Rating: Summary: Junk Review: I bought the S10 about the second week of October. 2 weeks later I could only hear out of one earpiece. I sent it to be fixed 4 weeks later I still have not received a replacement and I just talked to the horrible tech support and they input my order wrong and I will not be receiving one for atleast another week. I don't even want it back now. I would not recommend this to anyone.
Rating: Summary: Flimsy, breaks easily but cheap price Review: Bad Stuff: -I bought this player a little over a year ago with the extended 1 year warranty. Of course it broke after that warranty was up. The menu button is stuck in so I can't change the equalizer setting, turn on the backlight or change the power settings. The sound is horrible. I noticed when I first got it that every time you turn it on you have to go into the equalizer menu for the sound to go back to normal. Otherwise it is fuzzy and the bass is horrible. Now that the menu button is broken, I can't do this and the sound is just bad all the time.-Another dissapointment was the belt-clip. I use it at the gym a lot and it is bulky and bounces around. I would recomment buying a player with an armband instead. Also, the buttons were harder to use once in the belt-clip. -Also, sometimes the player will not be recognized by the computer, and I have to turn it off and on several times before it works (no apparent reason). I have had other problems with the power such as turning it on and it shuts off immediately, or having it connected to the computer but it refuses to download. Good stuff: -battery life (around 35 hours with good batteries) -cheap price -easy to use software Overall: DO NOT BUY. You can find much better mp3 players at the same price that will last longer and be more comfortable for using at the gym. The battery life is really the only plus, but invest in some good rechargeables and buy a better player.
Rating: Summary: pleasant little thing Review: I work out a lot and this player works quite well; however I would recommend using your own headphones. I found it holds about 57-61 WMA files and 20-24 mp3s. Either way you get a decent amount of music and the instillation onto your computer should be easy, at least it was for me
Rating: Summary: Don't buy this player Review: I've had this player for a couple of years and I find it to have: 1) a clumsy and non-intuitive interface, 2) a poorly designed software program for transferring and organizing music, and 3) an inability to use playlists--one of the most useful things about electronic music.
Rating: Summary: Perfect Workout Partner Review: I thought I would add a review to update the information on the S10 to it's current use. The player has been out for some time now and I believe can only be had refubrished or used at this point, but it's still one of the best Flash players available.
Here are 5 Pros and Cons. I listed each in order of importance.
Pros:
1. Battery Life! What more can you say about a player that uses one AA battery and still gives you some 30 hours of play time.
2. Memory. Sure it only comes with 64 megs internal but I just grabbed a 1 gig SD card for 60 bucks. Follow that by uploading 300+ songs and you can see where you won't be changing your playlist any time soon. Also I didn't see any slow down with the larger card. Some other players can experience a start up delay in proportion to the card size.
3. Price. Used you can find these for $55 or so. You'll need to budgest at least another $30 for a 512 meg card. But coming in at under a hundred dollars for 150+ songs is an excellent price point.
4. Durability. I was a little scared when I first felt the S10. Certainly it does feel rigid but the body is molded plastic unlike my metal bodied Rio 500. However it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. By passing on the metal body the S10 is much lighter than the competition. The lighter weight combined with a rigid body means that random drops won't damage the unit. I keep mine in the supplied padded carrier but have dropped it both in and out with no damage. It's well made and reliable.
5. Sound Quality and Features. This is a good player. The sound is good and it has all of the features you need from an MP3 player. Also with the newest firmware (2.03) you can now upload playlist. Volume is also more than sufficient.
Cons:
1. Getting one. You'll have to buy one used now.
2. Software. The Music Manager software is simple but featureless. Also the device does not come up in XP as a storage device which excludes manually adding files from Windows Explorer or through Windows Media Player. But with the larger cards I don't find myself uploading songs often. You will need to format the device with each new card before using it for the first time.
3. USB 1.1. It doesn't have USB 2.0 Speed but again as I said before I don't find myself changing the playlist often. Filling the whole device with a 1 gig card took me about 25 minutes.
4. Non-Standard Connection cable. You'll have to keep the cable they provide as it's proprietary. Yet another thing to have tangled up behind your computer.
5. No radio support. This doesn't really bother me as I've yet to come across a player with decent radio reception. Also the total storage is such that you won't miss not having FM.
Thoughts: Really this is a good player. I can't recomned it enough for anyone looking to pick up something they can work out with but that won't break the bank. Also don't spend too much on the SD card. You don't need good speed for an MP3 player. Just pick out the cheapest card you can find.
