Customer Reviews

Rio Nitrus 1.5 GB MP3 Jukebox

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(92)

 

 

I purchase my Rio Nitrus a week ago, at first I had various doubts about this product. I had read some reviews that made seem as a horrible product, while other reviews called it marvelous. But first things first, I decided to purchase this product because of its size (it literally fits in my fist), and also because it can play Windows Media Audio (something that the ipod doesn't do). .... Installing the program on windows XP was very easy, and the same goes for installing songs in the player. I wasn't able to put 1.5 gigabytes of music in it, it only allowed me 1.4 bytes, overall I had a little bit over 500 songs (all of my songs are WMA's recorded at 128). Now onto the bad part. . .like some other reviews mentioned, Rio really screwed up with the volume buttons, they are too close together. Another small mistake are the headphones, personally I don't like the headphones that come with the unit, they are too small, and at times annoying (this is my personal opinion). However, don't get me wrong the sound of unit is amazing, when I first played a song I was amazed at how clear and loud the song was. Some of the thing I most enjoy about this player are the playlist, for example out of the 500 songs I have two playlists, one is compose of slow songs that I listen to while going to sleep, or in the bus, the other is call "top 20" which are usually the best 20 song I want to hear on my player. The rio nitrus has amazing search abilities, for example, you can search a song by its name, album, artist, etc., Or you can just shuffle and play all the songs (repeat is also available, but i don't use it). Overall this is good player, besides minor little problems (for me) such as the volume and headphones, I give the Nitrus 4.5 stars out of 5. If your interested in buying this product, I recommend you download its manual, and/or search for a professional review such PC world etc., One more thing so far my Nitrus has been working fine, I was a bit scare since I read all those "my player broke the same day I got it etc.," reviews, but for at least it seems to work just fine. Update, its been a month since I've purchase my nitrus, and it works just like it did when I bought it, the only exception is that now it has a few scrachtes, but nothing elses I'm still very please with this player. Update, My player Finally broke. . .everything was working fine but then I turn it off, and the next time I turn it on, it wouldn't go on past the RIO screen. So I call customer service, and they told me to do a hard reset, then upgrade to the lates firmware, and voila it work ... So right now is working fine.

I've been previewing the Nitrus (pronounced: Night-russ) and have been playing with it for close to two months, now. I should also note that I'm not an employee of Rio. For really good unofficial tech support from other users, go to rioworld.org or riovolution.com. Nitrus is about a third of the weight of an iPod, small and very thin. When it's in your pocket, you forget it's there. I'm not joking! This isn't the case with the iPod or the Karma. If you want storage capacity, you'll be buying a Karma. However, that's not the market for this player. The form, size and weight, combined with about 400 songs capacity (1.5GB) is the combination that will attract certain buyers. So, you can't really compare it with the iPod/Karma's of the world, or the flash players. Totally different market segment. It's not designed to be a sports player, but I, and many others, have been using it for athletic activities and it's sweet!! You forget it's there. It also has the standard Rio stopwatch functions. It has a bookmark feature, which is great on my audiobooks! Runs off USB 2.0 or 1.1! There's an intermediate lock selection that allows you to hit the joystick to move between play/pause. Perfect for snowboarding or exercising. Plus, with about 400 songs, you don't have to move songs on and off the player like a flash-based player. So, it carves out a nice (and new!) middle ground. Most consumers wouldn't want more songs on a player (unless you're a capacity freak, as I can sometimes be). It's not as feature rich as the Karma, but NOTHING is! Karma beats iPod, hands down and everything else in features. With Nitrus, you can create playlists, sort by ID3 tags, it has a customizable five-band equalizer and the sound is great. With the Sennheiser earbuds and customizable equalizer it will be a market leader in sound quality. Firmware is solid, right out of the box. If you've owned a Rio before, you know the developers are dedicated to constantly upgrading the firmware. Rio Music Manager (RMM2) The desktop software RMM2 (Rio Music Manager) is a huge leap ahead from the last RMM. It is being used for the whole Rio line. You can create playlists, to auto-DJ mixes and rip CDs. You can play music within the player, create auto-synch profiles between your player and RMM. It also has Gracenote CDDB, an on-line database that fills in all the album info for CDs you rip! RMM is user-friendly, intuitive and a solid piece of software. Rio Taxi: Nitrus also has Rio Taxi, like Karma, which allows you to move any type of file. I've been using it to transfer docs between work and home without issue. Taxi is simple and clean and works without issue. Battery Life: 16 hours listed, soon to be officially 19 hrs, but I'm getting longer than that. About Karma, people should note that Karma is slightly thicker than the iPod for one main reason: battery life!!! latest generation iPod = 8hrs (cut from 10hrs of 1st generation, which is how they shaved thickness). Interesting priorities at Apple, eh? Karma = 15 hours Nitrus = 16 hours (I seem to get longer play out of mine, but that's what Rio is advertising, so I'll stick to that). This is based on 128 bit MP3's. Note that many other MP3 players advertise battery life based on 64 or 96bit WMA's, as lower bit rate files consume less power! As well, you can adjust backlight length on these players, or turn it off completely, which greatly extends battery life beyond 16 hours. Really nice indigo backlight on these players and clear text display. So, that's a basic overview. Nitrus is going to be the surprise hit of the Rio line. Given that Denon & Marantz, a very high-end audio company, now owns Rio, combined with listening to Nitrus while previewing it, I think the whole Rio line will become the audiophile's digital music player!!

