Rating: 
Summary: Sleek and Stylish
Review: I chose the Rio 600 over the other MP3 players based on the price ($170), its small size, and expandability. I'm very happy with it. I love the design. I think it's very ergonomic and I happen to like the 4-way "curser" type button. The blue backlit screen looks great and displays lots of information. You can create different playlists from the songs that have been loaded onto it. USB transfers are very fast, and when its hooked up to the PC it automatically sets the time and date on the unit.On the downside, 32 Megs isn't much. To get a full hour of music into 32 Megs you have to encode to WMA at 64K. It actually sounds OK but I have a huge collection of MP3s - all encoded at 128K. There's no way I'm converting EVERYTHING to WMA, only the stuff I want to put on my Rio. My major complaint with the WMA format is that there is NO ID tag, like with an MP3. It doesn't store any artist or title information in the file itself. So, a database program has no clue how to organize it. Plus, the RioPort Manager software that comes with the Rio 600 is complete crap. It's really cumbersome and you cant convert between formats with it. I use Sonic Foundry's Siren as my MP3 database. It has really strong organization features and is very flexible. It let's me make a 64K WMA file from a 128K MP3. It also lets me manage my Rio. But, even though the Rio can accept MP3 and WMA files, Siren will only let me transfer MP3s to the Rio. Why??? So, I still have to use RioPort software to transfer WMA files onto the Rio. And since WMA files have no ID tag, the software will only transfer part of the filename to the Rio. So, I have 5 different songs on my Rio with no title, just artist. It's either that or use MP3s and only get about 30 minutes of audio. But these are PC software issues which are easily fixed by upgrades, or finding a better MP3 database program. There is supposed to be a 370M rechargable add-on. I assume this takes the place of the removable back plate which holds the battery. I'm curious how much that thing will cost. It sure would be nice. That's about 400M total(with the internal 32) which is about 13 hours of WMA or 7 hours of MP3. It has no belt clip, so you have to either hold it, put it in your pocket, or buy a belt holder for it. The headphones that come with it aren't that bad. I really like how they are 2 separate buds with an ear clip and no plastic bar connecting them. If you want better sound quality then get some headphones that are bigger and fit over the ear, like the $20 Sonys that everyone is wearing lately. I dont think you can really complain about these since they came with the unit. Overall, I think the Rio 600 is very cool. It's very small, lightweight, has no moving parts, never skips, runs for 10 hours on 1 AA battery, and gets VERY LOUD. I'm sure something better will come out in a year or 6 months, but it will always be that way.
Rating: 
Summary: Workout personal bests and my new Rio 600!
Review: Diamond (and other MP3/WMA player manufacturers for that matter) should pick up on this one - these players improve your workout! Seriously, I've been actively exercising for a while now. I bought my Rio 600 four days ago - and have achieved a personal best on my treadmill each day :-) I do think the choice of music is important! Seriously, I am very pleased with my new purchase. One of the important factors for me was a realization that Microsoft's FREE Windows Media Player gives me everything I need to manage my music library and don't need to use the Rio-supplied software at all. Based on a tip from another review here, I explictly set the "write speed" to 64bps so that files are automatically transcoded to WMA, which saves a ton of space. Typical file sizes are in the 2.5 - 3.0Mb range, which greatly bypasses the fact that the unit has only 32Mb. Overall, I just find the Windows Media Player software to be more intuitive and functional. Anyway, for my own use, I am EXTREMELY happy with the unit. Can't wait to find out when the travel pack and memory expansion backpacks are available, though.
Rating: 
Summary: Why an Mp3 Player?
Review: One of my misinformed siblings bought the 600 and thought it was fine and all. A few weeks later I got the Minidisc Player/Recorder Sharp 722, I was the envy of my brother. For only $180 you can get a good minidisc player/recorder and have the ability to have a MD collection full of hours and hours of music. An mp3 player can only hold about 32 mb of audio which is not equilivant to to even 40 minutes of playing time. But minidiscs only cost about $1.50 if you but them off Amazon and each one has a 74 minute playing time, like a CD. You can name he tracks, divide, combine, delete, or add another at any time. But you're not restricted to only getting music from mp3. If you buy an audio patch cable at Radio Shack for $4 you can get sound directly from computer to MD, CD to MD, MD to MD. My main point is that you should shop around for a portable music player, I think you'll find that for about 20$ more you can get a unit that expandable to unlimited amount of music for just $1.50 per 74 minute disc. Shop around, i know i did, after weeks of reading online reviews and going to huge electronics stores I found the best choice and it was a Sharp MD-MS722. I spent $180 for the MD player/recorer then $30 for a pack of 20 minidiscs and so far i have them all filled for a playing time of about 1200+ minutes of playing time. So if you want to save $40 but only get a half an hour of music, then yes, the 600 is probably your best bet.
