Rio 500 64 MB USB MP3 Player (Purple)

by Rio

Product Details

Product Manual [365kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 3.6 x 2.5 x 0.8 inches ; 3 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00000JSGG
• Item model number: 500
• Batteries: 1 AA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #354,118 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Special Offer--Get a Free Rio 500 from audible.com: Sign up for a one-year commitment to either the BasicListener or PremiumListener plan at audible.com and get a free Rio 500 digital audio player. You'll also receive a free cassette adapter--a $20 value. Visit audible.com and sign up today.

Download in style! This purple Rio 500 stores up to two hours of digital-quality music and up to 32 hours of spoken audio programs. Rio 500 is also the first portable digital-audio player to support both the Macintosh (iMac and G3) and Windows 9X platforms. Access thousands of music and audio files at RioPort.com and over 16,000 hours of Audible.com audio programs. Instantly create, customize, and mix your favorite music and audio selections on your PC or Mac for playback. This lightweight unit plays skip-free music, as there are no moving parts. It's the perfect companion for active people on the go.

The Rio 500 contains an updated hardware design featuring easily accessible controls and a backlit display that shows song/book title, artist, time, and more. And it uses just a single AA battery for up to 13 hours of continuous play.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Hardware -- Disappointing Software, October 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rio 500 64 MB USB MP3 Player (Purple) (Electronics)

Needless to say, this is not just a review of the "purple" model of the Rio 500. My remarks apply equally to the "teal" and "silver"

I have bought each of the previous Rio models as they came out, which makes me either an expert or a nut. But the advantages I was looking forward to on this model included the USB transfer speed and the backlighted display with song information.

On these counts I was well satisfied. The USB speed is roughly two to three times as fast as the parallel port speed of the previous models. Certainly not the five times that Diamond claims, but welcome nonetheless. And the backlit display is OK - a little small, but OK. Like the previous "Special Edition" model, this Rio comes with 64MB of storage with the ability to put 96MB on line using optional 32MB SmartMedia cards.

The sound is excellent when listening to songs recorded at 128Kb/s. The controls are frankly not as convenient as the uglier "round" control was. There is now a slider switch that controls on/off/hold, and that's not clever. Because now when you want to slide the switch to "hold" to lock the buttons at their current settings, it's too easy to slide it too far -- to "off." There are also "browse" and "multi" buttons on the side, the latter being a Sony-style rotate-and-push control. The logic of which button controls what is not clear, and on my player there was no manual in the box, on disc or on the Web. So you're pretty much on your own.

But here's the real disappointment: the software. The old Rio Manager was a simple transfer program that let you choose songs from your hard disc or wherever and transfer them to the Rio with little complication. A separate piece of included software (MusicMatch) did the ripping and created the database, if you wanted that. This time out, the Rio Audio Manager does everything, but not too well. To start, it will refuse to transfer anything to your player that is not in its "database", so you have to use their database even if you already have your own or don't want one. Second, it will refuse to add songs to the database if they reside in directories it doesn't like. For example, if you have some files on your Windows Desktop that you would like to transfer to the Audio Manager or to your player -- forget it. Audio Manager doesn't approve of people keeping MP3 files on their Windows Desktop. And if the files don't meet its own standards, it won't load them either. I had some files recorded earlier which played fine on all other softwre players and on my earlier Rios. They will not load on the new Audio Manager.

Want more? When searching for MP3 files on your computer, the software will not look on a Jaz drive or a network drive. Once again, it decides where you should store these files. You begin to long for the simplicity and non-judgmental nature of the old Rio Manager.

The software has lots of other problems, some of which could perhaps be solved with a manual. For example, I could not get the new software to work with the older Rio. I happened to stumble on a batch file that does the trick, but you always have to run the batch file before loading the program for it to recognize the right player. Not too clever.

Wouldn't it be great to just slect some files in Explorer and drag them to a Rio icon? The database idea is very big now, and everyone wants their MP3-related site to be some kind of portal. But the battling desktop databases really reduce the functionality for everyone. Since I still use the database from the MusicMatch software I got with my first Rio, I am hoping that it will soon support the PMP500.

Final Verdict: The PMP500 is a great little player that will benefit from big improvements in the software. You may want to wait until other, better software supports the player.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great product with a few caveats, April 25, 2000

By 

Shari Morehead "tekchic" (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rio 500 64 MB USB MP3 Player (Purple) (Electronics)

I am pretty satisfied with my Rio500. But there are a few things toconsider when purchasing one. First of all, don't bother with theRioPort Audio Manager software, it's nowhere near as easy or as intuitive as MusicMatch Jukebox... MusicMatch also downloads directly to Rio, at whatever bitrate you specify.

If you're buying this to listen to Audible books online, be aware that Audible has caused nothing but problems for me. First of all, their software didn't start supporting Rio500 until 2 weeks ago (the Rio hardware was ready and Audible happily sold me books without a way to upload them to my Rio -- bad advertising). Audible only has their Rio500 software in Beta, it's extremely buggy and crashes often. And here's the kicker: If you have an Audible book on your Rio500, you CAN'T have any mp3's on it! It's either Audible or MP3 until you delete the Audible files and go back to MusicMatch to upload your mp3's. Audible says they're "working on it". We'll see.

Given the choice again, I probably should have just waited until the new PocketPC's that support mp3's came out. Especially for the price.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great product if you are on the go and hate radio hype., November 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rio 500 64 MB USB MP3 Player (Purple) (Electronics)

Love to work out to music, but hate flipping through the channels to escape the blah-blah-blah of egotistical radio personalities? Frustrated with positioning a bulky CD player out of your way? I found the Rio500 MP3 player to be the best thing since sliced bread. Not being a high-tech kind of gal, yet somewhat intelligent, I was able to figure out most of the software/hardware without instructions. For the part I didn't understand, I e-mailed Rio tech support and had a full set of instructions waiting for me the next day. In my humble opinion, the sound quality is great, especially when compared to the static-ridden walkman I was used to. I suppose there will be bigger and better in the future, but for now, it was worth every hour of overtime I spent to get it.