Gve your Music a Rio-tastical new lease of energy... (Rio PMP600 32 MB)

Member Name: exposure

Product:	Rio PMP600 32 MB
Date:	14/05/02 (138 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, sexy, sophisticated, option of upgrades, interchangeable covers

Disadvantages: Upgrades are costly, Quite expensive to buy brand new, Requires a PC and the internet to be used to its full potential.

Introductions…
The Diamond Rio 600… A wonder of mans ingenuity, Sexy, elegant and highly sophisticated. This little beauty was the first in the Rio MP3 Revolution and with its endless array of options is it surprising that it was such a hit?

My personal experience…
I personally purchased a Rio 600 just over a year ago now, MP3’s had just started to become popular and the Rio 600 was an advancement in technology rarely seen before. Whilst it appears simple, and by today’s advancements I suppose it is, it really is more than its appearance might lead you to believe. In order to make it look less complicated the Rio 600 works via an internal menu. In other words, you push the menu then scroll through the options much as you would on a mobile phone – See my op on the Nokia 3310.

The Features…
Ok, so lets have a look through the features the Rio 600. Firstly there is the main control button, located at the top of the Player, Controlling things such as the on/off control and the hold option. Yes I no, this may sound basic, but this brings me nicely onto my favourite feature of the Rio 600. When the Player is switched on, as opposed to opening the play dialogue strait away, it shows you the Stats Menu – From this menu you can determine the amount of memory you have left on your Player, whether or not it has detected an extension (into the PC) and the full details of the Player. It then skips automatically to the next menu, the Battery level is displayed here in easy to read format. A percentage power is give, not to mention an illustration and an estimated playtime left. Other features include the easy to access Volume control; Play/Pause Button, Stop button and Next/previous track buttons.

The Main Display…
Displayed at the top of the screen are the song details – things such as the song titles/ artist’s name/ song duration/ record label etc. In the centre t
he song Title is displayed in full screen. Below that is the information to do with the status of the player i.e. the track number, the volume, and the period of time for which the song has been playing.

The Menu…
-AUDIO… This section is dedicated to making your music sound better. From this section you can select the style of music you are playing, depending on your selection the Rio 600 changes the way in which the music is played accordingly. You can choose from the following options – Normal, Jazz, Rock, Classic, Book, Rap, Flat, Custom. No, Book is not a mistake; you really can store digital Books on your Rio 600 MP3 Player. How unbelievable is that?!

-PLAYER
From this menu the following things can be selected-
-Play Options, From here you can choose to make your player play a song continuously or just repeat once, you could even set it to loop all the tracks. You can even have the Rio 600 play the tracks in a Random order to give you some variety.
-Delete Tracks, Well this is pretty self-explanatory, a quick simple easy to understand way of removing unwanted Tracks.
-Play list, Here you can create a play list, edit an existing play list, choose from a number of existing play lists or remove an unwanted Play list.

What is a Play list…?
A play list is a group of songs put together by you in a specific order that is set for you to listen to.

-PREFS
-Power Saving, here you can select the time it takes before The Rio 600 goes into sleep mode, you can set it to sleep after not being used from 1minute to 9 minutes.
-Display, Here the Backlight options are featured. You can select the duration of time that the backlight is on for when a button is pressed.
-Time/Date, Yes, your Rio even stores and keeps the exact time and date for you. Using this option you can change the time and date to fit in with things such as daylight savings.

-ABOUT
This section tells yo
u everything that the starting menu does, but you can take longer to view it and analyse its content.

Additional Features…
I know, I know, your probably thinking yeah right, what other features could there possibly be, well this is a very unique venture in the music industry, but the Rio 600 offers the Option of Interchangeable front covers so you can change the look of your MP3 player when ever you feel like it without it costing the earth. This Gadget is shear brilliance.

Ease of use…
The Rio 600 couldn’t be easier to use, it really is child’s play. I have never regretted for one minute purchasing it. Transferring songs to it couldn’t be easier as it comes complete with a full software Package “Rio Audio Manager 3” Everything can be accessed easily using that. The cable that also comes with the software can be plugged into the back of the PC via one of the USB Ports.

Exposure’s Final Thought…
An excellent product with a 5 star rating, I believe the Rio 600 is available between £100 and £150 in most good electronics stores. With Regards to getting Music from the Net to your MP3 player I would suggest sites such as “http://www.audiogalaxy.com, http://www.kazaa.com or http://www.winmx.com.

Thanx for reading and I hope to hear from you soon,
Regards,
Exposure.

Summary: