Rating: 
Summary: Little, Blue and Blaster
Review: I love this little item, it travels with me everywhere and has been superior. The small size makes it ultra convenient when packing for airline travel. It is handsize, and the sound is fabulous. A few quirks perhaps from design faults are the buttons and menu which takes a bit to get used to, but once you become familiar with it, it's a great sound machine for people on the go.
Rating: 
Summary: No good!
Review: Yes, the headphones are unusable and don't fit human ears, but most importantly, I had to return 2 of these units because they died after anywhere between 5 and 14 days of use. I changed the battery and that didn't help, either, so there is some defect in the manufacturing process which makes these things blow up relatively quickly.Save the money on this dud until they get it right.
Rating: 
Summary: I have two that I use *constantly*
Review: One of the best things about MP3 players is that you can easily put on whatever type of sound interests you most - whether it's jazz music, old time rock n' roll, or even bird songs! It's perfect not only for music, but also for any hobby that involves sound! For one great price you can get yourself an easily customizeable, greatly dynamic bird song system / language training system / etc. that doubles as a portable jukebox! I love the Rio 600 - I have 2 of them - and they're super easy to load music on and off of. Just rip your favorite CDs, rearrange them into your own personal play sets, and load them onto the Rio. Want to learn a new language? Load up a set of phrases. Going birdwatching at the beach? Stick 20 beach bird songs on there, and there's plenty of room left for some music too! The Rio has been very sturdy for me - we've dragged them everywhere, dropped them, thrown them, and it keeps on running strong. Highly, highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Rio is outstanding !
Review: Quite simply - I have two of them - and for the money - you cannot beat the musical experience.It's true you'll need to probably add the 64mb module to increase the amount of music stored - but you can buy the backpack modules on EBAY used if you'd like. And yes - Windows Media program is definately the transfer program to use. But it works FINE with Windows XP - it recognizes the Rio the second you plug it in. Downloads are fast and easy ! The headphones do have to be replaced for extended listening. Try finding a decent set that ships with ANY portable out there. All of them need to be replaced. You can't beat the experience for the dollars invested ! Buy one - you'll be glad you did !
Rating: 
Summary: It's real nice...while it lasts.
Review: The Rio 600 was a five-star product for the first three months; 3 stars for the next three, after the power slider broke --fortunately it remained in the "on" position :) ; and after six months, it stopped working altogether. Pros:
-Stylish
-Backlit display
-Good sound quality at low volumes, can get very loud (I usually listened at the volume setting of 3 out of 20, given a quiet room--but YMMV depending on the earphones)
-Neoprene belt case at least is rugged :P Cons:
-Poor build quality
-Poor design decisions
-Proprietary memory expansion
-Rioport software works only with CDs as far as I know When I first received the Rio 600 I was thrilled. It felt nice and solid in the hand, the backlit LCD looked great with lots of track information, and the sound quality seemed pretty good. I even grew to like the included earphones, which I found to be perfect for the gym and bike riding, unlike earbuds. (For folks who like that type but hate getting their hair pinched, Sony makes the MDR-W08, which is all plastic). I picked up a 64MB backpack (at a ridiculous price per MB, compared to CF, SM or SD cards) but the Rio600 was one of the few players to natively support Audible.com content, so I felt it was worth it. A few months after I got it, the power slider became stuck in the "On" position. I gave it a tug and it broke, sliding around freely. The player stayed on, however, and since it will go into standby on its own, I didn't mind _too_ much. But I really hated their design decision to use a d-pad button layout, instead of separate buttons for play/pause, ff, previous. I can't count the times I tried to hit pause and went to the next track, or worse yet, hit previous and went to the beginning of the audiobook. I'd rather have something you can operate easily by feel. Then the d-pad quit working entirely (the play/pause button seems to be stuck) and I'm now in the market for a new player :( I hate to say it, but since I have a 64MB paperweight, I'm thinking about giving the Rio 600 another try. It really was nice while it lasted. Then I press the d-pad on my broken unit (nope, still hard as a rock) and decide to look for something better.
Rating:
Summary: I Really Like MY Rio 600!!
Review: I have had my Rio 600 32MB Mp3 Player for almost a month now. I have not had ANY problems with it at all. Tranferring the songs onto the player is quick and very easy. It says in the instructions that you have to install the Real Player onto your computer to work it, but Musicmatch also works with the Rio, and you can reduce the bitrate for mp3 onto it, meaning you don't have to convert to wma format. I reduce mine to 64 kpbs, and it sounds great! There are only two reasons I did not give my rating a 5 star:1) it was only 32 mb, and you defintely need 64 mb, to enjoy the player to the fullest. So, I had to purchase an extra 32 mb backpack for it, but the extra backpack came with a rechargeable battery, and an adaptor, so I don't have to worry about buying new batteries every week. 2) I wasn't too impressed with the earphones that came with it, so I bought another set, which worked out great. I can fit 30 songs on this player, which is just fine with me! This is a great MP3 player, and I highly reccommend purchasing it!!
Rating:
Summary: This is my favorite toy!
Review: I got my player through Audible.com and I love it! It's well made and SIMPLE to use.My only recommendation is that you ignore 99% of the software that comes with it. It wants you to use RealJukebox(which is junk as far as I'm concerned). I discovered that the jukebox I already had on my computer works just fine(MusicMatch). I did eventually buy the memory backpack with the charger. Both of those are also easy to use- it's nice not having to open the back to change batteries.A 32mb player with the 32mb backpack will hold about 16 hours of audio books or a couple of music CDs(depending on the compression rate of your music).I highly, HIGHLY recommend this product.
Rating:
Summary: short of expectations
Review: The Rio 600 was a bit of a disappointment. First of all, within a week or two, the supplied earplugs separated and the control pad used to play the songs became increasingly more difficult to depress. Getting a song to play was at times almost impossible. One thing that I really did not like was the inaccurate power monitor for the batteries. When the Rio said that I had < 4 hrs playing time, it would not play. According to the power monitor, the battery still had 1/3 of its power, but yet the Rio did not play. I must say that I have been dissappointed with the Rio. I would recommend the Rio as a[n]..alternative to people...
Rating:
Summary: No Problems with Audio Books !!
Review: i got one of these through a book club and i haven't had any problems...i see all these poor reviews and wonder if there was a BAD lot...this player is easy to use and about the only minor problem is you should really purchase the optional battery backpack which gives you more memory and a recharger....i will say i haven't downloaded songs on to this player, i only go to my book site and listen to books so maybe there are problems with mp3 listening that im not aware of...if you are reading this because you are thinking of signing up for the book club, then don't hesitate, as far as the books are concerned, i am very satisfied with this product.
Rating:
Summary: Poor Software and Customer support
Review: I wish I could tell you how this product performs. Unfortunately the software, real Jukebox that comes with it or the Windows Media player intermittingly does not recognize the device. It took me several hours to figure out how to load songs onto the device. The Real Jukebox software is very intrusive, loading many things onto your computer. When I tried updating the software, it would only give me a 14-day trial to the new software and asked me for a credit card. I am a literate computer user and fond this device to be very difficult to load songs. Customer support give you the wrong email address and cannot forward you email to the proper division.
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