Pretty Pathetic Running Companion
Written: Jul 27 '00 (Updated Jul 27 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Funky looking
Cons: Cheap quality, bad buttons, unreliable
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| viran's Full Review: Rio Rave MP2050 MP3 Player |
I got this player (the 2000 model with 32mb) for a song (about $25) and let me tell you -- it's barely worth that much.
I bought it mainly because I'm an avid runner and sometimes my MD player skips when I go trail running. I thought this would be a perfect replacement since it doesn't skip, I can download new music every day right before a run, and the 32Mb is enough for about 8 songs which is fine for most of my runs.
Unfortunately, it's not that great a deal -- the flash memory started getting errors after a few weeks (so my downloads would abort after a few songs), and the supplied Windows 95 software just aborts whenever it gets a checksum error. I finally had to resort to getting a thirdparty Linux download program which could actually handle bad blocks in the flash memory without aborting the whole download process.
The external build quality is pretty shoddy too -- although it looks nice and shiny and solid, that metallic looking case is in reality just a cheap and light plastic covering. It does make the player really light, but I'd hate to pick up the pieces if I ever dropped it.
Another terrible flaw is the button arrangement. The volume down button is next to the previous track button, and the volume up button is next to the next track button!!?! Who on earth came up with this crummy arrangement? The buttons feel the same to the touch, and when you're running you want nice big, differentiated buttons to press on. I end up changing tracks every time I want to raise or lower the volume.
The sound quality isn't too bad, although you have to set the volume quite high for it to be audible. I've heard it has a pretty pathetic signal-to-noise ratio, although it doesn't really matter that much when you're running.
The other features much touted in reviews are, in my opinion, a complete an utter misdirection of effort and worthless to boot. Who needs an address book, or a memopad (with a 10 character display) in an mp3 player???
This player had potential (and it is an original design) but the execution was flawed. Don't buy it. The only good part was the pair of Senheiser mini-buds they included in the package.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
viran
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Member: Virantha
Location: Ithaca, NY
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
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