Rating: 
Summary: ALERT: bogus reviewer, whet34
Review: Just click on this whet34 guy's link (10/15/2003 review) and whaddaya know...12 out of the 13 reviews that he's written thus far (today being 12/12/03) have been of Rio MP3 players, all of them ranting about how absolutely horrible these things are! Obviously:1. He's a disgruntled former employee or soon-to-be former employee of Sonic Blue,
2. He got dumped by some girl (or, who knows, guy) who works for Sonic Blue or owns a lot of their stock,
or
3. He is so incredibly moronic as to actually buy 12 products from the same manufacturer that he swears only makes absolute junk. Amazon, you need to do a better job of filtering out wackos like this! (I'm giving this product 3 stars because I've never owned it, they won't publish this review without a star rating.)
Rating: 
Summary: Great player for workouts
Review: When I workout, I like to workout for a while, generally more than 3 hours. So I purchased this player (256MB Rio Cali), a 128MB SimpleTech Secure Digital Card, and a 512MB SanDisk Secure Digital Card. I put my base set of songs on the Rio itself, and different suites of songs on each of the additional memory cards, with the idea of using one card or another depending on the workout/day. Downloading was easy using the enclosed software, and also via Windows Media Player 9. I've had no problems using Windows XP.
NOTE: One strange thing I found was that I could only download songs onto the Rio and have it recognize the additional memory cards when I removed the battery from the player. The headphones are of fine quality, and their soft cushioning doesn't hurt my ears. The armband strap is soft, and the velco very grippy. And if my MP3 collection wasn't enough, the Radio Tuner works great. It is easy to bookmark stations, and I had no problem picking up all my local favorites.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm hoping my initial difficulties are over
Review: I bought this unit a week ago and it has been extremely frustrating but promising. Had everything gone smoothly it would have gotten 4 stars. I've been keeping mp3 files on dvd-rw media and the disk that was in the dvd drive when I installed the software was corrupted during the installation. A few bucks and an entire day later I had recovered the missing files and everything was working great. The sound quality rivaled my previous iRiver player, and the FM tuner got better reception than the iRiver. I got to enjoy the Cali for a week and then the unit quit working. The error message on the LCD indicated the unit needed a firmware upgrade. I followed all of the rio web site's instructions but the upgrade would fail. After spending a little time on the phone I'm shipping the unit back and getting a replacement. So based on my experience: Pros:
-Good sound quality.
-Comfortable and easy to use while exercising.
-I like that I can expand the memory.
-Efficient and reasonable customer support. Cons:
-Crappy, crappy software. Really quite crappy. I mean come on guys.
-Software installation seems to have corrupted an innocent dvd-rw. Be careful with any mp3s on rw optical disks.
-Headphones are so-so.
Rating: 
Summary: not mp3 user friendly
Review: Good sound but can only use proprietary software. MP3 files will not play on the Cali unless converted through the supplied software. Expansion cards CANNOT be written on anything but the Cali itself. So if I transfer my MP3 files through my card reader writer the Cali does not recognize it and reads the card as empty. If you transfer through the Cali then the PC sees the card as "unformatted" and prompts you to format the card. Major major flaw. I can't think of one reason to complicate life by making the unit so difficult to use and not compatible with standard MP3 format. The result is the user has to transfer all their MP3 files again to Cali proprietary format and only through the painfully slow USB 1.1 that the unit supports. Very poor design flaw. Any SD/MMC card written by the Cali is virtually useless for any other MP3 device or PC. So save your money and look for something else. I compared it the MPIO, which easily read the card written on the PC, but the sound quality was lacking on the low frequency. The Cali actually has nicer sound than the MPIO in my opinion. But after confirming the above with their tech support (which by the way was quick and polite but not so knowledgeable) after checking with his "senior technician" told me there is no way to support MP3 files directly from the PC unless converted through their own software or "Real" but only through the Cali. Another strange design quirk is the fact that every time you change cards you have to remove the battery, then the Cali is reset to "1/1/70" and then you have to reset the date every time!! (Yes, you read right 1970!!) Even a $20 pager can do better than that. Their engineer must be on drugs. Although I liked the sound, I took the unit back to Best Buy the next day. If all you need is 256MB and no expansion, then this unit is OK. But if you need expansion don't waste your money.The Good:1. Good sound.2. Good battery life.3. Simple menu navigation.The Bad:1. Horrible software design.2. No support for standard MP3.3. Cannot use external card reader writer.4. Memory reset every time you change SD/MMC card.5. Flimsy battery door.6. Cards written by the Cali useless for any other player or any PC.7. No color choice, you are stuck with the diarrhea green color.8. Must re-program date/time every time you change cards.
