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Every month, manufacturers unleash even more MP3 players to an increasingly confused public. Not only do these devices have wildly divergent features, but ongoing format wars mean the MP3 player you choose dictates where you can buy your digital music. These devices are anything but one-size-fits-all. First, there's the question of design. A player can have every feature in the world, but if the design doesn't match your lifestyle or if the interface is impenetrable, you still won't enjoy it. You'll want to look closely at performance; sound quality and battery life can make or break a player, especially if you travel a lot or have the so-called golden ears of an audiophile. Before you start checking out specific models, you should have a basic understanding of the types of MP3 players available. Note: all types of players mentioned below can play other formats besides MP3, such as WMA, ATRAC3, OGG, or AAC, but we still refer to them as MP3 players. Types of players: Hard-drive-based | Micro hard-drive-based | Flash-based | MP3 CD Hard-drive-based players Most likely, a high-capacity player can accommodate every song you've ever purchased or ripped from a CD. Hard drives run from 20GB on up, and large players such as the 80GB Apple iPod can hold around 23,000 songs, assuming an average file size of 3.5MB per tune. Hard drive MP3 players such as the Microsoft Zune can hold a luxurious amount of music and video. Pros: They store all your music on one device. They also tend to have more features and larger screens and are overall easier to use. High-capacity players give you the best bang for your buck in terms of price per gigabyte (for example, $300 30GB iPod vs. $250 8GB iPod Nano). Cons: These players are usually built around a 1.8-inch hard drive; thus, they are larger and heavier than the others. Also, hard drives have moving parts, so these players aren't ideal for strenuous physical activity. Finally, most use rechargeable batteries (usually lasting 8 to 20 hours per charge) that you can't replace yourself, so after several years, you might have to pay for a new model or pay to get the battery replaced. Micro hard-drive-based players Straddling the line between full-size hard-drive-based MP3 players and compact, flash-based players, these models aim to give you the best of both worlds by using miniature hard drives (about 1 inch or less in diameter) with capacities of up to 12GB. So-called "micro drive" players are being largely phased out in favor of high-capacity flash devices, but you can still find compact hard-drive players such as the Creative Zen Micro Photo for sale online. Micro hard-drive players such as the TrekStor Vibez are becoming rare, but they still offer an appealing compromise between hard drive and Flash-based MP3 players. Pros: They're smaller and lighter than high-capacity players but still hold more tunes than flash-based models with the same price. Cons: You get fewer megabytes per dollar than you do with a larger player, and these models have many of the same disadvantages of larger hard-drive-based units, including the moving parts that limit physical activity and nonremovable batteries that eventually wear out and need to be replaced. Luckily, many new micro drive-based players such as the Creative Zen Micro feature a user-replaceable battery. This is a basic summary of MP3s, there's many types all of which have similar features. Overall Rating: 10/10Read full review
A Rio 600 MP3 player cannot compare feature-wise with most of today's new players. You should not buy a Rio if you're looking for an MP3 player. A Rio 600 nowadays costs around five bucks. But its worth to you may be greater than that, for the following reason: this was the first widely recognized MP3 player. It popularized the whole concept; its brand was powerful, and resonated with the late 90's tech craze. Before there were iPods, there were Rios. In forty years, the iPod Classic will be in a glass box in a museum, NEXT TO A RIO 600. Get what I'm saying? It's an affordable piece of history. It's a fun throwback. That's why you would want to buy one. Now, most Rio 600s only have a capacity for 32MB. I've managed to put seven songs on one of them, using iTunes 4 for Mac. There's PC software that can connect with a Rio as well, and a Unix utility; it takes some effort, but if you can do things like browse the web and set up a printer, you'll have no trouble. You might want to bitcrush your songs before loading them onto your Rio 600, so that they have a reduced file size and a more tinny quality, but that wouldn't do the Rio justice; it's completely capable of playing today's MP3s. Love the Rio.Read full review
It is a bit bigger than expected, seems to wrok very well and is a very nice mp3 player, the price was very reasonable.
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