Diamond Rio Digital Player

List Price: $249.99 Discount Price: $49.74

Features:

• Diamond Rio Digital Player

Accessories:
NETGEAR Wireless Digital Music Player	Koss SportaPro Stereo Headphones	Energizer E91BP-4 AA Batteries (4-Pack)	Energizer® "AA" Alkaline Batteries "AA" 12-pack	SanDisk 32MB SmartMedia Card

Customer Reviews:

Piece of [junk] if you ask me.. [Posted on 2002-10-12]
I loved this Rio when I first got it, honest I did. I took great care of it, was careful not to drop it, fed it fresh batteries every time it asked, and all was well.

But then, after about a year, my Rio failed me. The battery compartment flap came loose and refused to stay closed. I tried taping it shut, but as I usually clipped the Rio to my pocket, gravity worked against me to keep the battery continually falling out of the bottom. Every time I so much as shifted in my chair, the song would restart because the battery had gotten loose and caused the Rio to power off.

What's worse is that SonicBlue blatantly refused to replace the player even though it was clearly a product defect and though I had a warranty. Their reason is that this product is a "legacy" product now..so even though they're apparently still manufacturing this thing, they won't do anything to fix it. I'm never buying from them again.

rio mp3 player pmp300 [Posted on 2003-03-20]
i brought my pmp300 brand new but moved some time ago and have not been able to find the download cables it is a great mp3 player but i am getting bored with the same mucis thats on the player if you have one for gods sake DONT LOSE YOU DOWNLOAD CABLES because you can not get them for love nor money

The Diamond Rio PMP300 [Posted on 2003-07-12]
Think about this...[quite a bit of money] for a mp3 player that holds max. 9-10 songs. That is the most rediculous thing i have ever heard. You can get a Nomad II for [less money]with 64mb built in. I recommend getting that mp3 player. I just bought a 128mb card for the PMP300 and it doesn't work. This Mp3 Player only takes certain 32 mb cards which are [quite expensive]. When i drop the mp3 player it shuts off completely as if there was no battery in the device. Alot of times when you take the battery out and then put it back in it doesn't even register as having a battery in it. It is not a high technology device at all. Something else that made me even more mad was that there is no longer customer support for this product. I think this company should get their act together. I highly recomend buying another mp3 player b/c this one isn't worth it at all.

I love it, but... [Posted on 2003-11-13]
I have one of these, and I'm very fond of it. It does a good job, and is very durable (I've had mine for years and haven't been incredibly kind to it, but it's still good as new.) The design is plain but classy, and it's easy to use. It takes almost no time to familiarize yourself with the buttons so you can fool with it without looking. There aren't any buttons or switches that are easy to hit accidentally, and in general, it can take being tossed around a little in a bag so long as it's reasonable. Don't crush it and don't spill anything on it, but it's not like it's the Mona Lisa.

As many have mentioned, it holds about 30 minutes of music, unless you can find a memory card (I'm not sure if they are even made anymore, but I have seen them for sale) which will give you a whopping hour. If you're just going to use this for walking the dog around the block, or standing in line, or a quick run in the morning, this isn't such a big deal.

The USB-type cord is primitive and weird, so you'll probably be using the parallel port adapter, which isn't really a problem, but can be an inconvenience if you have a lot of things that use your parallel ports.

I'm pretty sure the company no longer supports this device or its software, since they have gone on to bigger and better things since its debut. Caveat emptor.

Also, it is not compatible with anything after Windows 98, but you can get around that easily by downloading the free program "Dreaming of Brazil" which works with XP, NT, and 2000. (Google search for "Diamond Rio mp3 player" or "Dreaming of Brazil.")

A few pointers from my humble experience with the Rio PMP300:
If the headphones it comes with break, you can replace them with any headphones that fit the headphone jack. You should also take the battery out of the Rio when you aren't using it-- it sucks energy when it's idle. If you happen to need a little bit of misc. storage space, you can use the Dreaming of Brazil program to transfer any items that will fit, which can be handy.

I imagine this is not the best mp3 player you can buy, but if you can get it cheap, it's still a pretty good one. The main problem I have is the tiny amount of storage space and compatibility issues. Shop around for an iPod or a newer Rio or something if you're very concerned with absolute top quality.

waste of money! [Posted on 2005-01-27]
i got one of these a LONG time ago for christmas. it was the first mp3 player i have owned and it did serve me well for quite some time.

firstly, i have to credit this piece of crap as being the first mp3 player marketed and almost didn't make it for legal problems. sound quality is ok.

now the problems: firstly, there is a MAJOR design flaw regarding the battery cradle (holder, whatever). the door fits over the end of the battery and contains the negative terminal. door is held in place by a small plastic hook and WILL break! i had them replace it once! also, as it gets older and takes even light abuse i found that the solder joint on the negative terminal breaks which forced me to open the damn thing and resolder it to the board. my solution? get a single AA battery holder from radio shack, remove the old battery cradle inside the rio, cut a nice big rectangular pocket out of the side of the case with my dremel (to accompany the new battery clip) and solder the wires of that to the board of the rio. and then i attached it to the case with hot glue. yes its ghetto but it worked way better than diamond's solution!

secondly, we all know about the lack of OS support. just sick there...there's beta thrid party software that'll do it on xp, but it sucks. 32mb of memory isn't enough. i got the 32mb flash card and 64mb isn't enough!

ahh the flash card....would be nice if the rio properly detected it even half the time. something is desperately wrong with the memory controller and most of the time it can't even detect the card let alone play anything off it. to fix that, i kept hitting it. stop laughing, it worked. but then after a while it started turning the volume up and down on its own....

so in conclusion i can't recomend this piece of crap to anyone. my final solution was to get the creative MuVo TX FM (256mb) and then i gave the rio 300 to my girlfriend. haha i know....but it still works. too poor to buy her a real mp3 player yet.

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