Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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177 of 178 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It works well when you follow these tips, September 8, 2003
I bought the RD2840 40GB Lyra jukebox when it first went out sale as exclusive at Circuit City. I've been quite happy with it.Pros: huge capacity (Windows reports 37.2GB total); low price; USB 2.0 High-Speed (=fast transfers!); drag-and-drop file transfers for both music and non-music; recognized by Windows as an external hard disk; graphic EQ plus a few presets; iPod-like interface; includes carrying case and car adapter; backlit LCD screen with adjustable backlight and contrast; good sound quality (after you replace the stock headphones); easy system software set-up (no reboot needed in XP); key lock via Menu button; line-out for hi-fi systems; ability to tag a song "Like" or "Dislike"; ability to import MusicMatch play lists; cute packaging box with handle. Cons: bulky (but surprisingly lighter than I'd expected); too thick; buttons can be unresponsive at times; cannot remember last song played after power down (really stupid! Who designed this thing?); quality seems ok but not as solid-feel as electronics from Sony or other Japanese brands; not much of a printed manual; web support almost non-existent (although you can download the latest firmware update). Overall I like the RD2840, a lot. I had iPod-envy but not any more. Sure it's bulkier and heavier than the iPod, but it's not really too heavy at under 10 oz., and comes with a decent carrying case, plus the value factor is just enormous. I'm not rich by any measure so I couldn't justify shelling out the iPod kind of money. Also, I wanted to use whatever jukebox I'd buy as an external hard drive, and the RCA products are the only ones that can function this way. (Nope, even the new Creative Labs Nomad NX can't double as an external drive. Besides, that product has a really brain-dead desktop program, and its internal drive breaks when you just walk. Avoid the Nomad NX!) Software installation was fast and required no restart, a rarity these days. I skipped installing MusicMatch, since I encode mostly in WMA using Windows Media Player. With native drag-and-drop support via USB 2.0 High-Speed, it's so easy and fast to transfer all sorts of files between your PC and the RD2840. You can use the RD2840 as a back-up hard disk. What happens is after you transfer the files, you *must* do a profiling via the system tray. This is VERY IMPORTANT to keep the RD2840 happy. The profiling process is actually quite fast if you do it after you transfer the files, before you unplug it from the PC. (You can also do it from the RD2840 itself, but it takes longer and consumes battery power.) The profiling basically recognizes all the MP3, MP3Pro and WMA files on the RD2840's hard disk and builds a database. If you don't profile each time after you transfer files, you get unpredictable behavior, which eventually will require a soft reset. (Yep, it has a reset whole, on the left side.) The player supports all MP3 tags, and the blue blacklit LCD screen shows you all the information about each music file. WMA support is flawless. (I don't have any MP3Pro files so I don't know how that works.) I encode all my music in bitrates from 64 kbps (for WMA) up to 192 kbps (for MP3), and the first time I set up the player, I transfered about 2GB of songs. The transfer process took about 5 minutes (I have USB 2.0 High-Speed ports on my laptop), and the profiling took less than a minute. I also copied some documents just to confirm that I could use the RD2840 as an external drive; again the transfer was fast over USB 2.0 High-Speed. So that was tip #1: always profile the RD2840 after downloading files to it. Tip #2 is, be sure to download the latest firmware from RCA's website. There's some confusion as to whether the current update actually does anything for this particular model. You should still download and install it anyway. Tip #3, to maximize battery life, you should always top off the charge by an hour or so. That's just the way LiIon batteries work. If you don't charge it fully, over time its performance will degrade. RCA says you can get 10 hours of play time out of this; I guess the actual battery life depends on how often you press the buttons, the encoding format and rate of your music, and other factors. I found that I get anywhere between 6 and 8 hours, more on the low end, though. Luckily, the AC adpater is pretty compact, and you get a car adapter in the package. The biggest annoyance is that the player can't remember where you were before you shut it off. That's really stupid. On the other hand, the scroll button would scroll slowly first, but if you keep holding it down for 2 seconds, it starts scrolling by page, pausing a bit between pages, which is really nice. The overall interface reminds me of the iPod's, although slightly less refined, but still usable even if you don't read the electronic manual. In summary, the RD2840 is a very capable MP3/WMA jukebox player as well as an external hard drive for Windows PCs. Mac support is rather limited, but Windows users will be happy especially if they heed my aforementioned suggestions.
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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Man, oh Man!!, November 18, 2003
After reading several reviews of this product - some good and some not so good, I was a little reluctant. I bit the bullet and shelled out $300 or so and was very glad I did. Now, I've only had this for 2 weeks, but this thing has brought me immense joy.I must say that many of the "complaints" I've read have some truth to them, but the way I look at life is this: If I stay at a beautiful hotel with an indoor swimming pool, king size down beds, free room service and a gorgeous ocean side view - I'm not going to complain because I don't like the color of the shower curtain. Get it? The biggest competition, of course, is Apple's IPOD. Yes, it's better, but it's about twice the price. My friend has an IPOD and he tried to talk me into saving for one but he failed. He then conceded that my RCA Lyra was "pretty nice" after I showed it to him. For those who have never seen/held this unit, many complaints are that it's "big and bulky". Horse Hockey. O.K. - compared to the IPOD it is, but that's like saying compared to a Rolls Royce, a Mercedes is a crappy car. This thing fits very snuggly in my shirt pocket, yet this is unnecessary since it comes with a carrying case that allows me to wear it on my belt. Oh, did someone say accessories?? In addition to the carrying case, you get all the equipment to hook it up to your home stereo system and your car stereo (provided you have a cassette deck). The ac adaptor/charger is very lightweight and you can listen via AC power while the unit is recharging. You can also use the thing as a spare hard drive. As far as ease of setup/transfer, I found it to be incredibly easy. If you can transfer a file to a floppy on your computer, you can transfer music easily to this thing. So far I've played MP3, MP3PRO and WMA files - I'm not sure exactly what it will and will not play but the above are good enough for me. I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but to quicken the time it takes the player to get from song to song (rarely longer than 2 seconds for me), you should put your music in as many folders and subfolders as possible - rather than putting your whole collection under one folder. I also like the shuffle feature - mainly because you can shuffle by artist, or folder. So if I'm in a Classical mood, the shuffle will only shuffle music in my classical folder and skip stuff like Aerosmith. The buttons can be a little tricky, and the transfer rate can be slow (at least that's what a lot of people think), but these are very minor in my judgement. My unit freezes about once per day, but a paper clip fixes that very easily (that's the one accessory I had to buy myself! Darn! :-) ) The latest firmware fixes the problem of the unit not remembering where it was when it shut off (another big complaint from people). I did find making the playlists a little tricky, but I found a support group on Yahoo's web site, and I was able to figure it out. If you have tons of cds and want to get them out of your living room and have tons of music at your fingertips, this is the unit for you (I have about 23gb filled - about 7,000 songs). Kudos to RCA!!!!