Rating:
Summary: It works now!
Review: I agree wholeheartedly with JT's assessment of the product. I too had songs cutting off and mind jarring skipping noises when I first purchased this product. HOWEVER, Diamond Rio has actually fixed the problem with their new firmware. (Version 1.08 available from their website.) And now it works perfectly. No skipping or dropping, an hour of CD quality music. My computer system isn't that state of the art, so I'm sure if the firmware fix worked on my machine it will work on yours. A cool, relatively inexpensive product.
Rating:
Summary: The Problems are Being Addressed
Review: I really like the Rio 600. But somehow, mine came without any software (no CD). When I called Customer Support, they said there were problems with the current version of Rioport Manager, and a new one would be posted to the S3 website soon. So far, it hasn't been. BUT.... There is software that allows you to download files using Windows Media Player 7, and this works fine. Windows Media Player also automatically converts MP3s to WMAs (if you want it to, by setting the writing speed to 64mps). It can also transfer MP3s, but since the WMAS take up half the space and (to my ears) sound just as good, why not use wmas? I can get about 14 songs on this way. Now, the second problem. The skips. My unit skipped on about 1/3 of the songs originally. But the website has a firmware update, which you download to your computer. When you run the program it updates the operating system of the Rio. The skipping problem seems to be gone, and now you can create playlists right in the player! I'm definitely happy about this.
Rating: 
Summary: Buggy
Review: I bought this product from a local Best Buy store and experianced nothing but trouble from both the product and the Best Buy store. I was one of the people that suffered from the USB bug and contacted Tech Support from Diamond. They were very unhelpful and ran me around the bush when it came to getting a fix for the bug "it will be out in a day or two" (two weeks later still no fix). I tired then to return the product to Best Buy but since they have a very poor 30 day return policy were unwilling to help me out (i returned it 5 days over their 30 day agreement) I even showed them pages and pages of email between myself and Diamond. Needless to say do not shop at Best Buy beacuse they are unwilling to do that little extra for the customer. On a positive note, Diamond was willing to refund the purchase price of my unit without any problems. Maybe Best Buy should learn from them.
Rating:
Summary: Still Delivering !
Review: Well it's been about a month. Working Great, NO skips, no download issues, no buzzing (see other reviews...?) I'm beginning to think these are issues related to Windows USB. I have a MAC and have experienced no issues. Sound Is terrific...but I think you'll really be amazed if you add the KOSS KTX pro headphones, a remarkable increase in audio quality.
Rating:
Summary: It broke a week after I bought it...
Review: I bought the Rio 600 last month. A week after I bought it, every song started skipping. Each song couldn't go 2 seconds without skipping heavily. When I took it back, and got the refund, the person who worked there said the whole shipment had been defective, and they had gotten back every single one. If you really want an MP3 player, buy a different brand, or a lower model.
Rating:
Summary: Bang for the buck!!
Review: Hear me out. I purchased the Nomad II by creative Labs, nice, but very pricey, $300!! Ouch. I took it back. I picked up the Rio 500, also a nice unit, but still pricey, $269. I took it back as well. The reason for the purchasing of the first two is this: Smart Media, I have a Ricoh Digital Camera and thought that it would be great to swap out the smart media cards with them. Boy was I wrong.....BE WARNED.....once a rio device formats a smart media card, it can only be used in that rio device. Talk about anger when I smoked a 32MB card on the rio 500. Any way back to the Rio 600, since I had to buy memory for the rio 500, I looked into the 600. It's a $100 less. It's better looking. The display and LCD screen are much clearer and easier to understand. Rio has a ton of cool things coming out for it. Like a FM tuner remote. IBM will have out this fall a 340MB micro drive back pack that you can slap on. I heard the price will be $250. Yeah that's alot but a 64MB smart media card is around $150! You can get replaceable face plates, just like your Nokia phone. The software is great, and what USB problems? Keep in mind that I have mine connected to my G4. No problems. Maybe because it's a Mac, I don't know. Look it's a awesome player for the cost, the head phones are fine, people that complain about them should stand in front of a mirror while putting them on the first time so they can figure it out. I really like mine.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT GET THIS PRODUCT!
Review: This mp3 player is very easy to download songs onto and is portable and light BUT, this product only holds 32 megabytes, which is pretty expensive for that small memory. I bought this product and could only hold 6 regualar sized songs, about 3.5 minutes each. The only way to get more memory is to buy a whole new memory stick will will cost you another load of money. That means just 6 more songs! I decided to get a minidisc player instead.
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