Customer Reviews

RCA Lyra RD2765 5 GB Digital Jukebox with Color LCD Screen

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This player is very attractive to look at and the controls are better than some other players. The battery life doesn't come anywhere close to what is advertised. I have found some flaws which I'll discuss below.

1. The player requires Windows Media Player 10 in order to be recognized by Windows. If you get a message that the unit is malfunctioning, just hold down the center button continuously while plugging it in the USB port and it will reboot.

2. I am using WMA files at 64kbps. I know that these files are fine because they work perfectly in other devices. In this Lyra there is a tendency to skip a few times each song. No lockup, just skipping. After backing up the default folders and clearing the songs I did a format as this usually fixes the problem. After reloading the songs I found the problem still there. Not good.

3. The unit gets VERY hot if you are downloading for a long time. I wonder if this has contributed to the meager battery life. I am fortunate to get 3 hours between charges.

4. Do NOT let the player profile songs by itself after a hotsync. You will wind up with album titles but the song selection will say "track 1", "track 2" etc. The right way to profile after downloading is by doing it on the computer. In the taskbar there is a LYRA icon. Right click and select profile songs. Everything comes out perfectly and it takes seconds instead of minutes the other way.

5. If you are in the middle of an album and have to turn the player off don't expect to be returned to where you left off. Every time you turn it off you go back to square one and have to start all over again. I think that this is the most annoying trait of the Lyra. Very, very annoying.

6. The included case is well above average but the power button couldn't be in a worse place. You have to hit it when taking the player out of the case and it sometimes engages while in your pocket. Also, when you activate the hold function to lock all the buttons, it doesn't really lock the power button. Here's why. You get a message to unlock the player on the color screen. And it stays on until you unlock. I took the player out with a full charge and on hold. It was in my shirt pocket. I unwittingly must have pressed against the power button. It is so easy to do. Well, a few hours later I went to use the thing and noticed the unlock message. It must have been on for some time because after unlocking it the thing died. Dead battery. I recharged the battery and then duplicated the situation. Sure enough the message stayed on; the screen stayed lit and the battery died after only an hour. This is unacceptable.

Overall, I would have liked to give this Lyra 2765 a higher score. It is the right size and the controls are very user friendly. However, it seems that on the whole this player was not well thought out. There are other players out there for the same money that do a much better job. It made me wonder when I first opened the quick start guide that the first thing you read is a notice that if you are having trouble with WMP 10 go to a certain website for a fix. Apparently RCA doesn't have much confidence in their product either. I hope this review helps anyone thinking about buying the Lyra 2765.

The Good Stuff

- Small dimensions, average build-quality

- Shiney, polished-metal style materials (plastic, actually)

- 5Gb MicroDrive

- 5-way joystick plus a mechanical wheel-scroller for zooming quickly through lists

- Charges over USB

- Color screen (not TFT, the duller type)

- File/Folder browsing AND iD3 based browsing (Artist, Album, Track, Genre, Year, etc)

- Profiling (can scan tracks and self-databased iD3-tag info like Rio Carbon, no software required)

- View photos

- 5-band custom EQ

- Choose MSC or MTP complient in the Settings Menu. First time we've seen this ability. Might as well stick with the Mass Storage Complient option unless you're a big fan of WMP10

- Damn near gapless MP3 playback

- Power output (volume) is very strong, like 50 steppings

- Includes a protective case with belt clip and AC adapter (you don't get these with an iPod anymore)

- Includes Sennheiser MX400 earbuds which are a lot better than you usually get for freebies

The Bad

- No dedicated play controls, use the joystick instead

- Color screen is small (1-inch), colors are washy

- No FM radio or recording

- Can't view photos and listen to music at the same time

- Battery life doesn't seem that great so far, like old iPod Minis

- case does not have cut-outs for controls or screen

(...)

