Customer Reviews

Rio One Digital Audio Player (MP3/WMA)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

This is my second Rio One and both had the same problem. There is a constant HUM sound that is loud enough to be very distracting. They need to fix the audio sound qality on this unit. There should be no humming sound period. Have you ever hooked up a record player to your amp and you didn't ground it and you heard that constant loud hum. That's the audio quality of the Rio One.

Second, I've only had the second one for a week and today It is just flashin USB on screen. Tech support wasn't helpful and suggested I buy another company's product. The only current support for this "FLASHING USB" message is to return it for replacement.

Features and the low weight are nice. It simply is to bad the rest wasn't good.

My Rio One was fine when it worked, but then it stopped working and I was faced with the SonicBlue support department. After about a month and a half of waiting several days for each Email from the support department, the support department determined what had been painfully obvious from the beginning of the matter: the Rio didn't work.

Now, I am in the midst of a three-week battle for the privelege of paying Sonicblue [$$$] so that they'll replace my broken player in a reasonable amount of time (As in, reasonable amount of time after close to a month of waiting for them to get their act together). Furthermore, they've just informed me that it will be necessary to charge the full amount to my credit card before they send me a new player.

This company's actions make it clear that they have no interest in satisfied customers. I am left with a worthless player, a worthless SmartMedia card that I purchased for it, and months of hassle trying to get a clearly defective product replaced.

I suggest that anyone interested in this player look instead for a company that has customer service at a level somewhere above "non-existent."

I got this unit to replace my Rio 500 that got lost in a car crash. I was disappointed with it as soon as I got it.

First, there is a constant buzzing sound at low volumes that makes everything sound muddled.

Second the display is awful. A cheap calculator has a better display.

Third it decides to shut off right in the middle of a song for no good reason about every 15 minutes.

I thought it would be a really good deal considering I could buy it and a 128mb smart media card totaling 160mb for quite a bit less then the Intel Pocket Concert(which only has 128mb). But the disappointing performance forced me to return it.

After more in depth research, I found that the Creative Nomad IIc offers everything the Rio One does, plus a far superior display, backlighting, voice recording, etc. at the same price!

I purchased this product. It worked great for 2 weeks then started flashing USB. Nothing would play and unit would not even turn off! I have been talking with tech support for 2 months now, they gave me horrible directions for fixing it, it only make the problem worse and/or corrupted some files on my PC so that I had to delete/reinstall everything (I am A+ Computer Certified, so yes, I know what I'm doing). Each email to tech support takes at least 5-7 days to respond. My unit was sent back over a month ago and I still do not have a replacement (They make you pay for shipping charges for the new unit as well!) I would not recommend this product based on other reviews as well as my own experiences with their tech support. One plus, the included headphones have a great sound to them.

1) MP3's are only as good as you! Don't complain about the quailty of the mp3 player when the odds are your mp3's aren't of a high quality, or were ripped by someone other then you. If you play songs at a high bit rate then this player sounds fine.

2) 32mbs is not enough for decent quality music. 128kbps will give you a little less then 32 mins of music, buy more cards, because they are very cheap, and you can listen to more music then a cd player will give, and HIGHER QUALITY TOO!

3) This is a beginners mp3 player, or a very frugal persons mp3 player. If you know how to rip, edit formats, and enjoy music of high quality, get a more expensive player.

4) THERE IS NO BASS BOOST, if you are used to that on other players, you well be dissapointed with this. Also there is no text display of the ID tags on the player either.

5) Battery life goes pretty fast, but it only takes on AA.

I like it cause its cheap, expandable memory is cheap.

I just purchased this at a local electronics store. A great price after the rebate but I am returning it because the LCD display is pretty much useless. An MP3 player should show the title of a song and artist (it's the whole point of having MP3 after the compression capabilities), this one just list the track number. So I guess you have to memorize the song title to it's corresponding number.

The sound is actually good. THis is my second MP3 player and it beats my D-Link in sound quality. The RIO one is cheaply made, the D-Link is sturdier. I would keep if the LCD display provider more info.

