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130 of 137 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Rio 600 Pros and Cons, July 21, 2000
Here's my assessment of things I like and don't like about the Rio 600:Pros: *Small, lightweight *No Skipping *Decent sound quality (the above apply to pretty much any portable MP3 player) *WMA Support *USB interface for fast transfer of songs *Future support for 340MB IBM Microdrive *Possible future AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) support *Low price Cons: *Rio Audio Manager software is extremely cumbersome to use *Supplied earphones do not sound good and will have to be replaced *You cannot distinctly discern by touch what button you're pushing on the round pad. You'll end up stopping or pausing tracks when you want to skip to the next track. *Only 32MB RAM standard with no upgrades available at this time *Larger than previous model Rio 500 *No belt clip *No recording for FM tuner The Rio 600 is your basic MP3 player. WMA support is nice, but because of Digital Rights Management, the WMA format is difficult to deal with and I'm not going to convert all my MP3s to WMA. Someone should have tested the Rio 600's button pad for usability. You can't feel what button you're pushing and because the Rio 600's body is curvy, it's hard to discern up/down/left/right without looking at it. You also have to use your fingernail to push the tiny center button or you'll accidentally press on of the up/down/left/right buttons as well. As of right now, I would recommend the Rio 600 over any other MP3 player currently available, not so much because it's so good in itself, but it's good when you compare it to the others. The things I most wish it had right now are memory packs and better software. I'm not sure how much the memory pack upgrades will cost, but I'm hoping that a 32MB memory pack will not put it in the ballpark of a Rio 800 which will come with 64MB standard and have recording support. The Rio 600 is cheap, but if you get the Rio 600, plan on spending more money on headphones and a memory upgrade, unless you want to deal with the WMA format. Faceplates allow you to change the color of the Rio, but the standard metallic blue is stylish enough for me.
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32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughts on the Rio600, December 4, 2000
Well, I was going to give it around a 3.75, but since there's no option, I left it at four. The Rio line of MP3 players is overall a very high-quality, top-of-the-line series of devices. The Rio600 in general is no exception, but I do have a few issues with it...The funky shape isn't that bad... I have a Nomad II also, and the shapes actually are quite ergonomically sound, for both players. It does look funny though. The clip-on faceplate idea is questionable... Why not just sell it in several colors? I don't care for the clip-on backpack idea... I feel that SmartMedia cards are more universally compatible. Sure, not as much upgrade potential with flash cards, in comparison with the 300mb+ capacities of the backpacks, but I usually steer towards more mainstream parts, away from proprietary designs. The player is easy to operate, but I prefer the old circle-dial controls on the Rio 300. The "joypad" is close, but no cigar. ;) 32mb really is not enough for a typical person... Most people today are still using mp3 (myself included), and a half hour of music just doesn't cut it... Even using lower bitrates, you just lose sound quality. 64mb is a minimum for mainstream mp3 players... Big slip-up Diamond/S3/SonicBLUE. Sure, you could upgrade it with a memory backpack, but that brings up my problems with proprietary hardware... Overall, a good player. I want to see the Rio800 when it comes available... Until then, this is a fairly good player. A word of advice to those buying though... Seriously look at the Rio 500 or the Nomad II. The Rio 500 might not be as ergonomically sound, but it's a proven, tried-and-tested 64mb player. The 600 has a bit more ease-of-use, but the 500 has better features. The Nomad II is also a wonderful player, with plusses such as voice recording and a built-in FM radio tuner. It has a more curved shape, comfortable, and is very shiny... (ooh, shiney... ;) All of these use USB, of course, and each is upgradable to support WMA (even though the 600 does it natively). The 500 is upgradable (with SmartMedia cards) right now to 128mb (with a firmware upgrade). The Nomad II will only go to 64mb currently, as a down note... Again, I say, overall a good player. But, if you don't want to repeat your playlist every half hour, consider another, larger-capacity player.
