Rating: 
Summary: This is not an Anti-Skip player!!!!
Review: I also purchased this based on it's anti-skip claim and it fails miserably in that regard. It skips at the slighest jarring and I will be continuing my search for a true anti-skip mp3-cd player.
Rating: 
Summary: It's great in combination with the right CD burner
Review: It skips a lot with mp3 CDs burned on my venerable Sony CDU926S. This burner is more than 5 years old and has a 2X maximum write speed.... a fossil! But I have a lot CDs I've got in trades with people all around the world, and every single one of them plays in the Rio with no problems. Likewise, the newish HP burner at work produces discs which play perfectly in the Rio. This might explain the varying experiences people are having with skipping. See if you can test it with a CD from your burner before buying.Other than that, I have had a bit of a problem with skipping when I'm driving at speed on a bumpy road, but it's tolerable. I bought an el-cheapo car kit, not the Rio brand one, and it's fine. Not needing to depend on batteries seems to help, as does positioning the player where it's less susceptible to bumps. I've been acquiring mp3s for years, and a device such as this is a must; it changes the way you appreciate music. I used to like making 90 minute compilation tapes. With the same effort I can make 10 hour compilation CDs! I'm going to make 10 hour colection of kids' music to smooth out those long drives with my children. From now on where I go, my Riovolt goes.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for the price
Review: You can get over 155 songs, or about 10 hours of music on one CD in mp3 format. Much cheaper that 128 meg cards at [price] a piece. Using the RIO, you can get 700 meg of tunes on a 50 cent CD, which makes much more sense. Only con - it could have more volume.
Rating:
Summary: Good features for a lower end player
Review: The SP90 is a fine sub-100 dollar mp3/CD player. It is approximately the same player as the Rio Volt SP100, only without an LCD backlight, AC adapter, remote, and external ESP switch. Note that all the SonicBlue mp3/CD players are rebranded versions of mp3/CD players made by iRiver. The SP90 is a downgrade of the SP100 for a reduced price. The LCD screen supports two rows of text and two rows of miscellaneous information. The top row has icons displaying repeat, shuffle, and low battery warning. The second row contains track number and time. The third row has artist and title information or filename for mp3s and wmas. The last row is wasted by little dancing figures and an animated round thing that serves no purpose. This makes navigation of the file system limited to two lines. It would be nice if SonicBlue/iRiver had actually made use of the last 1/4 of the LCD screen for something like displaying the folder name or displaying artist and title info on separate lines. The lineout plug is affected by the volume control for some reason. In all the CD players I've seen before, they were constant. It's neither a good or bad thing for me, just kind of weird. The plastic buttons are sturdy enough. My only complaint with the controls is that they put rewind, fast forward, play, and stop on one large round button. It's easy to accidentally hit the wrong function if you apply any sideway pressure. The round pad also forces you to look at it when you use any of the four functions. It's very difficult to do it by touch alone, which is useful when you're driving or when it's dark; you'll have first figure out which way is up/down/left/right by the postitions of other components of the player. Buying the optional remote helps but then you might as well just get the SP100. The SP90 is opened by sliding the blue switch on the front. It only opens up partially on its own so you'll have to lift it up by hand. The included earbuds are low quality, which is about standard for most headphones included with a music player. You should be cautioned about DC-in on this thing. I tried two separate 4.5V DC car adapters manufacturered by Sony and Panasonic and neither worked. The plug might be proprietary, forcing you to buy power adapters from SonicBlue. iRiver is a Korean company so they might use some other standard that SonicBlue didn't bother to convert. This doesn't affect me much because I've got NiMH batteries and a one hour charger usable at home and in the car. However, it may be wise to check with SonicBlue on this. I've had no problem with skipping as some others have reported. The SP100 has a firmware upgrade that reduces gaps between tracks and possibly reduces skipping. While the SP90 is not officially firmware upgradable, it can use use the SP100 firmware to get added features and improvements. All it takes is a simple renaming of the file and a hex edit to change the name inside the file. Instructions can be found on the internet. This probably voids the warranty so use at your own risk. Some new features as of version 2.10 are reduced gaps, resume for last 10 discs played, katakana font display, winamp playlist support, display of time remaining, and reduced disc recognition time. Also, ESP control for audio CDs is lost because the SP100 has an external control for changing it between 10 and 40 seconds while the SP90 has a menu option in the original firmware. SP90 is a good economy player with solid features. You should know that iRiver recently came out with the ChromeX iMP-150 for the US market. It's an upgrade to the SP100/iMP-100 with better button placement and a much better LCD screen (smaller pixels and no dancing!). It includes backlight and remote, but no AC adapter. If you're considering buying the SP100 for its backlight and remote, definitely go with the ChromeX. It's designed by the same people and is much better at lower cost. If you're willing to spend more, go with the SP250 or iRiver SlimX.
