Rating: 
Summary: its aiight....
Review: The device itself is alright, menu options are cool, sound quality is good, and its compact size and rad earphones are very good. The main drawback is that the buttons are kinda jacked. You're supposed to be able to hold and skip back or forward for 'X' amount of seconds, but the button's circular-disc design limits the control of your search. The button can jam on you causing the whole thing to freeze, in which case you gotta slide the battery/memory pack out and back in to reset the device. To avoid this you should try and use the circular control button for track search only. The software that comes with it isn't all that great. Nothing really new has been put on there. In fact, if you want better sound and rips you should get MusicMatch Jukebox, and if you want better visuals you should get Sonique, both of which are freewares. The only thing you really need from Rio Audio Manager is its upload ability which is very fast. Overall, this has been a mediocre purchase. If you're looking for an Mp3 portable player, you might want to look into something with more memory since the additional memory backpacks(available later this summer) may boost the overall price of the Rio 600 [considerably].
Rating: 
Summary: Awesome!
Review: I just bought the Diamond Rio 600 today, and it is the best of the rio trio. The Rio 600 only uses 1 battery, and on each one, you can use it for 11 hours of music. Also, this is probably the smallest of the rios. Like the others, there's no skipping. What I like about this one is because the Rio 600 can read WMA files. Unlike all other MP3 players though, on this one, you don't buy smartmedia cards for extra storage. This unique MP3 player runs on "backpacks" sold by Diamond Multimedia, so you don't have to deal w/ those cards getting dammaged, or just having them. I love this player, and I would reccommend it to anyone who's ever not been able to use a portable CD player, or who's tried to sneak music in school, lol. But beware, the Rio 800 next year.
Rating:
Summary: Diamond Rio facts
Review: I've been wanting an mp3 player for a while now and I have been tracking the different kinds ever since they came out. I almost bought a Rio 500, until I heard of the Rio 600. Though there are a couple of reviews that say it's a bad product (doesn't play whole song, sound is bad)I have not encountered any of these problems. It plays the whole song without skipping, and the sound is quite impressive, especially the base it can offer. The software is satisfactory, and though it only comes with 32 megabytes of memory, the WMA support it offers still allows me to put about 16 songs on it. This compared to a 300 dollar Nomad II without WMA support kind of seems too good to be true. Unfortunately, the Rio 600 doesn't have voice recording capability, at least not out of the box. Of course, if the mp3 you're recording has problems, then obviously the Rio, or any other mp3 player is not going to play it well. Make sure you have a good enough computer to do USB transfers. All that aside, the Rio 600 has been very good for me so far.
Rating:
Summary: With the Rio 600 you can't go wrong!
Review: The Rio 600 is an awesome mp3 player! If you think that 32 mb of memory isn't enough just slap on a "backpack" and cruise with up to 372 mb of memory! Future-proof and stylish design make the Rio 600 the best mp3 player to date.
Rating: 
Summary: Rio600 review...part II.
Review: Ok, my last review had more to do with "championing" theadvantages of the WMA format over MP3 (since the Rio600 supports WMA). But I would like to know add my thoughts and review of the player and what I believe are it's biggest improvement (besides WMA support) over the previous Rio's, particularly the Rio500. Style-No doubt about it, the Rio600 blows away the previous Rio's in the style category. Of course I realize that this is a subjective trait but the Rio600 is quite an "eye catcher" IMHO. Feel-The case coating material (I believe it is teflon or some other "rubber" based compound) gives the player a real nice feel while holding it in the palm of your hand. Also, that "odd" shape is really quite ergonomically sound. Functionality-Big improvement here as well. The "joy pad" (as Diamond calls it) is far better than the small individual "function" buttons of the Rio500. Once you put your finger on it, you are able to easily engage all the major playback options (play/pause, forward, backward and stop) without looking at the player. With the Rio500, you have to either take the player out of it's clip carrying case or just guess whether or not your finger is on the correct button for whatever play back option you are trying to engage. I am able to keep the Rio600 in it's case (I purchased a "generic" Neosporin cell phone clip case and it fits like a glove and works great) while just reaching down, putting my finger on the joy pad and from there it is quite simple to know where all the play back options are. Also, the playback buttons on the Rio500 were "above" the case surface. This made it somewhat necessary to engage the "hold" button on top. With the Rio600, the rim of the joy pad is "flush" with the case surface and then gradually is "indented" into the surface in a "cone like" geometry. So, if you bump the player into a piece of equipment, it is far more unlikely that the playback features will be altered thus making the use of the hold button unnecessary. Again, not engaging the "hold" button then makes it possible to easily engage all the other playback options with the joy pad while actively exercising, etc. This also makes the need for a add on remote less useful. Navigation-Once again...much better than the Rio500. The thumbwheel of the Rio500 is not intuitive in the least. When I purchased the Rio500, the instructions (if you could call it that) that came with it were pretty pathetic. No where did it mention how to access the "submenu" options using the thumbwheel. I found that out after "technical support call #1" (with many, many more to come over the next several months). The Rio600 is very intuitive and very easy to figure out. How can you not understand it with a dedicated button labeled "menu"? Once you hit this button, a row of folder tabs rise from the button of the LCD screen. Very similar to your toolbar in Windows if you have the "auto hide" option chosen. Now here is where it does require a little technical intuition on the users part. You use the joy pad to navigate from one folder tab to the other. You hit the center button of the joy pad to choose your option. You are able to move in all 4 directions and choose the various options with the joy pad. Again, much better than the thumbwheel of the Rio500. Generally, the whole LCD display is far more pleasing than the Rio500. USB Interface and Transfer-Well, hooking up the player end of the USB cable takes a little more effort than the Rio500 but it may be worth. It appears to be much faster than the Rio500 in the transfer rate. Also, if the player is off (in the sleep mode that is)...once you hook up the USB cable the player comes to life and turns on. This seems to indicate that unlike the Rio500, the USB is actually supplying the power during transfer. Big advantage if this is indeed the case...much less drain on the battery. Bottom line...easily a big improvement over the Rio500! And with future accessories (particularly the memory/rechargeable upgrade back packs), this player will even be better. I was going to hold out for the Rio800 but since I was having so many problems with my Rio500 (can you say 4 returned and 5 failed units! ), I decided to grab this as soon as possible. I can honestly say that for $100.00 dollars less than the Rio500...this player has made me one happy consumer. If you think that I am forgetting the fact that this is only a 32meg. player vs. the Rio500's 64megs...please read my initial post about the WMA format support and what this essentially means in terms of total playing time. Also, a few have said that this player is having problems with MP3 playback. I can not speak to this since I only use WMA music files on this player and they all have worked flawlessly. Hoped this information helps, Drew
Rating:
Summary: this rio rocks!
