Customer Reviews

RipFlash TRIO 128MB MP3 Player/Recorder

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I received the RipFlash Trio about 2 weeks ago and absolutely love it. There are many pros and a few cons, but overall, this is a great product.

Background:
I bought this player specifically to take with me to the gym. I needed something that could last at least 3 hours and play about 20-30 songs. I also needed something that could just fit in my pocket, and able to take some abuse.

Pros:
-Versatile: this player allows you to do anything you want. Record your voice (which I never really use), record from an external source, am/fm radio, and download from your computer.
-Easy: this player is really simple. It took only a few minutes for me to get used to the menu set-up.
-Options: this player allows you to change the eq, shuffle, hold, etc.
-Design: the design is great. It is actually about the size of a credit card (as opposed to many descriptions of it being "business card sized"), and is light weight. It could easily fit into a shirt pocket or even your wallet.
-Software: the software is easy to use and hassle free.

Cons:
-Battery: the battery life is ample for my needs, however charging the unit is kind of an inconvenience. If you want to charge the unit without a computer, you must take the battery out of the unit and charge it in an adapter which plugs into your wall. Personally, I feel that a recharchable battery should be almost fixed into a unit eliminating the possibility of the battery acidentally coming out. The thing about the battery charging from the computer is that there is an adapter that is connected to the usb cord to allow the battery to be charged from the usb port. However, I was unable to load files onto the unit with the adapter attached. So, if you want to load files, you must detatch the adapter and plug in the usb cord directly into a port. It is just more of an inconvenience than anything else.
-Options: ealier I talked about the great options, however there is one option that I wish it had. It does not have any sort of program or selective option to play selected songs from your playlist. So, there are certain songs I enjoy listening to while I am at the gym, but not necesarrily all the time. I am unable to pick and choose the songs I want to listen to at various times.
-External Recording: if you don't have a computer and want to use this unit to record from an external source, I would not reccommend it. Basically the unit records directly from your headphone jack. That means that any sort of feedback or distortions (which can happen through headphone jacks) are picked up onto the unit. The quality and sound just isn't the same as recording from a computer.
-Quality: overall this unit is great, but I'm not sure as to how much abuse it can really take. I have already dropped it once and the battery popped right out.
-Jack: well, the jack for your headphones is a little odd. The unit comes with an adapter for your headphone jack because the unit's headphone jack is smaller than normal. The adapter actually increases the bulk of the unit substantially wich is kind of a pain.

Conclusions:
This unit is an inexpensive mp3 player with great options. It would be nice if it had expandable memory, but I can't complain because I knew what it came with before I purchased it:) 128mb is ample space for my needs anyhow. The batterly life is around 4 hours plus, and is perfect for what I use it for. I did not try the headphones because I use my own set of bang & olufsen headphones with the unit. I would definately buy this product if you want something small, easy, and affordable. I purchased mine for about $.... It has everything you could want, and even things you may never really use. Overall, I would highly reccommend this product.

POGO's TRIO Slim Series MP3 Player/Recorder is truly amazing... I got mine today and it hardly took me fifteen minutes to get it loaded with couple of mp3's. Its a 3-in-1. It has an FM tuner, MP3 player & Voice recording in MP3 format.
It is soooo thin & small that u hardly feel that it is in the palm of your hand... weighing almost an ounce, its unbeleivably the lightest recorder/player in the market.
The sound output quality is terrific and it has 5 pre-set sounds in its equalizer.
The menu is neat & user-friendly except for a few glitches here and there...
The firmware upgrade feature is very cool & I was able to load the latest firmware from their website very easily.
Limitation is its memory. Its just 128MB, but it suits my needs.
With USB 1.1 & their proprietary VR Manager software, upload/download of voice/mp3 files is very easy.
Another key feature is their PC-free mp3 encoding. U just hook up your Tape/LP Player's Line-out to the Line-in & voila!!
U have mp3 files!!
I love this player for its mic-in feature.... & i'm sure, u know why!! :)
Overall a great buy for a reasonable price....

The Ripflash Trio is everything promised - excellent. There was 1 problem, solved by the Pogo web site FAC Sheet. I had to discard the small UBS jumper supplied to get the Computer/
Ripflash link to work. I have been enthralled by it.

I returned the RipFlash TRIO 128MB MP3 Player/Recorder
by PoGo! for two reasons:

1) Amazon states under the Features section for this product that it "Uses Smart Media Card." Guess what--it doesn't.

2) This product doesn't come with a belt clip or any other way to secure it. I know that if I put it in my shirt pocket, it would fall out in no time. If I put it in my pants pocket, it would get scratched up, or its buttons would get pushed inadvertently. I don't want to spend this amount of money on something that doesn't have some protection from damage of this sort while it is being used.

The bad:
Headsset connection is intermittent, must hold it to get stereo.
Battery life is poor ... with no pushing of buttons got less
than four hours. Display is very hard to read except for brief
seconds after pushing buttons when it is illuminated. Menu controls are poorly done.
The good:
It looks slick, the sound quality is quite good (stereo separtion while pressing on connection), nice features.

everything that the other reviewers wrote is correct: the trio is really smallest, and has all features found in more expensive and bigger players.

but there arethings that are not good about this player: the volume level is somehwat low - and it is probably because the maker of the trio wanted to save the tiny battary power. it is dead in a short time and needs recharge.

The new MP3 players are much better.