Rating: 
Summary: Firmware upgrade not needed...
Review: I received it today, expected to try it out and then upgrade the firmware. Well I grabbed an mp3 cd, plopped it in, and the first song started playing in 3 seconds! Lag between songs is 1-2 seconds. Okay, I thought this was a fluke, so I grabbed another mp3 cd. Same thing. Okay, I tried a cdrw disk and that took 5 seconds. Either way, even if you can no longer upgrade using the hack (I have not tried), the new models appear to work much better than previous revisions. I don't have the best hearing, but it was loud enough for me... as long as your mp3 rips have decent levels. The earbuds are acceptable. Overall, I'm very pleased.
Rating: 
Summary: This is NOT a portable CD player
Review: I purchased this CD player because of the anti-skipping claim and that others had recommended it for running. I can not use this player unless it is placed on a table and not moved. It skips at the slightest movement. Certainly can't recomment it to anyone. It was a waste of my money.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't do what I thought it would do
Review: This was a gift, and although I read it a few times, it was not a treue MP3 player. My grandson, although somewaht dissapointed, said that it was of very good quality and seemed to enjoy it very much.
Rating:
Summary: Could be better.
Review: I bought my RioVolt about 6 months ago and have had no problems with it. it plays my MP3 cds with 300 songs on them great. The battery life is decent, and the controls are very easy. I wish it had a resume function because when you have 300 songs on a cd its hard to remember where you left off. Also, if you are planning on jogging with this, look elsewhere. I tried jogging with it, and for the first 2 mins. it worked great, but once the anti-skip time was up i had to stop to let it catch up. Not something i want to do. But i am now looking at getting a small mp3 player for running. I have not had any problems with it. It doesn't skip while riding on the dash of the car. Its great for long trips. Just burn your mp3s as data to a cd. Its great, but i would recommend going with the more expensive riovolt. i think it has a resume function, and 8 min. of shock protection!
Rating:
Summary: Nice unit, rebate makes it a no-brainer
Review: Got this thing about 4 days ago...had seen a lot of buzz on the net about upgrading the firmware. Well, I know how to hack at the byte-level but it wouldn't work for me. I'm guessing this unit now has a slightly different setup going so the old IMP-100 -> SP-90 hack doesn't work. Seems to have firmware based on the 2.01 rev level. Doesn't skip at all when playing MP3 cd's...which is all i'd ever put in this thing. I'm very pleased with this unit and with a nice set of external speakers (LabTec Spin-60 for [price]) and a AC adapter, now I have a small stereo for my room that will randomly play 160+ songs off of one CD!
Rating:
Summary: Worst CD player I've ever owned
Review: I looked around, I read the reviews, I followed advice. Never again. This cd player has failed on every level to live up to its expectations. The battery life is nowhere near 15 hours. The sound quality isn't even remotely as good as the last portable cd player I had for 7 years. It did not come with an AC adaptor. Half the time I cannot even get it to play a regular cd. The instruction and problem solving booklet that comes with it is archaic and remedial at best. If I still had the packaging I would find a way to return it. But I don't, so I'm going to have to spend more money to get a REAL player, and give this one away as a joke. RioVolt, never again.
| 
