Rating: 
Summary: The bar has been raised again.
Review: As an owner of the original Rio Volt (SP100) I appreciated that it was the first good, usable mp3-CD player, but eventually got tired of some of its shortcomings: inefficient display, with the dancing stick figures, odd remote and well, it was bulky, even for a CD player. This new Volt (SP350) adresses all of those minor issues, and adds a few new features over the old one. First, the new design aesthetic is great - brushed stainless steel front plate, grippy grey plastic around the edges. It feels like a vastly higher quality piece of equipment than the original, or any other CD or MP3 player i've used recently, Apply iPod excepted (that's the gold standard for quality design/construction). The buttons have a more uniform feel and you can acutally use the player while it's in the case this time. Second, the new display and firmware make organizing the 70 to 100 songs on the usual mp3 cd more convenient than before. The addition of an FM tuner is a nice touch as well. Other notes: the buttons on the remote are small, but at least you can hit each of them individually, as opposed to guessing on one big circular button as on the SP100. It also seems that you can turn the player off from the remote, but not back on.
The sound quality is great as before, and the headphone amp is easily powerful enough to keep me from turning it up all the way. Granted they're no Grado's, but the included headphones are at least comfortable and sound alright out of the box. In summary this is a great CD-MP3 player, and definitely worth the upgrade from one of the older generation players. Or, if you're in the market for your first one, you won't go wrong here. It has a quality feel and sound that makes it worth the money. Highly Recommended. Review Updated...with the following information:
To counterpoint the opinions of the people that have had problems with this player, I wrote the initial review after using the player for a few hours a day for a few days. It has now been a few months and my opinions listed above still hold. It's still playing like new, no display issues, reads all of my MP3 cd's and normal cd's and has never skipped.
Perhaps there was a statistically large number of failures from a certain batch of these, but I can find little to complain about with my particular unit. I'd still recommend this player based on it's great sound and efficient design, just keep the warranty card around based on the number of complaints here.
Rating: 
Summary: So Far So Good
Review: After 3 days use:
1. Good Sound, (good volume level)
2. Fairly Good FM (no AM), FM presets hard to figure out.
3. Nicely equiped with rechargable, long life -over 12 hour- batteries, but long charge time, and hard locate extra batteries to purchase, fairly good headphones, Cassette insert, and a leather case.
4. Not supposed to play when using AC recharger.
5. FF and FR within track.
6. Figure couple hours to learn how to use. Complicated
7. No timed auto shut off.
8. A bit noisy at start up and switching tracks. STartup time is several seconds.
9. Expensive, but cheaper than an IPOD by far.
10. Upgradable by software you convert to CD and play on the unit.
11. Small controls on sides and on wired remote. 3 line display in a small lighted format.
12. Can Skip when first in a track (as expected).
13. Plays most CD and other digital formats (but apparently not DirectCD).
14. Thin CD player: but AC recharger is typical size and clunky.
15. Light and appears fairly sturdy. Reliability unknown but a nice 1 year warrentee. (do not buy used).
CONCLUSION:
GOOD CD/MP3 Player.
Rating: 
Summary: Skip city
Review: The only thing I like about this is the remote other than that the product just get 1 star. It skips a lot on both type of CD audio and MP3. The radio reception is also bad. If you are thinking of doing sport this is not the one for you. This is my second and last time buying from RioVolt.
Rating:
Summary: Promises great things, but delivers on little
Review: This product seems great at first because of several points: The CD, CD-RW, and CD-R player combined with MP3 and an FM radio--what more could you want? It also comes with a remote controller and a car kit. It was for these reasons I bought this product, but the entire package is spoiled by the fact that it does an awful job of playing music! It promises skip protection, but the machine skips constantly even if nothing is disturbing it. It also has power issues in that it just shuts down while you are using it no matter how charged the batteries are. I have asked other owners about this and they all say they have the same problem and that even once they have sent the machine in to be fixed the problem persists. The solution: Buy any of the other CD/MP3 players out there because they just can't be as bad as this one!
Rating:
Summary: awfully awful
Review: Didn't work from the beginning. Was told later this was a re-conditioned product.
Don't spend your money on this product from this company
Rating:
Summary: Silly American
Review: Maybe it's my fault that I had an expectation on this product. I assumed that when I opened the package it would work and it has never worked properly. It skips, the display turns to gibberish, you can't play CD's while the batteries charge. I got this thing less than 24 hours ago and the return slip is in the mail. This is the second Rio CD/MP3 player that I have had a problem with and it will be the last.
Rating:
Summary: The worse
Review: This is the worse MP3 player I ever owned, first the batteries are proprietary, not AA as was advertised. It also skips and out right refused to play some MP3's even after I put them on a brand new CD. After I did that I put the old CD in a friends MP3 player made by memorex, it worked great. It's also not any thinner than a normal one. My recommendation, stay as far away from this frightful thing as possible.
Rating:
Summary: 3 hour battery life, and random lockups
Review: While when the player is working it works flawlessly, the battery life is very short, and it has locked up on me after playing for a few hours. It's batteries are propriatory gumstick types, and even though they're 1450mAh, they only power it for a few hours. I was on a field trip and it didn't even get me through the bus ride. Worse, there's no external power pack, so you have to find a power outlet. Even then, it takes hours to charge the batteries, longer if your playing music while charging.
The lockup problem isn't that bad, but it makes the worry that more problems will arise later. The day I got it I was playing a standard CD and the display got all garbled, random characters and dots. The second time, a few weeks later, i was playing a 4 hour mp3 concert (with the AC adaptor of course), and when I went to pause it, nothing happened. It was like the hold button was activated, except it wasn't. I couldn't turn it off either, so I had to open the lid to reset the thing.
If you can live with short battery life, and don't mind strange lockups, it's a VERY nice player. Slim, seems physically durable, lighweight, and does not skip. The feature set is well thought out and navigation is easy. There's nothing to confuse you.
Rating:
Summary: The newest, the worst
Review: I had the SP100 player that I loved, it was a very good player and each firmware update gave me a lot of interesting functions. Unfortunately it was stolen from my car and then I wanted to buy another one. I saw the SP350 with its very nice design and I thought that if SP100 was great, this one might be outstanding, but what a dissapointment. Lot of buffer, for what? It skips all the time, a lot of CDR discs it doesn't read and its firmware is a lot less complete than the SP100. There's an unlimited list of things you can't do. I hoped that maybe the upgrades could fix those lot of BUGS it presents but I have turned to stone waiting for them. What's wrong with you at Rio Volt? If I could I'd like to return this junk and buy another one.
Rating:
Summary: This player is JUNK...
Review: The player continuously skips. Worst of all, I cannot completely charge the batteries. The player randomly shuts down while charging. I would never recommend this product or Rio products in general because customer service just does not exist.
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