Rating: 
Summary: Perfect for the GYM!!!
Review: I just got mine the other day and love it... downloaded songs and was out the door! Its loud crisp and clear...the armband is great.. the menu is easy to navigate.. and the play list works well... The FM radio does work outside fairly well in a metropolitan area if there is a strong radio strength around...If your looking for a solid player to take to the gym and beat around on this is it....I dropped it messing around and it kept right on going... go out and buy one..I also spend alot of time on the treadmill and elipticals and the player stays perfectly still on my arm with the included arm band. The band is very comfortable and the velcro is VERY stong. I really did not like the earphones that come with it, but you can solve that with an inexpensive set of Sony Sports. Software is easy to use and compatible with Windows XP. It was easy to access my stored MP3 files and download them into my player. Take it everywhere, to the gym, work and for a long walk. Sound is very good, volume could be a bit better, but overall, not a bad little MP3 player. I like the new joystick function, and the menu system is a step up from the last one, easy to read and scroll through. I also love the fact that it sits on your arm, it doesn't get in your way really, and I'm a gym rat so I'm always moving around and this seems to work really well for me. If I had to find one complaint (and I would have to search hard), the FM feature may not be the most powerful, but if you are just using it to watch the TV's in your gym it works just perfectly fine, just don't expect to pick up all your favorite radio stations perfectly everywhere. All in all, an awesome player, it holds tons of songs, especially with the ability to add SD memory. Get it and ENJOY!
Rating: 
Summary: nice features, bad sound
Review: First, the good news: the Rio Cali has some excellent advantages over the other mp3 players I looked at. First, it's the only one rugged enough for sports (I take mine snowboarding and jogging), the yellow and black design intentionally recalling the old Sony Sportsman, I think. The arm band and belt clip give you a number of options for carrying it, and both work fine. Also, it's tiny and light and slips easily into your pocket. The player is extremely easy to use with loads of great features. The simple joy stick; the language options; a fully adjustable graphic equalizer (a must for me); date, time, and radio options for Europe, Japan, and the US (I travel to all 3 a lot). The radio is a big selling point, with 8 presets. One surprise feature I love is an "adjustable" key guard lock: you can lock the power button and joystick, but keep the volume free for adjusting. This is just great! Add to that that the volume up/down buttons are different sizes and shape with a raised "plus" sign on the volume up, so you can feel which is which in your pocket. A lot of good thought went into the design. The screen is big and easy to see with lots of nice information, and there're plenty of options for timing its illumination, and also a power-save auto-off feature. The biggest selling point is its expandability: you can slip up to a 512K SD memory card in there to make room for a couple hundred more songs. Never mind that the card will cost more than the player. The software it comes with is well organized, intuitive, and easy to use, or you can use Windows Media Player, take your pick. Now the bad news: first, file organization is a little poor. A folder system would be nice. Instead, you get play lists (which, if you add a whole album to, the songs get alphabetized and thus out of order) or bookmarks. Bookmarks would be great, except you can't name them. You have to remember what was bookmark 1, 2, etc. Perhaps they can fix this with a firmware update (which is updatable from their website). Lastly, and most importantly is the sound: there was a lot of "operational noise" when a song was playing - this had nothing to do with the quality of the sound file, but came from the player. The sound was also a bit flat and tinny - very disappointing. I took it back to the store and exchanged it for a new one, but had the same problem as the first. The other features made it nice enough for me to keep, but especially on quiet songs, I was annoyed. Then I tried some higher quality headphones to check if that was the problem, and indeed it was - with better headphones, the sound was crystal clear, the tones rich, and the equalizer even more effective without any tinniness. SO. For the price it can't be beat, especially if you're using it for sports as it was intended, or for travel. But to get it up to snuff with the more expensive players out there, you're going to have to invest in better headphones for sure (good quality, say 50 bucks minimum) if you want to appreciate digital clarity in all its glory, and the SD card (another 150 for 512K) if you're lazy about swapping out songs. With the upgrade, I'm completely satisfied aside from the bookmarks/folder issue, which could conceivably be solved with software in the future. Still a delight to use straight out of the box if the little whine in the background on quiet songs doesn't bother you too much. Recommended. PS It's been 4 months since I bought it, and I was wrong about the sound with new head phones: that back ground buzz is STILL there. Why has no one else complained about this? The sound was there on BOTH players I bought. You can really hear it when you play an MP3 with the volume all the way down. The buzzing is LOUD. So, I take it all back. The features are great, but in the end, it's the sound that counts.
Rating: 
Summary: Rio is Tip-Top.....
Review: I just received the player yesterday after doing some online research and also read many of the reviews on this site and many other sites. I must say I am very pleased with this unit. I was a little nervous with all the customers that gave it a one star rating. I opened the package and immediately put the battery in to play with it. I tested the sound with the pre-uploaded songs already on the unit, and I was very pleased to hear a crisp clean sound. Nice. That hurdle crossed, I downloaded the software expecting to get at least some problems that some customers have experienced. I got none. It was a breeze and I was uploading music within minutes. Some were from CD's and others were downloaded mp3 files that I had downloaded after I plugged in my Rio. I will recommend this to all my friends. I love it and would have given it 5 stars but I'm going to wait till I get the expansion card and I'll chime in again. And in regards to the diarrhea green color, I'm lucky it's one of my favorite colors. ;) Definitely a good purchase.
