I just picked up a Rio last week and I love it. I can't think of a better product for listening to music either on a train or (and I like this the best) while working out, because there's great sound quality, the thing is tiny, light and it doesn't skip.
However, I can see where the 32Megs of RAM can be a little shy of what you might be loking for so I'd suggest picking up the special edition. I found it on best buy online (bestbuy.com) and for $250 it features 64Mb of build in memory and STILL has the added expantion slot. So I can fit a fair amount of music on it even with some songs encoded at unneccessarily high bit rates.

5 stars for the special edition.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the RIO
Myth #1: There is a lot of sound qulity lose at lower kps rates
False: When listening to song with an orchestra there is a good deal of sound quality lose but when listening to jazz, rock, alternative, country etc... there isn't any noticeable sound quality lose.


Here are the reasults of a few test I did with differnt kinds of music at differnt rates:

Orchestra:
At 128kps: Only two out of ten people could tell it wasn't CD qulity.
At 96kps: Four out of ten could tell.
At 64kps 9 out of ten people could hear the differance.

Jazz, rock, alternative, country etc:
At 128kps: Nobody could hear a difference compared to a CD.
At 96kps: Nobody could hear a difference.
At 64kps: Only two people could hear a difference.

All the people in this test were listening on the same headphones (not thoes packaged with the Rio but rather studio qulity headphones) the same songs, and on the same Rio player.

Myth #2: The Rio ofers no bass
Not true, the Rio provides excellent bass when using higher quality headphones than thoes shipped with the Rio.

Well I guess that about covers the basics.

But if you do get a Rio I suggest getting a nicer pair of headphone (not thoes in ear ones)

Just a comment on the lack of Bass from the mp3 format in general. For those that don't know, mp3 is a form of compression. In order to fit sound files in about 1/10 of the space digital audio on a cd takes up, certain things have to be removed. This includes frequencies most people can't hear and other sounds that are masked (which again most people can't hear). This is why the majority of the world's population hears no difference between a 128kbps 44khz mp3 (or even 112kbps) and a cd. I can't speak for the Rio's amp, but those people who complain the format in general lacks bass, check your soundcard (on a pc) or find a different encoder. MP3 is just a format, there are different encoders, and some are better than others. As for the Rio, 32 megs is just not enough memory, but as a first generation product, it's pretty good.

"Charles an Audio Enthusiast from Cambridge MA writes:
Every time I read a review that says how good MP3's sound, I feel embarrassed by my foolish generation. You know why they don't have a bass boost on the MP3? It's not that they didn't THINK OF IT. For the price tag, you would think that the machine could have a f#*!ing bass boost BUT MP3's just don't have any low range frequencies. I don't know if it's specs admit that, but here is my experience. A friend of mine wanted to have a party where he didn't have to change the CD's all the time, so he figured that he would just make a song list on MP3 and play the whole thing. He asked me to set it up. With huge floor standing Yamaha speakers (not great, typical heavy on the bass and low-mid) and the Denon amplifier all boosting the bass to THE MAXIMUM, the sound still had no bass. We then ran it through another EQ to try to get some bass, but the only way to get decent bass was if we boosted the bass so much that you couldn't even make out the words. The sound had to be so altered that you couldn't hear the lyrics. Before you choose MP3 as your new favorite audio format, run it through your stereo system and play it loud. See if you can get a good sound. When you can't, and realize that the file compression is doing more than just making the file size smaller, you can thank me."

Hmm, that's funny because I have hooked my PC up to my stereo and it kicked out a lot of bass, without the bass or volume turned up all the way. Sounded great all-around too even at high volume levels. Also, I made a CD full of MP3s and listened to it on the Nakamichi stereo in my Lexus LS400. Sounded amazing. But then again it's a Nak system. It makes everything sound amazing. Anyway, MP3 is a great format.

I have never used the Rio but I'll give it 4 stars.

Iam looking to get the new rio500 to mainly create Mp3's from TV and movie sound tracks and upload them to the rio. Iam expecting to get up to the 32 hours of storage out of it since I will be using mostly voice audio only. Anyone else uploaded voice only mp3's? And do you get more record time that way?

I got the rio about 1 month or two ago, and I have to say that it's kind nice, but not worth the money. If it either cost half as much or had twice the memory, it'd be good. You can really only fit about 30-40 minutes of quality mp3's on it, which means you have to copy new mp3's to it al the time.

I saw this when it came out and figured $199.99 was a bit pricey. Well, I'm glad I waited, I just bought it at $129.99, with a $50.00 rebate. I'm very happy with it; I bought it because rollerblading with any disc player means plenty of skips.
The Rio doesn't skip.

It also doesn't suck. At higher compressions, it's at least as good as the mini-disc, and a lot less expensive. Even with an additional flash card at $99 or so, it's still not too pricey for a casual buyer.

I think it's pretty stupid to compare this to the Sony mini-disc, because this product was designed to download the whole world full of music from the web, and mini-disc users can't compete with that, can they?

The only thing I'd gripe about is the lack of an equalizer; but you can modify the CD source files or even the MP3 files on your PC if really have a thing about it.

I own a Rio and am extremely happy with it. I have it hooked up to a reciever that gives 40-watts to the speakers I have attached to it and it rocks better than anything else. People also need to relize that this thing is the first portable mp3 player and they will get loads better. I am also intrigued by the car mp3 player. It goes in your dash like another radio, it has a couple gig of space and is supposed to rock. I'm sure that everybody has already guessed that it woulndn't be cheap. $1000-$3000 is what i've heard.

Hi!I just want to say that the Rio player RULES, why? Because:
It takes less than 20 minutes to record a full cd to it and it´s so smal that you can fit it in almost any pocket even in your jeans pocket and you don´t have to wear baggy pants or something...........then there´s always the quality part........with this player you have to chose, less quality means that the songfile takes less space! Another cool thing is that,: as the time goes by you find your self with a great archive of songs on your harddrive, myself, I got almost 2 GB of mp3´s. it means that I fast can chose what i want to listen to just that day!!
This is how I feel!!

No skipping, Loooooooong battery life, good sound qaulity at 128 kbs. Tiny.

little bass. skips with normal batteries.

While this is a little old it is still good. I use it mainly when i mow the lawn. BUt the battery compartment was mad to use with a Duracell Ultra, which is slightly bigger then other batteries. Just stuff a little piece of foil in the battery thingie. Nice and tiny. If you press on the headphones that came with it, it sounds like a concert in your head. Which is cool.But it hurts your ears.
Overall this is a good mp3 player.

to explain the weaknesses, Wasn't this the first mp3 player ever made????
Rio Was gonna build on that. Improve the weaknesses. And Make ones like the Rio 800