Rio Cali 256 MB Sport MP3 Player

Rating:
Summary: Excellent MP3 Player
Review: I bought the Rio Cali 256 MB Sport MP3 Player for running. It doesn't skip and is extremely light. The arm band is great - keeps it place nicely.

The headphones are good, though they do not provide much in the way of adjustment and fit loosely on my ears. The headphones occasionally pop out of place in my ear, but have never fallen off (a minor annoyance that I attribute to using while running, but a tighter grip on the ear wrap would probably prevent it.)

The player is easy to use (intuitive interface) and the display is very informative. I have not been able to get decent FM reception, but the FM tuner was a bonus for me, so I don't really care that it doesn't work. Other reviews correlate FM reception to the quality of the headphones. If you care about the FM reception, you may want to read the other reviews.

Battery life is fantastic compared to CD players (it only takes one AAA).

Compared to portable CD players, MP3 players, especially this variety (large storage volume, light, long lasting and easy to use) are terrific.

Rating:
Summary: I love my Rio Player!!
Review: I absolutely love my Rio Player - I bought it originally for running, but now it travels eveywhere with me! Easy to load and change songs, it fits loads of music and sounds great. Have dropped it several times(by accident) - no noticable damage, yet.

Great software that periodically updates itself, hase a great DJ feature that will make custom mixes for you.

Buy alot of batteries if you use it as much as I do!!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Rating:
Summary: A Lemon
Review: I purchased 2 of these players for christmas gifts for my kids. One of the players started displaying "upgrader". I contacted rio, they told me to download some firmware. This did not work. The technical support people said, oh, too bad, player doesn't work and it is out of three month warranty....they would gladly replace for full price. They would also keep my information on file...in case I needed anything else.
Is this a front for customer service? Rio is no LLBean or LandsEnd. They stand behind their products, and know what brings a customer back year after year...

Rating:
Summary: Great little player. Crappy SD slot
Review: I like the player. The sound is good, the equalizer is nice for fine tuning, the capacity is good plus you can add more songs with SD expansion cards. The controls are easy to use and with practice can be manipulated without looking. The lock switch is nice to prevent accidental shutoffs.

That said, the position of the SD card slot stinks. Why do I need to remove the battery to change the card? Why can't it slide out the side or top like a PDA does? I also had a problem with the feel of the slot. It didn't go in easy and I couldn't always tell if it was in far enough for it to be recognized. It always felt spongy. It was hit or miss whether the card was in far enough to be recognized. They need a slot like the PDA mechanism (push to lock, push again to unlock). Instead you have to jam the card in, and pull it out with a fingernail to get it out of the slot.

I dropped the unit once which caused the volume +/- switch to jam. The unit wouldn't play because it kept trying to lower the volume. I figured out what was happening when I put the player into lock mode. It kept coming up with a lock error. I had to crack open the case (no warranty when buying used). I couldn't get the case to come completely off, there is something preventing its removal at the top of the unit. I did get it opened enough to pull out the volume switch and use a jewelers screwdriver to pop the little microswitch actuator out (unjammed it). While I was in there, I noticed a little rubber piece by the SD slot that was preventing a good seat of the card. I think it is supposed to provide resistance so the card doesn't move. I took some needlenose pliers and removed the rubber piece (it was just loose in there). Now the card seats well. It's possible it may jar loose if the unit is dropped.

Overall a good player, worth purchasing.

Rating:
Summary: Good player
Review: I am very pleased with my Rio Cali. Have had it over a month now. Transferring mp3s to it is fast and easy even with usb 1. Although I haven't tested it, it can also store other file types for storage or transferring between computers, although I am pretty sure it needs the Rio software to be on all the computers it is transferring between. Sound quality is good. Most of my mp3s are 160 or 192 with a few 128s. Of the songs I've had on the player a few have been 128bit but they still sounded ok. The equalizer has a few presets and can also be customized. I haven't messed with that other than to see if the changes are noticeable, which they are. The FM tuner sounds good the little bit that I used it. The headphones are the fit in your ear kind and have a bendable rubber part that goes over the top of the ear. They also have foam on them. Much better than my old gameboy ones which didn't have foam or the over the top part. The over the top part did not interfere with my sunglasses either. One major feature that was a deciding one in what mp3 player to buy is the ability to use MMC or SD memory cards in addition to the built in 128mb of storage. My digital camera also uses MMC/SD as does my Palm Pilot so it's nice to only have to buy one type of card. The armband worked well too. Over all I recommend this player.

Rating:
Summary: Strange problem - won't stay on
Review: The device exhibits this strange behavior that every time I turn it on and start playing a song, it shuts off after about 5 seconds of play and then restarts itself. This behavior lasts for about 3-5 minutes, after which it works fine (no further shutting off). Otherwise the player seems to work OK.

Rating:
Summary: A fix for some of the problems people are complaining about
Review: I don't work for Rio company. Just a happy customer. Initially, I had problems with noise at low volume when using WMA files at 192kbps --> I converted these to 64kbps and the noise is gone and no degradation in quality. In doing so, I am able to store even more music. I will try to test it at even lower sampling rate.

Earphones is cheap, I agree. But if you want better quality, consider Sony clip-on ear phones (about $12.) It comes in green matching color with the machine itself.

Windows Media Players can be used to transfer to Rio Cali, making it easy to use. I didn't have to use the software that came along with Rio.

Also, I store music on computer at 192kbps and separate folder for Rio musics which is sampled at 64kbps. I would recommend buying the MS Plus Multimedia version that has the Audio Converter that easily convert to any type or sampling rate.

Rating:
Summary: Fico
Review: This item is Great!!! It work with every program that dowload music.
I highly reccomended, although the only problem is the memory space but the good thin is that you can buy a additional memory card.

Rating:
Summary: Liked the MP3 Player, but
Review: I think they could have provided better headphones. These were comfortable, but keep coming out of my ear with light work out events. I had to change to a new set in a couple weeks. I did give these a few chances, but they never really worked well in my ears. I've seen a number of people with the same MP3 player, but everyone had changed their headphones.

The software for moving thing from your computer to the MP3 player has a few other things to be desired about it as well. I did not like when you had several "Greatest Hits" albums loaded. You had to go into these albums to find your one artist you where looking for. They should have a better way of displaying these albums, since they are all stored in seperate directories on my harddrive.

All in all I would recommend this MP3 player. It is very sound and good quality. The sound quality is very good and the operations are very sound as well.

Rating:
Summary: On-off switch stuck
Review: Excellent player. Its light and the controls work well. Usability and software is excellent. Unfortunately, the on/off switch got stuck in after 5 months of use and RIO will not fix or replace it, unless we pay $100. I would expect a little more durability from a player at that price.