Before purchasing this MP3 Player, I read the reviews by other owners and how the player deserves one and only one star. Well, I purchased the player at my own risk and have since been extremely satisfied with it. I am writing this review to counter all negative statements against the Rio One. Many of the reviews stated that they received the Rio One free with the purchase of Windows XP. Those who did not purchase items directly from Amazon.com or such retailers should not be complaining about it. The buzzing sounds, blips and static is something that I have never encountered on my Rio One. It has never stopped playing nor has it failed me in any way. The Rio One to this day continues to function perfectly. Its hard plastic shell is the reason for the player being lightweight and portable. If you are looking for a decent MP3 Player at a reasonable price from a renowned company - the Rio One is for you. Unlike those buyers who purchase the fancy/bulky/multi-function MP3 Players that costs up to $200, I say why invest so much money!?! THIS MP3 PLAYER IS WORTH EVERY PENNY YOU SPEND AND IS NOT WHAT MANY OTHERS HAVE STATED IT AS.

From day one, the unit had a buzz. The most irritating bug was the unit would randomly shut off and power on while forwarding/ backing up on tracks using the controls or playing tracks in the random setting. The earphone and USB jacks appear to be crimped with pliers. In addition, the battery door closes poorly. RMA'd to Sonic Blue in December, just got the unit on January 18th.

A defininate thumbs down! Customer service is absolutely horrific and unknowlegeable. I can't stress enough how much I hate this product and this company. I wish Amazon had a "0" star rating!!!

Granted it is not the top of the line mp3 player, but for the money, (...) it is all right.
As for not working with Windows XP, if you follow the instructions in the booklet, NOT the on-screen instructions, the player works fine. If you are having a problem, uninstall Real Jukebox, delete any reference to it in the device manager (unknown device, etc.), unplug the player from the usb drive, restart the computer, re-load the Real Jukebox, ignore the part where they say to plug in your player on the on-screen instructions. After completing the Real Jukebox install, reboot, and when you are back to the desktop, re-plug the player to the computer and Windows XP will find it and install it. I made the same mistake and talked to the tech support, which did not know the correct answer to the problem, so yes they are useless.
For the price of the player and some cheap flash cards you can have an unlimited sized player, and have hours and hours of music.

I just bought one of these a few days ago, so here's my first impressions.

It states all over the place that 32megs will give you up to 1 hour of playing time. What that means is you can play 1 hour worth of 64 kps mp3's. I don't know what you listen to, but the minimum acceptable bitrate is 96, with 128 being the standard, cd quality rate. So right off the bat, you either have to sacrifice sound quality to get that hour of music, or you have to pony up some more dough to get a flash memory card. BTW: It only takes Smartmedia 3.3 volt flash cards just in case, like me, you were unable to find this out from the poor packaging and wondered what type to get.

This unit will accept up to 128 meg on a flash card bringing the total to 160 meg or app. 2.5 hours at 128 kps. That's the max. Also, if you think you can live with your music at 64kps, you will have to re-rip all of it, or convert it. The included software doesn't have this ability unless you pay to upgrade it to RealPlay Plus. Even then, I can hear all kinds of blips and pops where the conversion program failed. So beware. I used MusicMatch 6.1 to do the conversion from 128 down to both 64 and 96 kps and both the converted files had the problem.

The software included is RealPlayer's Jukebox. It comes with the plugin's necessary to move music to and from the Rio. If you've never used MP3 jukebox software before it will probably suffice, however it pales in comparison to MusicMatch 6.1. Right now MusicMatch does not offer a plug-in for the Rio One, just for the other Rio's. I have a call in to there tech support to find out when it will be avialable.

On the plus side: Its lightweight, with a simple to use interface, the USB interface worked flawless, all of which is why I gave it three stars.

Bottom line: If music quality isn't important to you, then this is a low-cost, very portable alternative to MP3 cd-players.