Rating: 
Summary: Just what I was looking for!
Review: I have had the Rio Cali 256 for 5 days now, and love it! I was surprised how small this player was (about the size of my palm), and it is very lightweight. Great item if you work out! I have ordered a 512 mb San Disk card which fits into the battery compartment for extra memory. Now it will hold about 180 MP3's or 340 WMA files (over 20 CD's!). Using the Rio music manager to add or delete songs from the Cali is a breeze! I added about 40 songs in less than 2 minuites! The sound quality is excellent, but i do not use the included headphones. I would suggest investing in a better quality headphone. I can also use my Musicmatch Jukebox (my default music player) to add or delete songs from my Rio Cali. Cons:
1. Volume is pretty good, but should be able to go louder if needed.
2. Does not come with a neckstrap. It does come with an armband/beltclip, which is very durable and protective, but ugly as hell. (an opaqe white)
3. Included headphones are ok, but for better sound I would suggest upgrading.
4. FM tuner was only able to pull-in 3 local stations, not that big a deal because I didnt buy it as a radio! If you have any questions, feel free to email me!
XLJDX@AOL.COM
Rating:
Summary: Wife loves it !
Review: Easy to use.....great product! Stop shopping, this is the one!
Rating:
Summary: Great mp3 player. please read this review
Review: Hi. I bought my Rio Cali 128 mb about 3 weeks ago, and it is great! It is my first mp3 player, but I've done loads of research on them, and this is great! Read these: It's got rubber on it, so it won't break! I've dropped it on comcrete, and not even a scratch! The Rio Joystick is sweet! not neccessary, but i love it. The LCD display is great, you can clearly see what the song is, the artist, what cd it's from, the date and time, and many other things in one glance. (another great thing is you don't have to title the song, when u load it onto your mp3 player, it displays it without u doing anything) The included FM tuner is great! sometimes it is staticy, but i'm pretty sure it uses the headphones as the antennae (dont ask me how), and when I bought a good pair of headphones, I got great reception...so buy another pair of 'phones. really light! less than 2 ounces WITH the AAA battery in it! speaking of batteries, the AAA battery last up to 18 hours...amazing The software's pretty good. If you dont have Windows 98se or up (i have Windows 98 ), don't worry, it comes with RealOne player, which works on lower versions. You have to have Mac OS X for macs...but if you don't, on the iTunes cd (included) it has an installer for Mac OS X. The included case is great! It is plastic, but fits very snugly on the mp3 player. I dropped it on concrete, and it didnt come off. i hope this helped you on your quest to get an mp3 player, and i hope u get this one! (none of the times i dropped the mp3 player were on purpose)
Rating:
Summary: Great workout player, but cludgy for file transfers
Review: I've used this Rio Cali 256 for a few months now, and it plays awesome! I added a 512MB SD card and can fit 13 hours of MP3 music and play it all on 1 battery! The Music Manager application is good for categorizing and transfers, but I used another application to rip my CD collection. You have to use the Rio Taxi if you want to transfer data files, it does not show up in Windows explorer as a drive letter. Taxi is a very tempermental application. When trying to transfer large files (over 8MB) via drag and drop it crashes. It seems to work when right-clicking the large file and choosing Save Item As, then picking the folder where you want to copy it to. Really large files (over 100MB) don't seem to copy at all; the application times out. Can't understand how I copied a 165MB file to the Rio but now can't copy it off the Rio? Copying files to the Rio gave me no problem, just transferring files back to the PC. Copy and Paste doesn't work at all. Since I use this 99% of the time for working out and listening to MP3's, I give it a 3 out of 5. You're better off with a USB jump drive or something similar if you want a small product to transfer files. Music 5 of 5
File Tranfers 1 of 5
Rating:
Summary: Another review
Review: I bought the olive 256MB version and have been very happy with it so far. The 256 holds about 50 songs, more than enough for me but you can supplement the memory with a card if you need to. It's kind of ugly as compared with the Iaudio players but it's design makes it easy to hold and operate when you're jogging. The display is nice and clear. The accessories that come in the package are really good. I bought a set of philips earpieces along with this player but I haven't used them because the ones it comes with are surprisingly good. It comes with a nice elastic armband that doesn't slip. It also comes with a solid plastic clip-in holder for the armband which holds the player tightly in place when running. The software package is easy to use and I haven't had any problems with it on my windowsME system. Basically a solid MP3 player that's great for work-outs.
Rating:
Summary: The Bom
Review: This thing is the Bom... The music management software could use some upgrades, but that's a minor point. Hardware wise, it is solid, functional, ergonomic, all that...
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