Good, inexpensive MP3 player.
Written: Mar 10 '04
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Pros: Inexpensive, good ergonomics, easy to use, expandable memory, light weight, built in FM radio
Cons: The carrying case and ear buds
The Bottom Line: I would recommend it for running. It's light weight, easy to use, sounds good and its memory is expandable.
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| jggillette's Full Review: Rio Sport S30S (64 MB) MP3 Player |
I bought an MP3 player so I could listen to music while running. The Rio s30s serves this purpose well. If you buy it at Costco, it's $77 and comes with a free 32mb MMC.
The good: inexpensive, good ergonomics, rubberized outer shell (keeps sweat out), easy to use, expandable memory, light weight, decent battery life, built in FM radio, large easy to read display.
The bad: the plastic carrying case, interference in the radio when backlight is lit, and the ear buds lack a full sound.
Design:
The rubberized body makes the Rio s30s easy to hold on to, easy to clean and helps protect it from my sweat. It weighs about 2.5 ounces WITH the battery which makes it small and light enough to be practical to use while running , working out, or even just gardening. The display is large and easy to read making it easy to navigate songs and the menu options.
The ear buds are the round, padded type that fit into your ear and have a clip that fits over you ear to hold them in place. They're comfortable enough but I found they didn't stay in my ear well while running. They also seemed to be a little weak in the middle frequencies. I replaced them with a pair of Sony MDR-J10.
The case is another area I thought could use some improvement. It's a pliable plastic case with a belt clip connected to the back. It wraps around the sides and back of the player and secures the player pretty well. The problem I have with it is that the holes cut into the top of the case do not line up that well with the buttons they're intended for, so you'll find yourself playing around with the alignment in order to use the USB cord. This is easily solved with a Dremel tool. :) The case can also clip to the included armband. I found that using the armband while running caused the ear bud wires to get tangled with my arms.
Features:
The Rio s30s plays MP3 or WMA and has a built in FM radio, which works perfectly well for me. It also has a built in stopwatch (nice for running), book marks (nice for audio book fans)and the standard repeat and shuffle mode. The s30s comes with 64mb internal memory. This is enough to hold around 30 songs encoded in WMA, 64kbps. It also has an expansion slot so you can increase storage using MMC or SD cards. The expansion slot will support cards up to 512mb. That's over half a gig including the 64mb built in.
Performance:
The s30s uses on AAA battery. Battery life was around 8 hours using a standard alkaline and around 10 hours using 750mHa NiMh rechargeable.
Using the included ear buds the sound quality is acceptable. Changing these out for a pair of Sony MDR-J10 helped increase the middle frequencies and bass.
The FM radio works fine here in Orlando. The weaker stations are fuzzy sounding but it pulls in the major stations here fine.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 77
Recommended for: Athletes - Lightweight and Portable, Perfect for the Gym
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Epinions.com ID:
jggillette
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Reviews written: 1
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