[jpelg]

Just a heads up, for those that may be interested, that Geeks.com has new, 20G Rio Riot's at a pretty good price:

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=RIORIOT

Admittedly a bit "long-in-the-tooth". And support from Sonic Blue may be questionable, or non-existent. But these are supposed to sound pretty good. For the price...

 

[Peddler]

This is an excellent sounding player. Be warned though, slow connection and non-replaceable battery make it somewhat limiting compared to the NJB3, Zen and IPOD but a great sounding player nontheless.

 

[andrzejpw]

The price is right, however with the limited support and non-replaceable battery, remember that if anything ever happens. . .

 

[meithkiller]

Thanks for the heads-up, jpelg. I think I'm going to order one tomorrow morning. I've been debating on what format to get for my next mp3 player, between high capacity flash, CD/MP3, or hard drive based. I have an older CD/MP3 player, my Visor holds 64MB of MP3's, and now I can try a HDD based player for very little money.

I've looked around for different opinions/reviews on the Riot, and the two biggest criticisms I found were the slow USB 1.1 connection and the non-replaceable battery. Neither one should be an issue for me. My PII 350 PC only has USB 1.1, and I don't have any plans to upgrade or replace it. I plan to load the songs once, and not swap music out every week. Also, IMHO, there is no such thing as a non-replaceable battery. I've got some experience working with electronics, and if I can get the unit apart (shouldn't be a problem), I can replace the battery. It will likely be a lot more difficult than if Rio designed it to be easily user-replaceable though.

With an eight month old mouth to feed and another baby on the way in about seven months, this will likely be my only chance to own a high-capacity HDD based MP3 player for quite some time.

-Keith

 

[DLP]

I posted this somewhere else that mentioned this deal but want to post it here too:
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2103.html

Be careful with those guys. Some of the negative reports there are pretty serious.

EDIT
That said, I'm seriously tempted by this. But I'm also very wary. Anyone want to try first and please report back? This reminds me too much of the ordeal with those JVC headphones from Etronics.

 

[meithkiller]

I think I've ordered from them once before, a PCMCIA modem for my laptop a year or two ago, and things went ok. It's always a risk ordering from a new company on the internet, especially one with some negative feedback, but I'm going ot risk it. I'll keep you posted.....

-Keith

 

[PeterDLai]

Just like to add that this once sold for $400 and people actually bought it at this price, so..

Before, I would trash this player, but now I'm not so sure. At $135 it seems really really cheap for a 20 GB player, but then again it's kind of big, but $135! Agh choices choices. I don't know if there is a car adapter available for this, but if there is (I can't seem to find out), then I'd probably get this for my car at least.

 

[austonia]

since this is a new item, keep in mind the 20gb notebook drive is worth about $70 by itself. I've ordered from compgeeks before with no problem.

 

[purk]

Hi,
Excellent deal, I must admit. But bigger size is a turn off when compare to other available units. I've seen Bose outlet store sold this before.

Purk

 

[austonia]

I almost ordered one just to toy with, since its so cheap, but a quick scan of reviews landed me at gear.ign :

http://gear.ign.com/articles/356/356405p1.html

"I think that the software further slows the transfers. You Mac users will be happy to learn that the Riot ships with iTunes. You PC users, however, will be depressed to discover that SONICblue decided on Real Jukebox for the software. Real makes the worst software ever. Naturally, as soon as I installed the program, it started taking over everything in its path. My hatred toward Real has helped me to develop a natural resistance to it, so I can deactivate everything quickly. I feel bad for those of you who have to put up with the software, though. And yes, you must use Real Jukebox for transfers. You cannot drag and drop files onto the Riot, which is a real drag. This also means that you cannot use the Riot as a generic portable drive."

Real is, in fact, the worst software known to man, being just a hair's difference from classification as a computer virus. Solutions like this are exactley why a company will go bankrupt.

If you're gonna buy it, load the music up on somebody else's computer. You may never get Real off your own PC. And, its gonna take some time. IGN found a 5mb file takes 15 seconds... so figure about 15 hours to load it up. DAMN.


***EDIT***

OK, apparently you can actually use Windows Media Player 9 to load tracks onto the player. I found this :

"Go to Microsoft and search for "Rio Riot" drivers. You should find something with the following description. ...

Windows Media Player 9 Support for XP and Windows XP Plus! Digital Media Edition's Portable Audio Devices Power Toy
Version: 1.86
Date: 3/04/03
File Size: 271 KB

This file is provided to owners and users of the Rio 600, 800, 900, RioRiot, or Nike psa[play for the express purpose of using Windows Media Player 9 to transfer music tracks from the computer to the Rio players and supporting Windows XP Plus! Digital Media Edition's Portable Audio Devices Power Toy. Please note that if you would like to add support for your Rio player to Windows Media Player 9, you must have the public release of Windows Media Player 9 installed to use this upgrade.

To begin the installation, expand the contents of the .zip file LegacyRioSupport_MyAudio_WMP9.zip to a known directory. Browse to that directory and double click on the Sbdrvsetup.exe file and the installation will begin."

 

[DLP]

I read the first 3 or so pages of feedback from compgeek. These guys have been around for a few years, and "New" doesn't mean you actually get a new product. Lot of people there had bought stuff that was supposed to be new, but got what was obviously used hardware. Or the wrong hardware in the box for the product they bought. I'm more worried about these units actually functioning myself. But, if a few people have success, I'll most likely be going for it.

 

[austonia]

just buy with a credit card, and if they try to **** you with used or nonfunctional goods, just call up the card and put a dispute on the charge. then you don't pay and compgeeks gets a "charge-back". basically, just always buy with a credit card for that reason.

 

[purk]

out of stock.

I'm fine with my 10 Gig iPod.

 

[meithkiller]

Looks like I got my order in just in time this morning. I ordered the Riot at 8:30am, and I got an email saying they shipped it out at 12:30. I should have it by the middle of next week, with ground shipping from CA to OH.

-Keith

 

[purk]

Keith,
Howdy? Long time no see? I hope you will enjoy your new player.

Purk