Rating: 
Summary: Good Buy
Review: Great buy. Works excellent, sound is great, quality of the product is more than what I feel like I payed for. Little confusing on the set up and getting to where you can transfer music. Only other draw back is the inability to use the buttons while working out. Other than that, this is a great mp3 player for the money and a great starter one, as in my case.
Rating:
Summary: Great MP3 Player With An Average FM Tuner
Review: This MP3 player has worker great for me and I haven't had any problems with it yet. The clip earphones that it comes with are a pain so I just tossed them and use my own headphones. The MP3 player works perfectly and has a little thumbstick you use to navigate through songs and switch from tuner to your music. The software it comes with helps very much, but I prefer to not use it and transfer songs manually. You can fit about 35 songs on here but it all depends on the size of your songs. The memory is expandable with a compact flash card, and you don't have to buy a cable for the flash cards because you just put it in the slot at the top of the player, and transfer. The player also comes with a USB cable which you use to transfer songs to your MP3 player that works great. There are also different audio equalizer settings you can choose from, including your own custom one.The FM tuner isn't the greatest quality, but you can still use it. You often hear this loud annoying beeping noise and you can't hear the station. But, a very good value for an MP3 player and a decent FM Tuner. The color is darker than the picture shown above, and is very, very, small. It can fit in the middle of your palm. But all in all, this is one of the better quality MP3 players out there, excellent value for it's quality.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good entry level player
Review: My first review, and first MP3 player. I bought this more than a month ago @ Sam's Club mainly because it was cheap ($128 Cdn), and the box said it would support .wma and mp3pro files. I use it for exercising (skipping) so the flash (no moving parts) memory was important. I don't download music and only rip my own cds for listening. The armband is good, a comfortable fit and easy to take on and off. My only point of comparison is the Sony armband radio for jogging, and the RCA Lyra armband is slightly more comfortable. The design of the sleeve that holds the player is poor. There is access to the volume, and that's it. You can't get at any of the controls on the face of the player without taking it out. Not so handy when you're working out. Headphones are OK. Sound is good, but design is not the greatest staying on comfortably, so I use a pair of Sony headphones (no foam covers, inside the ears, over the head - stay on perfectly). The FM radio reception is inconsistent. It doesn't seem to be related at all to the headphone wires (which is the antenna on most portable FM radios). Someimes when there is a lot of static on a channel, hitting the "stop" button will improve reception substantially and immediately. This one came with Musicmatch Jukebox version 7.5. It supports mp3pro and I took the free upgrade to support .wma files (version 8.0). I did not buy the upgrade to Jukebox plus. I have absolutely no experience with this or any other music management software, but this seemed particularly difficult to use. Some of the functions are not intuitively obvious, and there were a few bugs that make it even harder to use (e.g. to rip a cd that you have just put in the cd drive, you can't record them directly from the recorder window since it won't recognize anything being in the drive [in spite of it playing and showing up in the play window up top]. You must click the copy button twice in the play window: once closes the recorder window, twice opens it again with the full list of the cd in the recorder window, and then you can hit the record button in the recorder window). A bit more documentation for the software specifically and the different music formats in general (for a beginner like me) would have been useful. It took a bit of experimentation to figure out the best way to rip music (having had no prior experience with copying music onto digital media). The best sound came from copying into mp3pro at the maximum 96 kbps (they say "CD transparent"). Ripping music into .wma with a maximum speed of 64 kbps results in files that are about 1/3 smaller, but there is an audible high pitched hiss that is most notiiceable in between songs but can be heard throughout playback. This is faint enough that any noise of exercising drowns it out. However, mp3pro at the same 64 kbps gives you a file size about 9/10 that of .wma with comparable sound quality, so that is what I use. Part of the reason I think the player was a good deal is the (included) software's ability to compress in the much more efficient mp3pro format, which a lot of the low end players don't. Another reason not to save music as .wma files: the Musicmatch Jukebox software won't recognize .wma files saved onto the Lyra player. It will transfer them from my computer. It will recognize that there is less memory in the player than before. The songs will play on the player. But you can't manage (e.g. delete) your .wma files using the software. To remove songs, I used Windows to look on the Lyra (like a separate drive) and delete the files. The upgraded firmware/software seems to have fixed the problems that others have complained about relating to the wmy files. Small gripe about the memory: after uploading all the drivers to support all the different formats, there's only 120 MB left (out of the 128 total) before putting any music on it. The random playback function isn't really random. It does play the songs out of order, but it is always the same order (until I change the songs on the player). Probably the algorithm for random playback is too simple. I haven't kept track of battery life, but it seems to do a little better than the commonly stated 7-8 hrs. However, compared to other players that take only 1 AAA (instead of 2 for this Lyra) it does go through batteries a lot faster. The NiMHs I'm using seem to be doing pretty well. I've never used the memory slot so I can't comment. It's only been a month, so I won't know how reliable it will be (which seems to be a common complaint) for a while. The USB connection does seem a little slow, but nothing to compare it to. Looking over my review, it seems like there are a quite a few problems, but the price more than makes up for them. Good player for someone starting out, if you can figure out the software.
Rating: 
Summary: I'd give it zero stars if I could!