Rating: Summary: Excellent Player for the money! Review: I bought the Rio S10 to take with me to the gym. I've dropped it and spilled water on it by mistake and it still runs like brand new.
The best thing you can do for this player is to update the firmware to 2.03 and the music manager software to 2.90. These updates increase the versatility of the player by adding increased support to WMA DRM files and by allowing you to transfer songs from the player to the computer (couldn't do that originally). Also, the player is expandable memory-wise and the battery life is excellent.
Rating: Summary: Half the price of an IPOD and half as good... Review: Actually it's less than half the price initially, but after you replace the poor quality headphones and upgrade the memory to at least enough to hold 20 songs, you're half way to the cost of an IPOD and are still not even close in storage capacity much less the quality. This is an inexpensive player and it looks like it. The plastic case feels like the same quality you would find on a kids fast-food meal toy. Does it do the job? Yes, but I keep thinking it's going to break anytime. The software it comes with isn't very good either. You can't change the playlist order, for example, unless you reload everything, which is annoying. It also screws up sometimes and shifts the order of your songs after they are uploaded. The EQ it comes with is not really an EQ, but bass & treble and there is no "loudness" or "megabass" option to enhance the sound. I compared the sound quality using the same headphones and files and the IPOD sounds better, indicating a lower quality amplifier in the RIO. Not all MP3 players sound the same!
One big plus with this player is battery life, almost 30 hours from a single AA, but is that worth the price of poorer quality sound? Not to me. The soft case it comes with is nice and protects it well, but like a previous reviewer said, it's hard to get to the volume controls with it on.
Bottom line: If you just can't afford an IPOD (or a used IPOD) and don't mind having a fraction of the storage, this is a decent player if it lasts (and that's a big *if* when you see how cheap it is). However if you CAN afford more and are just looking at this one thinking you'll save some $ as it is "probably good enough" I think you will be disappointed.
Rating: Summary: Not the greatest. Review: This mp3 player is nothing revolutionary by any standards. Once I got it, i was thrilled. It was everything I always wanted before I saw what else was out there. I have a large music collection, and the s10 did not meet the capacity to store my songs. But, for $80, it's actually a pretty nice piece of equiptment, despite its storage. On the brighter side, the menu's are a snap to navigate through, and it comes with three songs already in it. There really isn't anything bad about it, with the exception of the storage capacity. But, if you just want the "best of" songs, I would recommend it.
Rating: Summary: excellent starter Review: I bought the Rio S10 about a year ago for $55 with a 32 MB MMC Card included. This thing was great as a first time MP3 Player.
Pros:
-Great interface
-Equalizer
-Durable, I accidentally put it through the washing machine and dryer and it still works almost perfectly, I just lost battery life
-Marathon battery life (35 Hours) for the first half-year
-Small
-Shows amount of memory left on player
-Accepts up to 512 MB MMC Cards on new versions
-Sound is good, packaged Sennheiser earbuds were okay, lasted forever, just ruined them yesterday.
-Software is ok, much better with downloaded update, which it asks you to do eventually and is free.
-Dropped it several times and it functioned fine, with the exception of a few freezes, which were repaired by removing battery.
Cons:
-On mine, the plug for the DC outlet hole ripped in two when I pulled it out, DC outlet was just hole of nothingness which allowed dust and other foreign objects into the screen.
-Case does not cover screen
-Buttons on wheel were too easily pressed when bendning over, moving legs, etc., hold feature is very hard to get to.
-Emailed Rio Support about the DC Outlet, or lack thereof, and received no response. This was under SonicBlue's ownership, maybe Digital Networks will change the support.
Really good starter player, my mom got one and I got one, she had hers for a year and 3 quarters and broke it recently, mine still functions fine after a year and a half in a teenager's pocket. I am now in the market for a jukebox MP3 player, and the Rio Karma doesn't interest me. The new Carbon is aesthetically pleasing, but I think I will get a Creative Zen Touch 20 GB.
Rating: Summary: Great Expnadable Player Review: I just got this player two weeks ago works great. The software is a litle hard to use but I use windows media player instead. It detects it instantly. The built in 64 mbs of space is on the small side I have seen 512 mb cards for around $60, so for a $160 you can have a 572 mb player. This more than enough for me. The ear buds are worthless but thats to be expected. Menus are easy to navigate also.
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