Review: if you are trying to decide between the 600 and other players, your search has ended here. The rio is not only incredibly lightweight but is very small. The software this player comes with is AWESOME it's very easy to use and even reads mp3's from zip disks. If you are thinking about getting a player with flash memory think again not only does the rio come with memory but you can soon buy a 32 megabyte expansion for 50 bucks! try buying a 32 meg flash card at 50 bucks! the diamond comes with headphones that are very comfy and great software, plus a usb cable. I downloaded a 4 meagabyte song in 5 secconds! The usb is not only fast but as soon as i plugged it in it immediatly detected the player. i just can't say enough about this player i would give it 15 stars if amazon would let me! trust me, if you buy this player you won't be dissapointed. p.s.s the sound this baby makes is just like a cd, forget what that other guy said about crackles, it's crystal clear!
Rating: 
Summary: Digital Music Fan in Beantown
Review: WMA's play fine on computer but have skip like noises when transferred...MP3's over 2 minutes never finish, will go right into the next song unexpectedly. Nice package...bad product.
Rating:
Summary: Rio 600's most significant feature improvement is....
Review: WMA SUPPORT! I can't seem to stress this enough! There is one and only one reason I decided to give up on my old Rio500(after multiple failures which are too many to list here) and go with the Rio600 ,it's WMA support. Without it...32megs of memory would certainly not get the job done but with it...32megs of memory is in essence just as good as 64megs. of memory (the Rio500) of a player that only supports MP3. Now before all you MP3 "Loyalist" have a cow...hear me out. I kept reading the claims of Microsoft and their WMA encoding format as being capable of delivering sound quality just as good if not better than MP3@128kbps at half the file size...WMA encoded at 64kbps. Well, after testing the various encoding rates of MP3 and not being able to tolerate anything less than 128kbps (didn't even consider MP3@64Kbps...ouch!)...I really doubted the claims of Microsoft and WMA. However, anything that promises to double my music playing time without having to spend mega dollars through memory expansion and still maintain "near" CD quality sound is certainly worth a try. So that is what I did. I converted several of my MP3's@128kbps to WMA@64kbps and then did a "side by side" sound comparison of the two for any given song. Folks...I was hard pressed to hear any difference in quality. And in those few instances where while listening very hard...I thought there was a small difference...it certainly was not enough to matter. Wow! was I thrilled with the possibilities of WMA. So, when Diamond announced support for this format with their new line of players...I knew that I would purchase the Rio600 as soon as possible. I couldn't help but shake my head as I read one reviewer call the WMA support as ..."meaningless" because it is not an "open" format like MP3. Well, when you are downloading to the player...what does it matter? I have all my music still preserved as MP3's on CD-R's ready for conversion to any other format that may exceed the memory saving space of WMA. Besides the WMA support...this player has so much more going for it than the earlier Rio's and all other players out there. I'm afraid I will be running out of room to go into detail but I just felt with all the complaints about the measly 32megs. of memory with the Rio600...it seems that most people have not attempted or are not aware of the true advantage of WMA...CD quality sound and half the size of MP3 means twice the music! You really owe it to yourself to try it out.
Rating:
Summary: something that you should know
Review: For me and others the rio 600 was a long awaited electronic device. Sadly my first rio was a dud. It cracked and poped and sped up and slowed down unexpectedly. It also thought every song was under a minute and half even though it was not. After playing just a small part of the song it would go onto the next song even though the first one wasn't done. Example: the player says the song lasts 3:44 it ends at only 1:30 into the song. I then spent an hour talking with diamond over the phone and they told me it was a dud. So I took it back after working with it for 5 hours. The new one acts the same way so I tried it on another computer and it plays the whole song now but it still sounds like Rice Crispies. The USB port is squirly and causes the songs to have big glitches but the computer version of the mp3 has no problems the computer version should be identical to the rios version. This prouduct is just begging for a recall. Be smart don't invest in a rio till this one gets a recall.
Rating:
Summary: Rio 600
Review: The Rio 600 is great! The tranfer rate is even faster then the Rio 500, the headphones that come with are great (unlike Rio 500), and it is much more customizeable! There are some probs, first a good amount of mp3s I tried to put on it would not play right! Either they would stop a few seconds in to the song or they would just not play! Also 32 mb is not too much memory, but upgrades comin soon. 3 1/2 stars As soon as I can upgrade and they fix the prob with the mp3s this is perfect till then it is ok! Alex Cutler
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