Decent player, unacceptable software
Written: Mar 29 '04
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Pros: FMRadio, MPPro!, memory, skip-proof, reasonable cost.
Cons: software slow, crashes, paid MPPro upgrade, reliability?, WMA=bad.
The Bottom Line: Get it if you have MPPro encoder already and you need skip-proof, otherwise look elsewhere. Great hardware, not software.
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| celltower's Full Review: RCA Lyra RD1080 (128 MB) MP3 Player |
Bought product (version 1080B) as gift for a runner, also for 4hour roadtrips, and car-trips around town (no CD in car). This player was easily available in all of the big-name stores.
Love: Size, design, interface, great FM tuner (won't work in most office buildings, what did you expect?), backlight are all great. I haven't used the memory expansion, but that will be nice later since memory prices tend to drop. The arm-holster seems to have improved, it works. I use my own headphones.
Hate: software--lousy! You need to pay for an upgrade to get fast ripping and encoding an MP-Pro support. It crashes windows 98 and is relatively hard to use. Musicmatch was great several years ago, but is behind the times now. I didn't expect to have to pay for a software upgrade after shelling out this much for a player. I've heard reliability concerns, but haven't had them myself.
For those who already have other encoding software,
MPPRO is: 64kb/s constant bitrate, 24kHz, MPEG2-Layer3.
(regular MP3 is MPEG1-Layer3). Keep trying, if you get the
parameters wrong, the player will refuse to play.
Wow!!!! It sounds WAY better than 64kb/s WMA for the same file size. It's also half the size of regular MP3's. I don't use Musicmatch for loading up the player either, just use drag and drop. (by the way, don't accidentally erase the system folder on the device, it seems like you can do that. Songs have to be in a folder on the player's flash drive, or they won't be detected. The order is easy to mix up too. It orders files by creation date? not by title.
Also, for Linux users, the USB support appears to be buggy
(common with these cheap hardware players) so it crashes my linux kernel. The windows driver compensates for this, but a better driver would increase the transfer time by 10x, I think. This will be compensated-for fairly soon in Linux, I imagine, for now I use my windows box for the USB.
Summary: Great player if you have your own ripper-encoder software already (particularly if it can do MPPRO/MPEG2-Layer3), not worth it if you're planning to use the included software.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 129
Recommended for: Athletes - Lightweight and Portable, Perfect for the Gym
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celltower
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Reviews written: 1
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