to head phone jack, backlight, well the USB doesn't bother me since I leave the unit to charge as well as transfer files before I go to bed and it is ready in the morning ! I wouldn't put extra $ for fire wire.
Cons :
Joystick like controls. I would rather have a separate control for volume.
Power button is used as a stop function as well and you got to hold for few seconds.
Controls are not like regular type. I suspect these controls could break easily.
Firmware is a joke. Horrible navigation. If you play using "All Files" option and shuffle/all option corrupts the sorting history and you need to profile again. Basically, sort by "All File" option is useless because of this bug. Hope they would fix in the future upgrade.
NO Resume mode option. I listen to lot of lectures recorded in mp3 mode. Each track goes for hour long and if I had to stop and play again it starts from the beginning. Even a 40 dollar cd walkman has this option and I would expect it from this mini PC.
Price of this will come down soon and it could be a bargain.
Rating: 
Summary: A piece of ...
Review: I bought this after reading a ton of reviews on portable jukeboxes and thought I was buying a reliable player. I was wrong. Whenever you try to change a song (whether in shuffle mode or manually change it even within the same artist) it has a 15-20 second delay while it "thinks" until you start hearing the next song. Totallly unacceptable. Even though the manual says that you can Drag & Drop your songs, that's not true either. You have to use the Music Match software, which actually converts your mp3s to some other weird format. So it's not even really a true mp3 player. Also, when trying to use the software, it constantly locked up my computer (am running XP). Tried calling tech support twice, which was a joke. The people working the help desk have NO idea what's going on. Never received a call back like promised. Etc etc etc. I only had the hard drive about 60% full, too. Can't imagine what it would be like if it were completely full. This is immediately going back to Amazon.com Extremely disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best
Review: I have been reading, looking and researching hard disk MP3 devices for some time. I finally purchased the Lyra and it surpassed my expectations by a mile. Easy install under Windows 2000 Professional. Great MP3 player and hard disk. No problems with drag and drop. My only complaint is the dependence on Music Match. While Music Match is a fine program. However, I (and many others) organise MP3 using sub-directories. I would like RCA to add the ability to negotiate and play using sub-directories in addition to albums, etc. I have a MP3 CD player which offers this and it is a superior way to select and play MP3s. But, this is a minor complaint. The Lyra is worth every nickle of its reasonable price.
Rating:
Summary: One Tough Machine
Review: I have had my lyra for about 3 years now, im a coach bus driver.
to say my lyra has been thru HELL would be an understatement, it has been droped bonched around rained on and frozen more then once, but it keeps going and going and going,
the energizer bunnie has nothing on my lyra. i think finding songs and playing music is a snap, and as for the guy that was complaining about the buttons getting hit, try the little switch on the side marked button lock, it works great to. in closing this little work horse can take what ever you can dish out.
Rating:
Summary: Now is the IPod worth twice as much as this Lyra?
Review: I heard mostly negatives about the time it takes to load all the music. Ok it takes some time but if your organized that is only the first time! You can just load from where you left off from then on. Come on now the IPod is great but is it really worth it when you can get this for half the price? I would like to hear from someone who had enough time to try both. I accidently dropped mine a couple of times. Now I usually take better care of my stuff but this did not even scratch with the cover on it. Once it got stuck but I just hit the reset. Also it comes with the car kit, AC and stereo adaptors which are purchased in addition with other units.
Rating:
Summary: This thing rocks
Review: I just bought the 20GB lyra at christmas and downloaded my entire music collection (4000 Songs) in like about 4 1/2 hours, battery last long and the price is cheap, sound is pretty good too. If you don't have any concern waiting for a lot of time to download your music, buy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Only OKAY
Review: I like to listen to classical music, and the RCA Jukebox is NOT the right MP3 player for classical. It is very hard to hear soft music, as the volume does not go up very high. Also, it is easy to hear the noises on the hard drive. The mP3 player is very bulky. One of the worst parts is that it doesn't work if it gets cold. Even in the summer, it might not work in intense air conditioning. The soft ware that comes with the jukebox is also hard to learn how to use. You have to pay more to upgrade it if you want any of the advanced features! I would maybe try the iPOD mini instead. The 20 GB hard drive is really appealing, but I doubt that that much storage is necessary for the average user.
Rating:
Summary: A solid, cheaper alternative to the iPod
Review: I love this player. After 3 tries with other jukeboxes I've finally found one that works. First, I bought the Archos. It sucked, my XP wouldn't even recognize it. Second, I shelled out the serious cash for the iPod and the $80 firewire card that you have to buy to transfer your music. My computer had a serious difficulties recognizing the iPod too. The iPod is a slick piece of machinery, no doubt...But is it worth the price? Finally, I'm in mp3 heaven with my 20GB Lyra. It uses a fast USB (it took me about 3 hours to transfer 12GB of music), so I didn't have to buy a firewire card. It's still small enough to take running and it sounds great. I'm happy.
Rating:
Summary: Spend the extra $$ on Creative or IPOD
Review: I owned the Creative Nomad IIC and really enjoyed it. The only problem was once I loaded all of my DMB, there was no room for anything else. I enjoy music and wanted something that I would have for a while. I like the Creative USB 2.0 but thought it was a little expensive. The IPOD seems like a good product but 5 bills is to much. The RCA seemed like a lot of product for the money and MP3 Pro format. After using it for a week and a half, the hard drive locked up. I tried using the profiler on the player and the software and had no luck. I tried to load new drivers and firmware from the RCA site and had no luck. All of the files look like they had become corrupted. So now I have a heavy paper weight. Back to Amazon and the ZEN USB 2.0 is on the way. Also, I have heard alot of complaining about the software that comes with the Creative and I think it is very easy to use. The Music Match has a lot more to offer, but I guess it depends on how detailed you want to be with your music. Lots of extras to come with the LYRA but how good are they if the files become corrupted, the hard drive locks up and profiler software does not help either. Spend the extra on a solid product like Creative or Apple. I gave it 1 star because I liked the Music Match software, the extras that came in addition to the player and the MP3 Pro format.
Rating:
Summary: It actually works!
Review: I previously had bad experiences with other hard drive jukeboxes, but this one worked right out of the box with no problems whatsoever. I already use Musicmatch for my MP3's so that was a plus, but you don't even need the program to copy your music to the Lyra. It appears on your computer as an external hard drive so you can simply drag and drop folders of music onto it, then it organizes them for you into album, artist, genre, etc. The four "soft buttons" as RCA calls them allows you to organize the music in many different ways; its a little complicated, but if you like listening to entire albums the way they were meant to be listened to, then you don't need to do much. Just push a couple of buttons and you're ready to go. All in all, a great product.
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