Would I recommend this mp3 player to others? Definitely.

1) Style and Sound... Even in a world of mp3 players with bigger names, memories, and prices, I must say that this player rocks. The sound is sick even with the included dinky headphones - the volume goes up to a measure of 30 which I have yet to reach because 23 is loud enough for most of my mp3's. The design is also welcoming: it's a small and thin black device, extremely light, with a nice navigation button, volume control, a locking device, and a nice display which lights up during use. I use the rio for everything from going to the gym to traveling on the subway and I'm very happy with it eventhough I could have spent another $100 on an IPOD.

2) Technicalities... Something people usually don't mention in these reviews is the process of transferring songs on to the player. This is extremely important for the new buyer. The rio nitrus is very user friendly in this department. It uses a USB cable which you connect from the tower to the device. Once you install the software, you can easily access your downloaded music and transfer it to the player. This is a little different from the IPOD software where you drag and drop but it is just as easy and comparably quick. The device has a memory of 1.5GB which is about 375 songs. I personally will probably not transcend this mark because I don't have anywyhere near as many songs as that - but if this is an issue for you, you should probably look into the IPOD or others. The actual usage and navigation of the device is also user friendly. After you label your songs how you wish, they are listed alphabetically and you can play them all in shuffle mode or go directly to them. There are also other options some which I haven't looked into yet and others such as playlists etc. which I really don't care about but if you want to read the instructions on them I'm sure it's not an arduous task to complete.

3) Price, Alternatives, Conclusion... I got my player for $215, which is probably a little high. But it was definitely worth it because it gives me all I need. I mean I know the swing wheel on the IPOD is enticing as well as its other features, but the IPOD is more like a computer and I'm not looking for such a device. If you need memory past the 375 song capacity but want to spend less, look into 5GB IPODS or something similar. There are also issues with the lithium battery which the IPOD also shares. Because the nitrus is no where near as popular as the IPOD it has not even been addressed for this rio but apparently these batteries die after a year or so. I really don't know about this, but it is something to be aware of. I've also read that some customers had defective products, I'm not sure how common that is but I've had no problems so far. I feel that the rio nitrus has everything you need for less money. It's my first mp3 player and will probably be my last.