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Lyra vs. Zen vs. iPod: A 40GB MP3 Player Guide, April 9, 2004
I've owned all three 40GB players available today: Creative Zen, RCA Lyra, Apple iPod. This is the review I wish I had read before I started shopping. It was a originally more comprehensive but I had to trim it to 1000 words. For the most part, the Creative Zen has the best features of the three, as well as the best price. It sounds like a no brainer except for the fact that these things break like crazy! If you read some of the other reviews on here, you'll see a few people mention that their headphone jack shorted out when they dropped the player....well mine shorted out while the player was sitting on my desk not moving at all. I don't know a single person who bought one of these players and didn't have their headphone jack malfunction! Many reviewers suggest buying an extended warranty because of this problem. I would most definitely agree with them on that one, but personally I don't have the patience to wait a few weeks every time the player decides to stop working. Those warrantees are supposed to be purchased just in case something goes wrong; not because something most likely will! The Lyra from the moment it came out of the box to the moment it stopped working for no apparent reason, four hours later, was on the whole a piece of junk. That said...on to the comparisons. PRICE: As just about every anti-iPod reviewer mentions, THE IPOD IS MORE EXPENSIVE AND DOES PRETTY MUCH THE SAME THING. The iPod is basically the BMW of mp3 players...the other mp3 player work like, and cost about as much as a Kia. They all do basically the same thing, but the cheaper ones are cheaper for a reason! SIZE: All three players are smaller than a walkman, so it's kind of silly to even discuss this, but it seems to be a hot topic in the other reviews. From largest to smallest the players are ranked as follows: Lyra, Zen, iPod. The Lyra is the only one of the three which will not fit easily in your pocket. It is the widest /longest /heaviest of the bunch, and personally, I hated the way it felt in my hand. The Zen and the iPod were both a pleasure to hold. CONTROLS/NAVIGATION: iPod gets first place here simple because it's touch sensitive navigation wheel allows you to get from the first album in your collection to the last in seconds and it stops on a dime anywhere in between. The Zen's controls are very good however it takes longer to scroll through your entire collection and when it really starts moving fast, it continues scrolling after you release the button sometimes skipping past another 50-75 albums! The Lyra had decent navigation, but the buttons had to be pushed more than once before they responded almost half of the time! The Zen and the iPod can be operated easily with one hand. PLAYLISTS/SONG RATING: The Zen wins here without a doubt. It is the only one of the three where you can create, edit (even while it's playing) and SAVE multiple play lists on the player itself without connecting it to a computer. The iPod allows you to make ONE play list on the fly, which cannot be edited or saved.
The Lyra allows you to tag songs you like or don't like and it makes play lists of each...yes, it makes a playlist of songs that you tell it you DO NOT LIKE...if that doesn't explain what's wrong with this product, nothing will! The iPod allows you to rate songs 1-5 stars on the player, and then make a play list automatically based on those ratings when connected to a computer.
BATTERY: Again, Zen is the winner here. Not only does it offer a battery that lasts 14 hours instead of iPod and Lyra's 8 hour batt. it is also the only player of the three where you can remove and replace the battery when it deteriorates with age as all rechargeables do. It should be noted that the battery times I listed are the official times given by the manufacturers. The Zen actually lasts about 10 hours the other two go between 5 and 6 before needing a charge. SCREEN: The Zen not only has the biggest screen of the bunch, it also scrolls the album title in the directory screen allowing you to see the whole thing instead of just the first few words. TRANSFER TO PLAYER: All three units use USB 2.0, the iPod also can be used with Firewire. TRANSFER FROM PLAYER: The Zen allows you to transfer music freely from your player to any computer loaded with it's software. The iPod does not allow this however third party software that can be purchased and used to pull songs from the iPod. In all honest, the Lyra broke before I could find out if you can pull songs off of it. </P> SOFTWARE: iTunes is easy to use and offers tons of ways to organize your music. Creative Media Manager takes a lot of getting used to but is decent once you figure it out. Musicmatch, which comes with the Lyra is garbage. It`s slow, difficult to figure out at times, and constantly badgers you to buy the upgrade to its premium version. EXTRAS: The only one that actually has extra features is the iPod which comes loaded with 4 different games, the ability to read text documents that are stored on the hard drive on the player's screen, a date book, and an address book. The Lyra's ONLY advantage over the other players is the fact that it comes with a complete car kit (charger/tape adapter)....which is pretty nice, but useless when the player turns itself into a paperweight after just a few hours. All three players come with a case....iPod's is the only one which does not give you access to the player's controls when it's in the case.
Hope this helped.
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