Rating:
Summary: great for running
Review: I find the Cali's lightness to be perfect for running, although the set of earphones that comes with it is uncomfortable. The hooks that go over the ears keep falling off while I run, so I'll need to buy another set, which isn't a problem. My other gripe is that the joystick is a bit small and very sensitive. It takes some getting used to. In the beginning, when I needed to press down to confirm a menu selection, if I happened to tilt it to the left or right even a millimeter, I landed in another menu instead. Or as I moved the joystick up and down the menus and happened to press down too hard, I unintentionally selected that menu. But for playback purposes (top is play or pause, right and left move the song back and forward, and down is stop), the joystick works just fine. Using the Rio program is easy too. It did have a problem reading my audio CDs, but it could be due to the foreign-language MS operating system I use. I found that Musicmatch solved that problem, and I was able to rip the tracks that way. Sound quality is good, and you can lock the settings with a switch, ensuring that your player isn't turned on or off automatically, a big plus when it gets knocked around when I'm running or when it's in my gym bag. I also like the shuffle function because I like to mix up the song order each time I run. Overall, I'd recommend this player.
Rating:
Summary: Good player
Review: Did a lot of research before deciding to buy this and I'm very pleased. Wanted to go with a trusted name and Rio has manufactured mp3 players since the beginning. I like the design and think they have created a great little product. The size is perfect for working out at the gym and with the belt clip I don't even know I'm wearing it. The clip/case is well thought out, the display is detailed (Indigo!) and intuitive, the shape and placement of the +/- button is great and even though the earphones take some getting used to the design is right on. The fact that you can expand the memory makes this a real winner-don't know why other manufacturers don't do this-even the ones who make bigger players. So far it is great (the 256mb version is a Cnet Editor's top choice and other than memory the specs are the same so...).
The software is so so but I'm going to download MusicMatch
Rating:
Summary: Nice Player
Review: Okay, here's the deal, if you want this for a radio, don't, the tuner is pretty bad, at least in the Washington DC area. The earphones are relatively uncomfortable, but I don't like ear buds, so that's a personal thing. However, the MP3 sound is very nice, the memory is expandable which is very very nice, but even with the standard 256 MB, I managed to get 67 songs on it right out of the box. Many people say the controls are not easy to use and the software is difficult, but these are probably the same people people that can't program their VCR. The software is very easy to use and works right out of the box (I'm running XP on an Intel chip, don't know about any other setup). I love this thing, it's very light and sounds wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: You Too Will Eventually Be Pleased
Review: Received as a gift from my son who is highly computer literate or more so than myself . I was advised to read and experiment until I configured player to meet all of my needs. He owns a 256. So far this small instrument has proved to be a joy. Read some of the other reviews that other owners have provided and tend to agree with all the positive opinions. USB port is protected if the holster is implemented. I also use other type head phones for running purposes and cannot imagine using the ones that come with the player for either running or easy jogging (maybe my ears are too big). I also reccommend that the Rio Cali website be used for downloading the user software rather than the CD Rom that comes with the player since I ran into USB port malfunction installation problems when I first used the CD Rom and then had to uninstall. Overall well pleased and a great gift.
Rating:
Summary: Well-rounded mp3 player
Review: I got this little thing as a Christmas gift and haven't put it down. It gets a really long battery life and is pretty much indestructible, even for a klutz like myself. The music loading process and installation are nearly foolproof(though I did have to disable anti-virus software for the installation). The small size of the player makes it great for exercise and general transportation. One feature that was helpful was the "expandable memory", allowing up to several hours of extra music to be added to the player. It's a great buy, a much better overall value and much better first mp3 player than the Apple iPod.
Rating:
Summary: Six months with a Rio Cali 256 +128
Review: Hi everyone. I bought my Cali about 6 months ago and have had narry a problem. However, I discovered a,not hidden but under advertised feature. This tiny little radio has one of the best and I mean BEST FM receivers I have ever used. Unbelievable, the Rio FM doesn't wander or fade and has great channel seperation and 3 presets plus auto scan or manual. Plus, with its expandability with up to an extra 256mb SD memory card, you would be able to download about 120 songs. Mine is only expanded 128mb and I have 91 tunes on my Rio, about 6hrs. Battery life is outstanding at aprox. 14 hrs on two AAA batteries. All in all it's been a very good six moths.
Rating:
Summary: Very happy with it
Review: I read 100's of reviews before selecting this and I feel I made a good choice. First the ability to transfer my playlists from Windows media Player was a snap. I was up and running in a matter of minutes. The 256k capacity holds an amazing amount of music. I listen primarily to jazz and I was able to download much of my favorite stuff with plenty of space left over. The size and feel of the unit is perfect for working out or running and it feels durable although I haven't had any mishaps with it yet. The only significant criticsm I have is that the earphones that come with it are a bit uncomfortable but I used another set that I had lying around and they work fine. Sound quality is excellent.
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