Diamond Rio 500 Portable MP3 Player

Introduction

Ever since MP3`s came around the sales of Compact Disc records has been declining at an alarming rate. More and more people prefer to just download the MP3 of their favorite sound track instead of buying a CD. So, why wouldn’t the folks high up in the music industry be angered?. .After all, I can’t remember the last time I spent 20 bucks buying a CD..But now they’ve turned their attention towards the software providers (mp3.com and napster) and taken them to court…. (*sigh*) ……These battles are likely to go on for a while, but we on the other hand can go on listening to ‘free’ music!!!

The Rio 500 is the second in the range of Diamonds portable MP3 players. ( Rio 300,Rio500 & Rio 600) It comes in a handy, lightweight, compact package complete with 64 MB on board memory, which is expandable via Smart Media cards.

Specifications

• Size: 3.59″ x 2.46″ x 0.74″
• Weight 2.75 ounces
• Onboard Memory: 64MB Flash Memory Upgradable (SmartMedia cards)
• Battery: Single 1.5V AA alkaline battery
• Slots: One battery slot One flash memory slot
• USB Port: Transfer Rate Up to 500Kb per second (USB speed) Blazingly fast transfers
• Distortion Rate: 0.01-0.1%
• Signal-to-Noise Ratio: 95 dB

System Requirements

Personal Computer (PC)

• Microsoft Windows 98
• Pentium PC 90 MHz or compatible CPU
• 16MB available RAM
• USB port (1.0 compliant)
• CD-ROM drive (for MP3 encoding from CD)

  Mac

• Mac OS (8.6 or higher)
• G3 or iMac system
• USB port (1.0 compliant)
• CD-ROM drive (for MP3 encoding from CD)

KEY FEATURES

• USB port for terrific download speeds.
• Windows 98 and Mac OS (iMac, G3) compatibility.
• Skip and Flutter resistant due to non moving parts
• 64 MB onboard memory, expendable with flash cards.
• Bookmarking feature for repeatedly looping of tracks.
• Software included for downloading, organizing, creating and playback of digital audio files.
• Audible Manager 2.0 software for spoken audio content. (Windows 98 only)
• Single AA battery for up to 13 hours of listening pleasure.
• Upgradeable firmware provides future compatibility.

How Cool Is It?

Diamond Rio 500The kit I received came complete with the Rio500 player, a Strong carrying case that has small pockets in the inside for the additional flash cards, earphones, USB cable and one AA battery. So what was my first impression? Very cool!!..You can take my word for it. It’s so tiny compared to a regular Walkman or Discman and it’s got the look & feel of a very ‘hi-tech’ gadgetry. The coolest experience was when I had to explain to 80% of the people I met what this little ‘thingy’ really is …. I’m kind of used to all those ”wow’s and “cool man!!” comments now.

With 3.59″ x 2.46″ x 0.74″ dimensions it’s smaller than my palm and weights under 3 ounces. Since there are no moving parts in the MP3 player there is no restrictions in movement. I remember the day’s when I had a Discman and with one wrong move the music was a gonna!! I played a game of tennis wearing the Rio 500 through out and didn’t experience any skipping or fluttering what so ever. Being so compact in size it didn’t get in the way at all. I Played two long sets which lasted about 1hr 45 min and had AEROSMITH blasting away through out. Welcome to the world of portable MP3`s!!!

FEATURES

The RIO 500 has a slot for memory expansion with Smart Media cards on the top of the player. These Range from 16 MB up to 64 MB in size. Unfortunately I was not able to get the expansion cards at the time this review was posted.

Transferring of MP3`s is done using the USB port. It took me about 5 minute’s to upload the MP3`s to fill the full 64MB,which is very satisfactory. Some other portable MP3 players in the market take as long as 20-25 minutes.

A single AA battery powers the player. (Mine came with Energizer Alkalines). Diamond claims more than 13 hours of non-stop continues playing. But this depends on how careful you are with the batteries. The Backlight seems to drain the batteries a lot and since I was constantly meddling around with it, my batteries died down after about 10 hours. But again this is an extremely good figure and I’m quite certain it would have lasted longer if I didn’t play around with the light unnecessarily.

The LCD display is clear and not that hard to read. The front of the player has all the main controls. (Play/Pause, Stop, Rew & FF). The ‘Bookmark’ button found on the left of the player can be used to repeatedly loop part of the track. This can be very useful if you want to learn the lyrics of a particular song or just hear something repeatedly.

The multi function button on the right of the player let’s the user toggle between, Firmware Version 1.04
Backlight (Normal,Always On,Always Off modes), EQ (Normal,Classic,Jazz,Rock & Custom modes), Program (Program, Program List, Clear program), Random Repeat(one track, one folder, all folders, none)

The ‘browse’ button just above the multi function button enables user to scroll through selections and folders.