Rating: 
Summary: For your own sake, read this immediately.
Review: I bought this product on Amazon, thinking the SP250 would be really awesome. All it did was give me a headache. Here's why (what I can think of right now):-The earbuds are decent, but the headphones feel, as someone said, like sticking chopsticks in your ears. -The battery, for me, lasted anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours - and I went out and bought brand new ones (battery is supposed to last 15 hours). I charged it exactly as the manual told me to. -Speaking of the manual, it's junk, and completely useless. -The player will randomly turn itself off now and then. -Whenever you switch to a new song, you have to wait about 20 seconds for the song to save to the flash memory for antiskip; otherwise it skips at the slightest jostle. -There's no way to turn the anti skip off, which really sucks up battery power. -The cover is [hard] to get onto the unit, and often rubs against the "hold" switch, deactivating button use. Sometimes it will even open the lid on the case of the unit. -The radio reception ...isn't very good, and I was standing still, outside, with the SP250 rested on something while I tested it out. -The case is somewhat fragile -When you use the remote, the amount of cord (for the remote and earphones combined) is absurd...I sometimes wind up stepping on this loose wire, even when the remote is clipped onto my pocket. Frankly, I wrote this to warn you, the potential consumer, NOT to buy this piece of junk...I don't want you making the same mistake I did. I am getting the iRiver model, and it looks a lot better (excellent reviews, all 5-star). Please, save yourself the trouble and get something else. If you already bought one, sell it before all interest in it by others is gone. ...
Rating: 
Summary: really an excellent player - REALLY
Review: i did about a months worth of looking around for the best mp3 cd player available. the features of the sp250 stood out above most other players, but some people said it didn't work or were disappointed with it, so i was a bit skeptical.
i was looking also at the slimx series which got something like 97% positive reviews. that player looked pretty nice but the major problem was there is no LCD display on the player face. only on the remote are you able to control the navigation through your mp3 cd. this would be a pain in the arse i think, because most of the time people will want to travel with as few cords and as few accessories as possible.
the sp250 comes with a remote, with somewhat more limited functions, but i havent used it yet, because i simply havent had the need. but the battery life is good, the sound is above average i'd say, esp. if you program your own EQ to give it a little bass and treble boost. i am extremely happy with the sp250 and if you are looking for the best player on the market, this is the one. no doubt.
Rating:
Summary: really an excellent player - REALLY
Review: i did about a months worth of looking around for the best mp3 cd player available. the features of the sp250 stoof out above most other players, but some people said it didn't work or were disappointed with it, so i was a bit skeptical. i was looking also at the slimx series which got something like 97% positive reviews. that player looked pretty nice but the major problem was there is no LCD display on the player face. only on the remote are you able to control the navigation through your mp3 cd. this would be a pain in the arse i think, because most of the time people will want to travel with as few cords and as few accessories as possible. the sp250 comes with a remote, with somewhat more limited functions, but i havent used it yet, because i simply havent had the need. but the battery life is good, the sound is above average i'd say, if you program your own EQ to give it a little bass and treble boost. i am extremely happy with the sp250 and if you are looking for the best player on the market, this is the one. no doubt.
Rating:
Summary: Great, really great product...
Review: Ok this is the deal...
I'm a really picky person and I always like to get the best stuff out there and trust me this thing is worth it...
First of all all its features work, I bought a COMPAQ PCD-1 before this one, i pay the exact prize but the COMPAQ CD PLAYER wasn't worth it AT ALL, it skipped like every time i put a cd and the radio didn't work..
Now this product is really great in everything, the batteries last long enough, the antiskip protection is great that you can't even feel it, it's pretty fast and the backlit it's pretty handy when you need it.
one thing i recommend it's a car kit, if you have a car you can fit like 300 songs in one CD-RW...
I have about 60 songs in one CDRW and it's only 30% of the whole cd, that's awesome...
The remote is really good, but i don't use it that much, i'm scared of breaking it...
the case is great and if you do any activities like running or biking, i pretty much guarantee you that it won't skip..
Buy it if you want a good player and if you have a lot of songs...
