1967cutlass
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2004
- Posts
- 926
- Likes
- 10
First of all, This is what I bought.
I was looking for something inexpensive to use when walking to class, and to keep in my bag for times when I'd like to listen to music. My previous mp3 player was an Iriver h320, which was expensive, relatively large, and not particularly easy to use. The first thing that came to mind was the Ipod shuffle. The shuffle is pretty nice, I used one briefly and it did it's job, but it wasn't anything special. Once I found the Rio for this price, I figured I should give it a shot. I've had it for a few days now and I thought I would share my impressions.
1. The first thing I noticed was that it starts up extremely fast, give it a couple of seconds and you're ready to listen to music.
2. The lignting is very nice, the screen lights up white and it's extremely easy to read. the buttons and rio logo light up red and frankly it looks hot at night. Also, a few seconds after you stop pressing buttons, the lights fade off instead of simply turning all the way off.
3. The buttons are in a good configuration. contrary to what you might think, the center button has almost no use and most of the functions are controlled by the scroll wheel (which clicks and functions as a button) and the menu button located just underneath it.
4. The menu system is good, but could quickly be a mess if you haven't tagged your songs and albums, but I haven't really tried putting things in folders yet.
5. Yes, it works like an external hard drive
6. The sound quality was the most shocking thing about this player. My iriver was not nearly as good, the Ipod and Ipod shuffle aren't as good. This is my opinion of course, and the headphones used in testing these were Grado SR-80's. My music is LAME encoded VBR mp3's. The sound is very balanced and full, without harshness or lack (or overpowering) in the bass. It does not, however, get extremely loud, but that could very well be a problem with my ears
.
7. It is smaller than it looks; it is as tall as a flip phone, but wider and about 1/2 as thick. When plugged into the Grados, one could let the mp3 player hang from the cord (you wouldn't want to do this of course) and there is almost no way short of jumping down a flight of stairs that the player would come off and fly towards it's demise. It's pretty light.
8. The unit seems to be pretty sturdy, the buttons don't feel cheap and the back is stainless steel, like an Ipod.
For the sake of not sounding overly biased, I'll now try to think of things I dislike.
1. There isn't a whole lot of storage. 2.5 GB is good enough for me, but if you need to bring your library with you, this won't be your cup of tea.
2. There aren't many features. As far as I know all it has is a stopwatch (which would be useful sometimes I suppose). It has an EQ although I feel it's completely unneccecary.
3. It doesn't support odd formats like FLAC, OGG, MPC, or WMA/XX4 (or whatever Apples format is called).
4. The stock earbuds are dreadful, although this is to be expected. The case that comes with it is pretty much useless as well.
5. The USB cord and charging cord are the same. Yes, the wall plug-in adaptor has a USB plugin that charges the player. I'm pretty sure you can't charge it with the computers USB, so it is impossible to transfer files and charge at the same time. This information may ruin the surprise that an impatiant head-fi-er may soon experience.
Overall, I think it's a great deal for the price, and if you want it for the same reasons I did, you won't be dissapointed.
I was looking for something inexpensive to use when walking to class, and to keep in my bag for times when I'd like to listen to music. My previous mp3 player was an Iriver h320, which was expensive, relatively large, and not particularly easy to use. The first thing that came to mind was the Ipod shuffle. The shuffle is pretty nice, I used one briefly and it did it's job, but it wasn't anything special. Once I found the Rio for this price, I figured I should give it a shot. I've had it for a few days now and I thought I would share my impressions.
1. The first thing I noticed was that it starts up extremely fast, give it a couple of seconds and you're ready to listen to music.
2. The lignting is very nice, the screen lights up white and it's extremely easy to read. the buttons and rio logo light up red and frankly it looks hot at night. Also, a few seconds after you stop pressing buttons, the lights fade off instead of simply turning all the way off.
3. The buttons are in a good configuration. contrary to what you might think, the center button has almost no use and most of the functions are controlled by the scroll wheel (which clicks and functions as a button) and the menu button located just underneath it.
4. The menu system is good, but could quickly be a mess if you haven't tagged your songs and albums, but I haven't really tried putting things in folders yet.
5. Yes, it works like an external hard drive
6. The sound quality was the most shocking thing about this player. My iriver was not nearly as good, the Ipod and Ipod shuffle aren't as good. This is my opinion of course, and the headphones used in testing these were Grado SR-80's. My music is LAME encoded VBR mp3's. The sound is very balanced and full, without harshness or lack (or overpowering) in the bass. It does not, however, get extremely loud, but that could very well be a problem with my ears
7. It is smaller than it looks; it is as tall as a flip phone, but wider and about 1/2 as thick. When plugged into the Grados, one could let the mp3 player hang from the cord (you wouldn't want to do this of course) and there is almost no way short of jumping down a flight of stairs that the player would come off and fly towards it's demise. It's pretty light.
8. The unit seems to be pretty sturdy, the buttons don't feel cheap and the back is stainless steel, like an Ipod.
For the sake of not sounding overly biased, I'll now try to think of things I dislike.
1. There isn't a whole lot of storage. 2.5 GB is good enough for me, but if you need to bring your library with you, this won't be your cup of tea.
2. There aren't many features. As far as I know all it has is a stopwatch (which would be useful sometimes I suppose). It has an EQ although I feel it's completely unneccecary.
3. It doesn't support odd formats like FLAC, OGG, MPC, or WMA/XX4 (or whatever Apples format is called).
4. The stock earbuds are dreadful, although this is to be expected. The case that comes with it is pretty much useless as well.
5. The USB cord and charging cord are the same. Yes, the wall plug-in adaptor has a USB plugin that charges the player. I'm pretty sure you can't charge it with the computers USB, so it is impossible to transfer files and charge at the same time. This information may ruin the surprise that an impatiant head-fi-er may soon experience.
Overall, I think it's a great deal for the price, and if you want it for the same reasons I did, you won't be dissapointed.