Review: If you're unlucky enough to buy this, then I feel sorry for you. I bought one of these in Oct. 2002. Quirky, but acceptable. The unit's problems are well-documented elsewhere. The screen went completely blank in Jan. 2003. Sent it in for repair. Waited for 6 weeks; it came back with a note saying I needed a return-authorization before I could send it in. Then I called customer service. These people are worthless, and woe unto you if you ever must deal with them. "We'll send you a new one". "We'll send you a refund". "We'll offer you a partial refund". "We'll send you a different model". None of these events ever happened, even though my phone calls to "customer service" stretched into the summer 2003. Henceforth, I will never again purchase any product with the RCA logo on it. Thomson is their parent company, and I believe they also own the GE consumer-electronics trademark (not sure) - if so, I'll avoid that brand too.
Rating:
Summary: How?
Review: The mp3 player itself is great so far but for the life of me i cannot figure out the software. It loads on my computer and it does nothing else. i cant put music on the player. the software asks me about "drivers" and things of that sort. what do i know about that.
Rating: 
Summary: Makes working out fun again!
Review: I've had this MP3 player for a little over a month now, which I think is adequate time to evaluate it. I purchased it at my local Target. I previously owned a Virgin Pulse 64 MB MP3 Player--it was too clunky, used (flimsy) smartmedia for expansion, and had weird issues with the buttons, so I exchanged it for the Lyra. What a difference fifty bucks makes. For the price, I think this little player is pretty tough to beat. It included all the features important to me--FM tuner, expandability (non-smartmedia, please), good sound, small size, and an armband. I principally work out in a gym either running on the treadmill or using an elliptical trainer, and the belt clip on the Virgin pulse just wasn't working for me. The armband packaged with this mp3 player stays where I put it and doesn't pinch unless I accidentally cinch it too tightly. It doesn't allow access to the buttons through the armband, but it is easy to get in and out of one-handed if I want to fast-forward or switch to radio mode. The headphones sound pretty good for OEM headphones. Their design is a little unusual--they clip directly to my ears, but I've come to like them as well, as they stay put and also do not pinch. The FM tuner is a *little* on the weak side, but I prinicpally use it to tune to the audio tracks of the TVs at my gym, and it works perfectly for that. It is pretty efficient with the batteries--I picked up some rechargeables to use with it, so I'm not buying lots of batteries. The software is passable--a word to the wise, just install the MusicMatch software and skip the rest unless you're interested in signing up for a bunch of pay services. Unlike the older revisions, I do not have to convert my MP3 files for use with this player--just drag and drop in Windows if I see fit!
Rating:
Summary: Problems at First...Great Now.
Review: I've owned the RCA RD1080 for a year now and did have some problems at the beginning. But after getting a new one (thank goodness for Future Shop Warranty) I've had no troubles. After getting it, I installed the software and like everyone mentioned realized then that you had to use MusicMatch software to convert MP3's to MPY's. (Not sure what the Y stands for). But it did have a proprietary format. That sucked, it took a while to copy songs. Using the player it crashed constantly. Certain songs would cause the player to just halt, and only pulling the battery out would solve it. The final trouble came when I dropped it while at the gym and the right channel stopped working. It looks durable, but I only dropped it once. Well, I brought it back to Future shop and explained everything to them and they gave me a brand new one out of a box immediately. I didn't even have to get mean. Well, the new one was much better. It had the upgraded firmware and now suppported MP3/WMA and a few other types. But most importantly you could drag and drop files right in windows. It was so easy now. Also, it now never crashes! Quality is great, the earphones are ok. Buttons are usuable. There is a lock fuction to lock the keys if you have it in your pocket. FM tuners works good. Lasts about 7 hours on re-chargable batteries, usually change them once a week (with daily playing). I've never used the SD slot, so I can't comment on that. If you bought it a while back and still have problems, you can get the firmware upgraded.
Rating: 
Summary: Good until it breaks
Review: I was pretty pleased with this when I first got it. The sound quality for the mp3 is good, and surprisingly the radio was pretty good as well. MusicMatch Jukebox was all right. I was hesitant of installing it on my computer due to the horrible ratings of it, but once i did, I didn't think it was as bad as they claimed. The only problem was that it was slow and took up memory on my computer. Then I found out that once you plug in the USB, a new drive will appear on you computer and you can just drag and drop. So technically, you don't need to install MusicMatch Jukebox. The arm bad was good; it stayed secure around my arm while I was exercising and it's pretty comfortable. The headphones are a little more complicated to use than other ones, so that could be improved. I don't think there are many faults with this mp3 player, but of course, there are some. I accidently dropped mine and the volume button got stuck. Now whenever I turn it on, the volume automatically lowers. Another fault is that is that it uses up the batteries fairly quickly, but what do you expect when it runs on only 2 "AAA" batteries? Overall, I thought it was pretty good besides the point of having the volume stuck. Warranty for a free exchange is only 3 months.
Rating:
Summary: MUSICMATCH made in Hell
Review: MusicMatch is the worst software ever. DO NOT SUPPORT RCA MP3 players until they support drag and drop. If you can't drag and drop your music files to your MP3 player, you're getting ripped off. iRiver products all support drag and drop. And you don't need MusicMatch's permission to put MP3 files on YOUR mp3 player.
Rating:
Summary: Software Doesn't Work...Beware!
Review: My daughter purchased this player. It works with the included software and the base memory only. They have a bug in their SD support and Windows 2000/XP does not allow you to actually use the card. I didn't know this when I purchased a $80 SD card to provide additional storage. Also, this uses Musicmatch which insists on upgrading itself from the from the version included with the player. If you perform the upgrade the software doesn't work properly with the player (yes--I installed the new plug-in). All in all this is clearly a device built by a company that doesn't know how to interface to windows and it has caused plenty of grief in our house.
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