It's a great product
Rating: 
Summary: Weak Portable CD player
Review: I purchased this CD player to use while exercising. Unless you are walking, it skips constantly. The remote does not work well and is not user friendly. The multiple functions are basically useless. The headphones are terrible. I would have returned this item if I had not kept it over 30 days.
Rating:
Summary: Absolute Garbage
Review: This product is worthless. I returned mine within 2 weeks. It would not read MP3s reliably in any sense. Every CD I tried with it was a new adventure. In addition, the player would often just die on me. Now, I am now waiting for a reputable manufacturer to produce a reliable product.
Rating:
Summary: Really Awesome Player
Review: The SP250 is the BEST.
The quality is amazing... and it can read WMA files, the file size is heaps smaller than MP3 so you can fit way more onto one CD.
The headphones it comes with has much better sound than any other headphones I have used.
The Rechargable battery lasts for ages.
One thing I had trouble with at first was songs stopping in the middle and forwarding... but that was just because I was writing the CD's at x4 speed, needs to be written at x2 or lower.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent features but second-rate durability
Review: the fact that the sp250 has firmware upgrades is CRUCIAL. plenty of webforums out there discussing advanced features and offering free tech support (unlike rio/sonicblue)...however it's not as durable as big-name portable players (sony, panasonic, etc), very easy to break if you lead an active lifestyle...
Rating: 
Summary: the best, but not perfect
Review: this is a really good mp3/cd player, i've had it since chritmas this year and the sound quality is very good. i had two problems with it. one is that the batteries develope a memory, so you should drain them before u charge them, i went to radioshack and bought new ones and a wall charger. my other problem is that the little piece of plastic in the front of the cd player (on the lid) that tells the cd player when the top is closed snapped off. i fixed this with a little piece of plastic taped to the button and its been fine ever since so, while others say this thing [is bad], i say its easily one of the best and you should definetly get it if u have the money. my only other problem is that its so damn big. i might buy a mini disk player for running etc.
Rating:
Summary: A real review of the SP250
Review: I purchased the SP250 from amazon. I'm hoping that this will if anything give you a non-biased opinion about RioVolt SP250. Overally, I'm not disappointed with the product, but there are some things you should know that might not be so obvious when you're sitting here staring at the pretty picture. 1.) I'm concerned about the durability of the product. While I know I'm going to take good care of it, I just find the grey buttons on the actual player itself cheap. I have a feeling those will be the first to go if I keep using it. I'm tempted to just use the wired remote as much as possible (everything is there except for moving about and setting your preferences up). 2.) When you're playing a Audio CD,... I'm not sure why or what's going on, but I'm only able to squeeze about 2 CDs worth of listening before the battery's dead. My understanding is that when it's in MP3/WMA mode, the cd does not spin until it needs too which is how the battery life is conserved. Charging the battery within the unit itself is not worth it. I recommend getting a seperate battery charger. 3.) I noticed that the player actually had a firmware version. I immediately went to SonicBlue's website and downloaded the latest firmware 1.01 -- Then, I got to thinking, how am I going to get it on there? I realized that I basically had to burn the firmware to a CD and start up the cd player to get it upgraded. I don't have a CD-RW, I just have a normal burner (I cannot 'rewrite' cds). So, burning that firmware was a waste of a CD for me. It would have been nice if there was a USB port or something for this. Granted, if I went that route I probably should have chose Creative's 6 gig jukebox thingie. Yet, the ability to play audio CDs, my mp3s and Listen to Howard Stern on the radio in the morning appealed to me since I use this mainly for work. After having upgraded the firmware, I noticed a slight glitch. I had a normal audio cd in there and the player kept spinning backwards. I'm assuming that there's a data track on there that was confusing the player. A lot of Audio CDs now day contain data-track so that when you insert it into your computer, a multimedia presentation pops up and gives you information on the artist. I had to completely shut down the player and give it a minute before attempting this again and getting the proper response. 4.) The navigation of the LCD screen to setup your preferences is not all that intuitive. I see most users avoiding changing their preferences, especially if they don't read the manual or try to figure it out (I didn't read the manual, I got around but I kept forgetting you gotta hit up twice to get wherever, etc.) I hope this helps someone make their decision. I not really disappointed, but the above points are probably my biggest concerns with this unit. Durability being a big one because I want this to last for awhile.
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