Hello, I've decided to write a review on my experience with the RCA LYRA 2765. I owned it for about 9 months before I got that horrible "File System Corrupted" message. Now this little gadget worked nice , it had on average 6 hours of playtime (No, It does not play for long periods of time, so forget that *12* hours promise on the box) The file transfer through the USB cord was fast, but when you wanted to profile a long list of songs, it took over an hour, or would freeze and you had to start again. It was durable, I dropped it a couple of times. However, it did get dirty. I mean really, smudged, icky looking dirty becuase of the shiny silver chrome. It won't be shiny after a few weeks, trust me. I was able to get about 1,400 songs on the 5 GB hard disk, most of them in WMA format. You can also change the background picture, but don't bother using this as a photo viewer. It just sucks at holding photos. They were all tiny and screwed up. Also, be aware that this MP3 player will not last past 1 year. I've never talked to an RCA LYRA owner who has had one for more than 9-10 months. For some reason, no matter how nice you take care of it and no matter how good your music is in formats, eventually this little message pops up that says "File System Corrupted". I tried to reset it, over an over. I tried to take the hard drive out and clean it, but it still had that message (ALSO, if you do take your LYRA apart like I did, it voids the warranty) But Thompson has some crappy customer service so don't bother calling them. ANYWAY, It's a nice gift for someone who has never had an MP3 player before and wants to test drive it. But for a real, long lasting player, go with Creative or Sony. Or sell your soul and buy that iPod.

I'm a fanatic...I normallly do alot of research before buying anything...I looked at the Creative Zen, mini-IPOD etc. Then I came across this beauty by chance on Amazon, released at the start of April. It is incredible..very light and tiny, beautiful clear screen, user-friendly software, great sound. The earphones included are terrible but thats pretty normal for this sort of purchase. Everyday use is childs-play, uploading songs is quick and easy. Controls are perfect too and well-designed.

I took a chance and bought this without any real knowledge of its reliability..so far so good..dropped it already and no problems. Also comes with a handy case.

Most of my friends have mini IPODs...I was tempted to join the masses...but everyone agrees this jukebox is superior...and its far nicer to look at..the aluminium finish is superb, though it does get smudged easily. I am a very proud owner so far. Added addition is ability to look at photos.

Be brave and buy this...you will not be disappointed!!!

I got this item in March 2006 to start my new workout regime. I used it for music only. It started off nice, I had about 400 songs on it (lasting between 3 and 4 minutes in WMA format). When I first got it, I could get some serious playtime out of it. As I used it only for the gym, I can't estimate the number of continuous hours of play. In any event. After about 3 months of usage (June 2006), it wouldn't last more than an hour. So I deleted the songs that didn't do much for me in the gym, bringing the total songs down to about 300. In August, I lost my workout steam--much like the Lyra lost it's music play steam--and put it away for a while. I recently started back using it (December 2006) and I now get about 15 minutes of play time from this device.

Man, I wish I'd purchased an Apple iPod.

My IPod nano was so much worse as far as sound quality, reliability, and screen quality. It had glitches often. I have had my RCA Lyra Jukebox for 2 1/2 months and it has been perfect. I love the joystick.

I really like this MP3, but there are some drawbacks that do annoy me. The first, is that you have to use the joystick for everything, and that really limits ammount of controls it accepts. The second, is that my songs work fine on my computer, but when I transfer them, about 1/10th get really messed up. My songs get melded together, so I will hear the first half of one song and the end of another, the get cut short, so I hear a minute of a song, and then it restarts the song until the song should be over, and all sorts of other things. This doesn't bug me too much because I have so many songs after a while, you learn to skip over the messed up songs, and I don't usually mess around with it once I turn it on. Its almost perfect, but not quite!

Almost everything about this player is above satisfactory in my opinion. Playback and sound is awesome. Nice volume control with several different playback EQ settings. Also a setting for manual EQ. The battery life is decent--I've played it continuously for over three hours at variable bitrates and still had at least a half-charge showing on the display.

Windows Media Player is a pain if you use it to upload your MP3's WMA's. I've found MusicMatch or just plain drag and drop to be much more convenient. In fact, the only way I've found to utilize the album art function is to edit the song and upload with MusicMatch.

My wife has the red 4 GB earlier model, and it also is above average in quality.

The only drawback to mine, though, is the fingerprints that cover the entire "chrome" casing.

Christmas 2005 I purchased 1 RCA MP3 player and 1 Samsung MP3 player, the RCA one was so easy to load songs onto, I was done within say 15 minutes. It took me 2 Hours + sitting there playing with the Samsung MP3 player and to no end couldnt get it to load any songs unless you used their software and napster, and even the napster software wouldnt load onto my computer. So we took the Samsung MP3 player back, and found another RCA online through Amazon, and again had the songs loaded onto it within minutes, the Jukebox program is so easy to use, its just a really really good MP3 player for anyone who already had mp3's on their computer. I would recommend this 100%

Please go to RCA's website and download and install the lastest firmware update. Lots of enhancements and feature upgrades

Firmware::

RD2765 Lyra™ mp3 Hard Drive Firmware/Application Upgrade (Version 1.25)