Rating: 
Summary: Achilles Heel
Review: From a software standpoint this device is a marvel. Especially with the firmware update 1.12fp, allowing one to pickup where you were when you turned the unit off. One quibble with the software even there though is that you have to choose whether to play an uncompressed audio(wav) file CD OR a compressed data (mp3or wma) file CD. You cannot play a CD with mixed audio and data files. However, my biggest quibble is with the hardware design. The way I see it if you are at home there is no need to use the device because you can use your computer to play files. This leaves either in the car or outside. They warn you for safety reasons not to use the player in the car. And, as has been pointed out by others, if you are even walking, the skip protection is useless! So from a practical standpoint, the only way to get use out of this device is to buy a car adapter to use in your auto. I'll wait until they provide 1) Much better skip protection and 2) an auto adapter which comes with the unit. Providing a belt holder on the case is inane or worse! Who would continuously stand still to listen to files?
Rating: 
Summary: Fun product, great features
Review: The Rio Volt shows the future of portable CD players, with the capacity to play MP3 and many other compressed-format song files. With 650MB of capacity on a CD-R, this means alot more music than RAM-based MP3 players, and at a much cheaper price. Both CD and RAM-based players have their niche - RAM players for active situations, e.g. jogging, hiking, etc.; while the CD-based players are well suited for less active pursuits. The Rio Volt shows a lot of forward thinking - especially the upgradeable operating system. If you receive a unit with the OS v. 1.9, you may immediately notice some bad features - inability to resume play after stopping the unit, short lag before shutting down when in pause mode, inability to read CD-Rs with hierarchical folders, etc. After installing OS v. 1.12, Rio has corrected all these issues, plus throwing in some more nice features (mentioned in earlier reviews). Especially useful is the ability to navigate in hierarchical folders - this clears up a lot of previous complaints about the size/speed of the display - careful labeling of you CD-R will make searching for music sooo easy. Rio clearly will keep on top of both customer needs and preferences, as well as ensuring future compliance with TBA compression algorithms. With regard to skipping - clearly this is an issue with some people. My advice is simply try it out (if your friend will lend you hers) and see what you think. However, I will add that skipping hasn't been an issue for me, especially when playing MP3s directly (the CD hardly spins anyway since it buffers the most of the current song into memory). Pop in a CD-R into the Rio Volt with 150 songs, set the player to shuffle mode, and relax.
Rating:
Summary: Skips More Than My 3-Year-Old Daughter
Review: I was so hopeful that this unit would be the one... Unfortunately, it's not. I've used several store-bought CDs in this player, and the supposed 40-second skip protection I've set it at is a joke. The minute it's in any position other than horizontal, it's skipping and going silent for long gaps. Also, the start-up seems to take a long time. As for the remote, I find the buttons to be poorly spaced, and the whole thing should be oriented differently for maximum ease of use. I miss my silly Sony Vaio Music Stick with no moving parts...
Rating: 
Summary: Awesome but Seriously Flawed
Review: I just got the Rio Volt yesterday after reading all the positive reviews and it really is awesome. Yes, there are some minor problems and some pops and clicks but seemingly overall incredible. Now I can listen to my thousands of mp3s in my car and work. That was what I thought before I tried to go outside with it. I read a couple of reviewers who stated that they had major problems when they went for a walk with. I disregarded these and went with the majority. This thing DOES SKIP more than any portable CD player I've purchased in the last five years. I bought it for the car and walking and now I can't walk with it. It skips and skips and skips and that's when it's actually playing something. Usually it is playing nothing, just spinning. Instead of having it spin a quarter of the time and be impervious to skipping the other 3/4 of the time, they should have just designed it like a regular continually spinning portable and had good ESP instead of the horrible, laughable skip protection they are using. The design of spin/no spin is terrible. It leaves a major Achilles heel unless you plan on standing completely still every minute and thirty seconds or so. PURE JUNK if you want to walk with it. And rather disingenuous, expecially sending it with a belt strapped carrying case.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost there...
Review: Up until now, mp3-cd players have been lacking one very important thing... good ID3 tag support. What good is a few hundred songs if you can't browse and choose a song title you want? I sure as hell don't want to sit and memorize all of the songs I have on a CD. Aside from this little feature, the sound is of average quality. Nothing to do backflips over, but it is okay. The biggest problem is the CD not playing when the player is turned sideways. I always put my CD player in my pocket on the go, but this player will skip when you do this. That is what is preventing me from buying this, and this is also why I think the price is so low. This is close to an ideal player, but not quite yet. Improvements need to be made on the hardware. Until that happens, I am keeping my money until a player comes out that is worth my money.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, an inexpensive digital audio solution!