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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Easily the best portable, but there's room for improvement, August 2, 2000
The Diamond Rio 600 is a paradox. It's twice as good as anything currently on the market, but half as much as you need. There's something very right about each of the three components of the system--headphones, body and software--and yet there are serious deficiencies with each part.The Rio's headphones are marginally tinny at any volume, and stressed at higher volumes, but good enough for a portable you'll probably use in a noisy environment anyway. To be sure, other headphones will be needed to fully realize the sound possibilities of the Rio, but the ones included give you at least the beginnings of great sound. Their rather odd, around-the-ear construction is both sensible and awkward. They're perfect for using while working out, because they never fall out, regardless of how vigorously one behaves. But they're hard to get used to because they do take a comparatively longer time to put in than other headphones. Serious audiophiles will dismiss them outright; those of us just looking for workout music will probably get used to their oddness. The body of the Rio is its clear strength. It's about the size of a pager-but lighter. Of all the portable music solutions I shopped--CD, cassette, and digital alike-this one is the very best in terms of size/quality ratio. It's the best thing I've ever used for working out. It's also the best device currently available in terms of expandability. Though on the surface it seems to have less memory than the Rio 500, and than many other newer .mp3 players, it has the capacity for adding on 340 mb. Also, the fact that it takes the .wma (Windows Media) format effectively means that you can store what would be the equivalent of 64mb of songs in the .mp3 format There are some reservations, though. First, its small size means that the battery is tucked away in a pretty inaccessible place. It's somewhat tricky seating a new battery. It's not impossible, mind you, and it's worth the effort given the benefit of the unit's small size, but it's still frustrating on occasion. Second, while a battery does actually give 10 hours of use, the unit's battery life estimator is never accurate. It deducts time too slowly at the start of a battery, so that by the time you get to 6 hours of apparent time left, you actually have only 1 or 2 hours. It's not a huge problem, once you figure it out, but it can be infuriating at first. Third, the unit doesn't come with a belt clip holder or an FM tuner. They're both available, but they're extra. I can understand the FM tuner being extra, but it seems ridiculous for a portable music player to come without the means to make it truly portable. Finally, there's the software. Easily the weakest element of the Diamond Rio 600, it's only a *little* more than a way to add on $20 to the price of the unit. It's entirely too difficult to install and get running. I installed the version off the included CD. When I got it running, it linked me to rioport.com, which informed me there was an update available. This update, however, was really only for the Rio 300 and 500, and so it failed to recognize the Rio 600 as being present. So I uninstalled the update and tried again with the CD version. Then after a mere 50 rips, it told me I had to pay to "unlock" the program. So I tried to unlock, but the software never allowed me to get to the "pay" screen. I then reinstalled the update and miraculously was allowed to unlock the program. But this version still didn't recognize the Rio 600. So I uninstalled the update and reinstalled the original. Finally, everything worked. Hardly an encouraging start. Then, I instructed the program to search my hard drives and come up with a database of playable media. This it did, but it found a lot of `junk' files I wanted to delete. Unbelievably, the program doesn't allow you to group delete, so I had to individually delete each file I didn't want. Finally, after hours of time and $20, I got the software set up and ready to use. But then came another one of those little Rio paradoxes. One of the strengths of the software is that it allows you to read a CD at a variety of different compressions. You can decide to fit more of your songs on the Rio and sacrifice a little quality. The problem is that you might want a song at the highest quality to burn a CD (which the software also does) but at a lower one to send to the Rio. The result is that you practically have to read each CD twice. That's a lot of hard disk space to dedicate to your music library. Hopefully updates will include some sort of converter, so that you only have to scan CDs once. On balance, I highly recommend the Rio, especially if you're just looking for workout music. Be warned, however, that it won't be quite the effortless pathway to great music that the merchandising proclaims, and that the Rio is based on modularity. It has the greatest potential of any current .mp3 player--it can be worn comfortably, has the largest potential memory, can play FM music, and can even be used on your car's lighter--but you're going to have to pay for each added function.
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