I'll second pretty much everything that Rory, the previous reviewer said. The Nitrus is a great player that fits my needs perfectly! I initially was looking at the bigger Hard Drive players such as the Ipod, Karma, Zen NX, etc.. but after seeing the Nitrus I was sold. I haven't been disappointed with my purchase at all and love the small size and actually have no desire to have more than the 1.5gb storage on the Nitrus bigger player with more capacity. The Nitrus is much lighter and smaller than a large capacity HD player and yet, it holds a ton of music in pretty much the size and form factor of a small capacity flash player. I take the Nitrus running and it doesn't skip at all and sounds fabulous! The only CON to the Nitrus is that it does not come with a case. Frankly, Rio needs to buckle down and get a case made for this player. Not having a case or clip attachment in the package is really crappy. I'm using my old Rio 500 case for now, which works fine.

I was looking for a new MP3 player after owning my Rio 800 for 4 years (still works great) I decided to buy another great Rio with more memory. I saw the Rio Nitrus and thought it looked good. It held tons of songs, looked great, and had a great company behind it. I ordeded then came to amazon to look at the reviews. While reading I became very disappointed i ordered it. About 5 days ago I recieved it and I could not ask for better sound quality or menu options. It has a sleek design that fits perfectly into my pocket. It holds 548 mp3s and has a great organizer to find them. I was also looking at the iPod, but it is too expensive and I dont need all that space. The Rio Music Manager is very easy to use and very quick to download to the rio. The battery is only 4 hours to charge compared to 11!!! It also last 14 hours! The ONLY thing that disappointed me was it had no case compared to the 800. So overall I would recommened this to ANYONE looking for an excellent quality mp3 player.

I own several mp3 players. A 10GB iPod, two Rio 500's, an iRiver 195TC and I owned a Rio Karma. I love the iPod but like other large capacity hard drive players it has marginal battery life, no bookmarking feature and isn't what I consider a truly portable product. The iRiver is a wonderful, go anywhere, solid state player but I want more than 512 MB's of storage. The Karma had major functional issues. I returned it, took a chance and bought the Nitrus instead. After the my experience with the Karma (~ 5 hours battery life, poorly designed scroll wheel, sloppy joy stick navigation and excessive heat) I was skeptical about the Nitrus. I bought the Karma and Nitrus for one reason. They have a bookmarking feature, something absent in every other brand. For audio books and long home made recordings a bookmarking feature is a must. The Nitrus sits squarely between solid state players and large capacity hard drive players. The hard drive in the Nitrus and several competing products is a new generation drive of smaller size and with fewer parts. It is evidently much more energy efficient than the drives found in the iPod and Karma. I'm getting at least an honest 12 hours of battery life. This kind of battery life is truly useful and is about what I get with my iRiver solid state player. Very impressive. There is no noticeable heat, an indication that the design is efficient. The joy stick used for navigation looks like the same joy stick used in the Karma but unlike the Karma it feels more precise in the Nitrus. The Nitus is smaller than it looks. The design is a very pleasing to handle clam shell shape. It fits perfectly in my hand and is easy to use one handed. The rubber strip around the edge helps to prevent drops. It's extremely light weight. Amazing to think there's a battery and hard drive in there somewhere. It slips into a pocket and once there is virtually unnoticeable. No case needed if you have even a small pocket. Ergonomically there is very little that could be done to improve on this design. The Rio Music Mangager software is stable, intuitive to use and well thought out. This is a product that seems to have been designed by enthusiastic engineers and marketing people. Nice work Rio. Tweak the Karma design and I'll order another one of those. If 1.5 GB is enough storage I can wholeheartedly recommend this product. Especially considering the price. I've seen it for as little as 199 USD online.

Please save your money and do not buy this product.

I too assumed my Nitrus would be free of the issues presented here, and in many other places. I incorrectly assumed that the problems may have been caused by misuse, and that I would take good care of mine so that would not happen.

I purchased my Rio Nitrus from....a retailer whose predominant colors are royal blue and yellow. It seemed like such a steal for 1.5GB for only 134.95. I'll admit that it was a serious error not reading reviews before purchasing one. Hindsight, 20/20, all that jazz. I did read the reviews here and other places, and quickly returned to said retailer to get their extended replacement plan. Not always necessary, but Rio offers the shortest warranty of any mp3 player on the market. Makes you wonder why?

