Here is the review I promised.
Ordering - I ordered it from the S3 Diamond/Sonic Blue online store and paid just under $200 with tax and 2 day air. They gave me a lot of problems with my order, even having me verify my order and address through email. I think they outsource their ecommerce section to a compnay called Digital River.
Shipping - Anyways, it came on Friday stuffed inside a Large [it actually says this on the] Fed Ex Box. When I say stuffed I mean that the width of the box is too small for the package and they had to squeeze it in there. No packing material, paper stuffing, bubble wrap, etc. Just the package.
Packaging - The Rio Volt comes in one of those annoying plastic form molded packagings. You know, the ones where you have to bust out heavy duty scissors or your Gerber utility knife to open. Needless to say, if you buy this, you are going to have a VERY hard time returning it or selling it. There is no way to open the package without annihilating it. The good thing about the packaging is that there is very little space wasted and it has a hole on top so it can be hung on this steel rods at Best Buy, CompUSA, etc.
Includes - The package includes the Rio Volt MP3/CD Player, AC Adapter, Remote Control, In-the-ear headphones, a pleather carrying case, 2 Software Installation CD's, and a Getting Started foldout paper. There is no warranty card, instruction booklet, or anything else - just the fold out instruction sheet.
Device - The player looks very sturdy. There are 8 buttons in front. The are Program, +10, Mode, EQ, Volume +/-, 4-way joypad, and Navi. These are what they do:
Prog. - This allows you to program the device to play a playlist you want.
+10 - Skips 10 tracks ahead.
Mode - Different repeat and shuffle modes. There are a total of 8 ways it can do this.
EQ - Equalizer with Normal, Rock, Jazz, Classical, and Ultra Bass modes.
Volume - Changes the volume.
Navi - You press this and it shows you the directory structure of your cd with ROOT as the first choice. Then you can just the joypad to enter each folder or navigate among them.
Joypad - Controls the NAVI as well as Play/Pause, Fast Foward, Rewind, and Stop. If you hold Stop, it turns off the device.
On the side of the device there is a very nice headphone jack, a lineout, and a power port and a Hold switch which prevents the device from turning on accidentally or having keys inputted by accident.
Software - It comes with Real Jukebox 2, Sound Jam, Easy CD Creator.
Remote Control - The remote is VERY light. I thought by the looks of the pictures that it would be heavy but it's super light. You plug the remote into the headphone jack and it allows to to control volume, track, play/pause/stop and EQ.
Usage - I overburned a 80min cd full of 134 mp3's in about 5 folders including music in the root. It takes the Rio Volt approximately 7 seconds to load the entire cd, display the number of tracks and then start playing the first track. If you go from track 1 to 2 then there is no delay. But if you skip to a track far away it takes about 3-4 seconds to scan. When it is playing a song, the cd is not spinning. The shuffle works very well, meaning it doesn't keep playing the same 10 tracks. It really jumps around. The equalizer modes are pretty fun to mess with but they are all preset. There is a 40 second ESP and seeing as how this is an mp3 player, I don't see any problems with this. I even shook it around to see if I could get it to skip and I couldn't. The sound is very sharp and clear. I tried the headphones they include (which are really cool) as well as my Sony W.Ear's and they are great. Yes, any headphones work with the remote.
Case - This is probably the only 'con' or weird thing about the product. The case has an area in the back where you can put your belt through. There is also the product name in the front. These two features tell you that there is a correct orientation of the case. Well my first instinct is to have the case upright and the Rio Volt slide in right side up too. Meaning the words on both the case and the device are right side up and legible. Well guess what? There is a slot on the left side of the case. But the mic and line out ports are on the right side of the device. What this means is that if you want to carry your mp3 player around and listen to it, you have to place the Rio Volt upside down in the case. Isn't that weird?
Miscellaneous - ID3 tag support - HELL YEAH! It works very well too. If it has no tags, it will read the mp3 filename. It CAN fastforward through a song. You just hold down FF. The display is very bright (readable in the dark) and even has a cool animation of a girl dancing back and forth. Battery life is listed as 15 hours and since my player is still new, I don't know if this is true. Oh yes, it comes with 2 new Duracell AA batteries.
BUY THIS PLAYER NOW! I convinced my friends to buy the Philips Expanium when it first came out. That was an awesome player, this is better!
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