Review: SONICblue has proved once again that they are the masters of digital audio devices with the Rio Volt. Unlike the Nomad and similar devices which hold 16-64 MB of MP3s, WMAs, etc, the Rio Volt holds a whole 650-700 MB worth of data, burned to a CD. This ranges from 7.5 to 18 hours of MP3 music, or 15 to 36 hours of WMA music. The first refers to the best bitrate (quality) and the latter refers to a sub-CD (think cassette) bitrate. The Rio Volt seems to last forever on a mere two AA batteries, at least 10 - 12 hours in my experience. The backlit LED screen is great for navigating through the directories of music you burn. Unlike other MP3CD players, the Rio Volt reads from the ID3 tag of the track, thus, the track name and artist appear, scrolling accross the LED. The innovative "Navi" feature allows you to go through the directories and subdirectories on the burned CD. Also unlike some MP3CD players, the Rio Volt allows CD-R or CD-R/W media. The accompaning remote control is very useful, and the headphones and system produce rich, loud, clear sound. Also, two CDs shipped with the package provide useful burning tools for your computer, such as the excellent Adaptec DirectCD. The Rio Volt supports MP3 and WMA formats as well as playing normal CDs. It has never skipped for me, and I have tested it roughly. When playing a digitally-encoded CD that you have burned, the player takes about 20 seconds to load its O/S. Finally, the O/S is upgradeable, so, when new digital audio formats arrive, the Rio Volt will be able to use them. The final touch is a nice pleather (maybe leather) carrying case. A note of warning: the Rio Volt does not come with a Car Kit AC adapter, nor a Cassette Adapter. Also, you need to burn the CDs; the Rio Volt is not a CD-R/W drive too (duh). All in all, the Rio Volt is amazing, especially for the competitive price!
Rating:
Summary: Bad ESP or Bad Customer Support?
Review: I was so excited about this product and tested it out on a hike. To my dismay, the unit would not work unless I held it horizontal. (So, why have a belt holder?) I wrote Diamond, and they replied that the behavior was normal and "There is currently no way around this." It took customer support 3 days to get back to me with that. (A time frame Diamond also considers normal.) So either I have a bad unit or am just dealing with bad customer support. Either way, I recommend interested consumers wait until some of the quirks are worked out.
Rating:
Summary: Life changing hardware!
Review: Seriously...I can't think of a better device to spend you hard earned money on. It is definetly the best mp3/cd out there. Why? Well here's why...(this is with the version 1.12 firmware upgrade available). The Rio volt has all the standard features (i.e. +10 button, an equalizer, a large lcd display, etc, etc.), but it adds some really nice, unexpected ones. It has a resume mode, the ability to change fast forware/rewind speeds (1x-6x), a bunch of battery savnig features (i.e. backlight off), and even a remote control, case, and a set a earphones. Put it all together, and you've got the perfect recipe for screwing off at work/school! Have fun...
Rating:
Summary: Blows all others out of the water!
Review: This is by far the best mp3 cd player I've encountered. The battery life lasts for a very long time and the sound quality is excellent. The screen is easy to read and the controls are easy to use. The unit has been far more reliable than other mp3 cd players I have tried as well. The unit is also flash upgradeable, so Rio will post periodic updates on their website to update the features on the player.
Rating:
Summary: back up your hard drive and listen to it at the office
Review: This player is awesome! It will play cdrw just as good as cdrs. I took it on a bike ride and not one skip, though my ears hurt from the headphones (but who cares, earphones are cheap). I burned a Led Zeppelin mp3 cd with all 9 albums (with 128, 160, and 320 kbps)and interviews (at 64 kbps), it played perfectly. There is (as other reviewers noted) a noticible pause between songs, the only time this was annoying is with live audio discs or albums like Pink Floyd-The Wall (with no pauses). I think the best way around this is to merge the tracks into 1 track with wav editing software. This thing sounds the best when hooked up to external speakers, I hooked it up to DTT2200 (only front speakers and subwoofer will work of course) and it sounded great! The browsing feature is nice, the best way to do it is have folders with artists and only use the song title for the mp3's, so you can see the contents of the folder while browsing.
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