I treated my Nitrus with extreme care. I did not take it jogging or to the gym. It was never jostled about or dropped. And it wasn't heavily used, I mainly just listened to it for a few hours a day, 2 days a week at work while stuffing envelopes. When not in use, it was safely in a case, tucked in my desk drawer at work. Hardly anything that could even closely constitute abuse.

I purchased my Nitrus on July 25, 2004. On October 28, 2004, 3 days out of the manufacturers warranty, it died with the dreaded "Upgrader" message. I tried all the fixes short of opening the player. I am not the most mechanically inclinded individual, so I did not want to inflict more damage or void my replacement plan in case all else failed. Tapping the player--failed. Upgrading firmware--failed. Resetting it (using both methods)--failed.

I understand that with any electronics purchase, you run the risk of running into issues. Its like that with anything really. However, one does have expectations about the life of a product. You think that when you pay over 100 dollars for portable audio equipment, it will last you longer than 3 months.

Now given, the product performed great in the 3 months it did work. That does not excuse, however, the fact that it just up and died.

Save your money, pinch some more pennies, and buy an iPod. People love them for a reason.

I am an avid .mp3 listener and have a great demand for storage. The 1.5GB doesn't hold everything, but it holds enough for me to put together a quick playlist before going out on a run or bikeride. In fact, I haven't needed to change the music for several days/workouts and haven't repeated listening to anything yet.

The size to storage ratio is the largest selling point. It is hard to believe (and many people doubt when I tell them) that this little guy can hold a massive 1.5GB. The sound is pretty good and the graphic equalizer works wonderfully.

I have a couple of gripes.

1) The volume buttons are horrible and feel very flimsy. I sometimes worry about using them... fearing that they might break if I press one too hard. And they are soooo small, which is unneeded. There is plenty of un-used "surface real-estate" and making them larger wouldn't have been a sacrifice.

2) When you have locked the .mp3 device (so you don't accidently change tracks or turn it off) there is no way to get a backlight on so you can see the track information without turning the lock off. Very inconvenient, especially while riding a bicycle.

3) An hour after the first charge (over 6 hours) it just kind of crashed and would not restart on me. I charged it again and it hasn't failed since. Crossing my fingers, but I wonder if I have a bad device.

4) There is a scrolling wheel on the side of the device. What is this for??? Nothing scrolls, you use the little joystick in the middle to do that. When you push the wheel the information on the screen will change, but the scrolling does nothing. I'm trying to figure this one out.

5) Putting together playlists don't work very well.

6) Retailing at $300, this could include some type of case. However, this is small enough to stick into my jeans with no problem (best to turn the lock on first) but a case would have been nice.

For a small, compact .mp3 player I highly suggest this one. I've really enjoyed it and you just can't beat the size with this much hard drive space.

Best gift my husband ever bought me! Have loved it all 9 months it worked! I deleted one song and all 500 were deleted from the player! Tried the reset, upgrade firmware and software...to no avail! Now, it has the all too familiar clicking which would indicate a problem with the hard drive. Rio Cust service is useless. SPent 1 hour on hold to be told I have to pay $75 for a refurb one. I am waiting for a supervisor and if I don't get a new one at no cost, I will trash this company and it's inferior products on every site I can. It's AWESOME when it' working; can bring you to tears when it stops working for no reason at all..and the company only offers a 90 day warranty. Every website (rioworld and riovolution) goes into detail about a variety of problems with this player and the consistently horrible service from RIO> Don't Buy one!

I purchased a Rio Nitrus in the Summer of 2004. I filled it with about 300 songs from CDs and Napster. It met my needs, it was small, inexpensive and held just enough songs. Unfortunately, in March 2005 it stopped working. It was stuck in UPGRADER mode and after many weeks of failed e-mail assistance I called the support number. They told me that the player was broken (really? how about some reasoning) and that I could buy a factory-reconditioned unit for 75$. I was out of warranty and out of luck. I am considering upgrading to the 5GB Zen Micro or Rio Carbon, but I am hesitant to purchase further products from RIO.