Rating: 
Summary: A waste of money
Review: I have bought the Rio Volt 350 in Dec. 2002 and I'm very disappointed. The sound quality is very good, but there is so much skipping that it is not only no fun it is unusable. I send a list of problems (skipping, stopping to play music, not being able to read audio cd's, empty batteries after playing for two hours) by e-mail to the costumer support of sonicblue. I have been waiting for an answer for two weeks.Since there are so many other consumers with similar problems I warn to buy this product. It is a waste of money. This product is a desaster.
Rating:
Summary: Do Not Buy...
Review: Got first unit, skipped and was very iffy reading CDs. Also, had glitches in software. Called Sonic Blue, first told me get a cleaning kit for their brand new CD player! After a little more discussion they had me send back mine and sent me a new one. This one is even worse. It is unusable, skips on various CDs and menu system is buggy. Do yourself a favor and wait until the next version of software comes out.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I have a 90, 100 and have tried the 250 and the 350 leaves a great deal to be desired. It does not handle files well, can read only a limited number of files, does not have resume and is difficult to navigate. The older models have superior firmware. Perhaps SonicBlue will fix these problems with new firmware. It should have been done before release to the public.
Rating:
Summary: 1 word 2 describe this HORRIBLE
Review: I thought about purchasing this Mp3/CD but when I went to the store I was unimpressed. I didn't like the way the CD players contols were. I previously owned a RIoVolt SP250 and this is nothing compared to it. The only thing good about it is its slim. I would recommend buying the iRiver SlimX 350. It is a much better player. Rio products are going down hill. Ulike versions of RioVolt this iRiver player for once displays names of songs on regular Auido CDs unlike RIo.
I have 1 thing to say forget this CD player get the iRiver SlimX 350
Rating:
Summary: One Month to Fix "Programming Errors", according to Mfr.
Review: This thing is very disappointing. It skips like crazy, turns off at random moments, and is really not Ultra thin. I chose this specific model because of the FM tuner, but it doesn't work at all. Once I FINALLY got a hold of a tech support person at sonic blue (after being on hold twice for over 1/2 hour), I was told that there is a programming error with this model, and they might have a fix for it in about a MONTH. Forget it. Sending it back for a refund. :(
Rating: 
Summary: it's not an SP250
Review: I have an SP250 and like it a lot. I couldn't find a 250 for my daughter so I bought her the SP350. (Aparently the 250 has been discontinued.) I thought that the higher model number and the higher price of the 350 meant it was a better player than my 250. Bad assumptions. Knowing what I know now, I should have bought a refurbished 250. The 350 won't use standard AA batteries. The 250 has that option (it comes with rechargables). Unlike the 250, the 350 doesn't display as much information in the display and it's not formatted in a way to make it easily understandable. The 350 doesn't have as many ways to configure it's operation as the 250 does. The 250 has a great equalizer that is very flexible. The 350 has a rather crude equalizer that has no flexibility in the way it can be configured.
I don't understand why Sonic Blue would discontinue their best CD/MP3 player and replace it with something that costs more, but doesn't work as well. The SP250 was a great product. I've seen used ones selling for $200! I'm afraid to leave mine unattended on my desk.
Rating:
Summary: definetly not worth it...yet
Review: OK lets make this simple. I used to have a rio volt sp250 and it was great all around, practically the best piece of electronices Ive ever owned. So when that bit the dust (wish I saved the recipt) I though why not upgrade, how could rio go wrong. Well they definetly did and I am still baffeled by how... The sp350 looks good, feels great and is definetly sturdy all around, there is no problem with that. Where you will find trouble is in the playback and the technical support. The thing skips through every song sometimes even skipping from one song to a completely different song in a remote folder! When you play audio cds it tends to freak out with ASCII code until you have to shut it down and start again. And the technical support is absymal, no one answers your calls and they only play one track of horrible music the whole time (psych out I assume they must be jammed with calls about this although they said I was the first), then of course when they answer you call they provide you with no real soultions anyway...So for potential give this thing a 5 for actuall performance give it a 0!! It could all be fixed with a firmware upgrade I am hopeing, but until then its completely uesless to me. Stay away!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Beware!!; The worst buy that you can make
Review: Well, I bought it just when it was released, so that was the first problem, you can't read users reviews(lesson learned).
After charging the unit for about 6 hours, it started the real problem. I tried to play standard music CD's and it skipped all time, then strange ASCII symbols appeard on the LCD instead of the usual "track 01"(and for what I'm reading, I'm not the first one). Never worked. I sent it back 3 days later.
Dont buy it!!
Rating:
Summary: Mine failed on both MP3 and regular audio CDs
Review: As others have said, this is a sleek and shiny unit. The feature set is impressive. But the unit I got should have never made it out the door. The unit fails when playing MP3 recordings. It stops playing in the middle of a selection and will often skip to the next selection. The unit fails when playing commmercially-available audio CDs. Again, it was skipping. The unit's display also went into "matrix mode" when moving between tracks: the two lines of alpha would display unintelligable characters. I had to shut down the unit before the display started prompting/displaying in English again. I called support. They asked what sampling frequency I used (256kbps). They told me to use a lower sampling frequency and try again. I asked why; they could give no explanation. Since the exact same MP3 CD worked in earlier RIO players and this device is spec'd to deal with 256kbps, I ignored this recommendation. They also insisted that I needed to update the firmware on the unit with the SP250 firmware from Rio's site. I downloaded the firmware, burned it on a CD, and tried to load it. "No File" error. I tried again. Same error. I was experienced doing this operation from my earlier Rio PSX100 unit. Three days later, I called support again. They said that the person who made the recommendation was wrong and were very sorry that they had sent me on a wild goose chase. There may be good units out there, but mine is getting returned. These units appear to have been shipped with no QA cycle at all. I'm a big fan of the MP3 CD format. I got the Philips Expanium when it first came out and have used the Rio PSX100 for a couple of years. This unit was a big disappointment to me. I hope that SonicBlue deals with the quality problems.
Rating:
Summary: Truly a terrible player
Review: I bought this thing after hearing the praise of the sp 250. At first, I had problems with the display listing garbage instead of song titles, but dismissed it as thinking they will get a new firmware up... this was not the case. their website which is truly terrible has no info or support on the 350 and their customer support line is even worse. You wait for hours and then they just hang up on you.
For a product that says "won't skip" it skipped a lot. I wasn't even jogging or walking. I was just sitting down listening to music on it.
The radio is garbage too. When they say FM tuner, they mean static tuner.
Do yourself a favor and don't buy this. I am going to return it and get an ipod instead.
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