The Rio S50 from a Mac perspective
Written: Dec 19 '03
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Pros: Integration with iTunes (Mac), Design and Build Quality, Belt Holster, Battery Performance
Cons: poor radio reception, no audible.com support
The Bottom Line: A well designed, likeable MP3 player
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| robhafer's Full Review: Rio S50 Street (128 MB) MP3 Player |
I have the Rio s50 (same product as the s35s, just different plastics and rechargable AA instead of the AAA)
I borrowed an iPod for month and fell in love with it but couldn't justify the expense, didn't like the scratch-sensitive case, don't have a Firewire Mac, and was a little leery of long-term reliability (hard drive and sealed battery).
Here's why this is a great mp3 player...
- MP3 audio quality is excellent to my untrained ear
- Really small and solid, fits great in the hand
- Front panel controls feel solid and give good tactile feedback
- Excellent s50 padded belt holster includes a nice spring clip, protection for all 6 sides, and allows full control of unit (even recharging)...I haven't seen the s35s holster
- iTunes is wonderful...lots of features for organizing music and the smart playlist feature chooses a random 128mb set of songs from my collection so I never need to decide what I'm going to transfer. Implemented using an iTunes "plugin" so I should be able to maintain compatibility with future releases of iTunes.
- AA batteries are cheap and easy to find...in case I need to swap out the included NiHi AA cell on the road.
- Software upgradable via iTunes
Some drawbacks:
- iTunes integration is great but not perfect...you have to launch iTunes after connecing the Rio and if you try to drag too many songs on the Rio I got a series of errors and had to relaunch both Rio and iTunes.
- Backlighting is a little dimmer than I expected but quite usable
- Radio reception isn't great (most stations have a noticable hiss, even here in Silicon Valley)...just good enough to be useful but if this is going to irritate you get the cheaper S10 instead
- You probably want to get better headphones, the included set feels nice but my $25 Koss' sound a whole lot better.
- 128mb capactity is still not much space if you have a lot of medium bitrate MP3s and SD memory is a little more expensive than SmartMedia and CF (but seems to be the emerging standard). If you need to store >2hrs of songs, add an SD card (note: depending on market conditions, the S10 may offer a better price/capacity ratio...if it weren't for the Best Buy sale I would've bought an S10 with a 256mb SD card and given up the rechargable battery and radio/clock/stopwatch features)
- Although earlier Rio players supported Audible.com content this model doesn't appear to handle this file format (dragging audible files from iTunes to the Rio is ignored)
- Don't plan on using a standard USB cord, this unit uses a proprietary connector so you need to drag around the supplied cord (since this unit doesn't mount as a USB drive this isn't a big deal for me since I'm only connecting to my iTunes machine anyway)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 169
Recommended for: Athletes - Lightweight and Portable, Perfect for the Gym
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Epinions.com ID:
robhafer
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Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
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