Practical player, but Mac users beware
Written: Dec 30 '03
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Pros: Tiny, cheap, and practical with great sound. Great for working out!
Cons: Huge Mac compatibility, and functionality problems
The Bottom Line: If the firmware upgrade fixes compatibility, and functionality for Mac users, its a great overall player. But it's no match for the Nomad that plays right out of the box.
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| jrrglobe's Full Review: RCA Lyra RD1021 (64 MB) MP3 Player |
The Lyra is a practical player. Its very tiny, and comes with an arm band that is very convenient if you want to use it while working out. The controls are conveniently placed and easy to use, and the sound is great. It has a preset equalizer that includes a bass-boost function. The "clip-on" earphones are comfortable. They have a plastic loop on each speaker to hold it comfortably snug to your ears. I like this because there is no head band or neck band to get in the way.
... But the people at RCA forgot about compatibility and functionality. It reads "PC/Mac compatible" on the package. However, it is just barely Mac compatible (OSX). Although it comes packaged with Musicmatch as a driver for PC, there is no driver included for Mac. In contrast to Creative's Nomad line, iTunes (the preferred mp3 management software for Mac users) does not recognize the hardware. That's forgiven by the fact that Mac OS X recognizes the player as a drive.
So I thought "good, just drag and drop." Well, not exactly. I dragged and dropped 11 mp3s (iTunes format) onto the drive image. The files transferred fine. The problem was that the player showed that there were 22 songs. The songs played fine, but you can forget about using the convenient "program" function, because the song titles don't display correctly. The extra 11 tracks did not play. I'm not sure what they were, but they didn't seem to take up any memory.
After I erased the everything from the player, two tracks still remained on the player display. They don't play, and they don't seem to take up memory, but they are irritating. I found a found a firmware upgrade on RCA's website that may fix the problem, but it needs to be installed from a PC. It may work better with Musicmatch for Mac, but that would require an additional purchase of the software.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 78.52
Recommended for: Athletes - Lightweight and Portable, Perfect for the Gym
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Epinions.com ID:
jrrglobe
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Location: Brooklyn Park, MN USA
Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
I am 32, and own/operate a limousine service in Minneapolis.
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