 Not an iPod - but even better for certain things! 17 of 18 people found this review helpful.
I own an iPod but opted to get a Rio Forge purely for working out - running, going to the gym, biking, etc. I love my iPod for traveling and the office - but my chief complaint about it is that it isn't portable enough. I was looking for something that is light, small and portable - something I can wear to the gym and barely notice its even on me. Additionally, I want that MP3 player to also have an LCD screen and have capable functionalities such as playlists (ie unlike the iPod Shuffle).
So I arrived at the Rio Forge 256 - a fantasticly small, durable and light MP3 player with plenty of features and room for plenty of music. Unlike the iPod, it is super light and can be worn on an armband; unlike the iPod Shuffle, it is full of features, has a full LCD screen and is playlist controllable. It also has features that most MP3 players simply don't have - such as an FM Radio and a Stopwatch.
Best of all... the Rio comes at a fraction of the iPod price - and on eBay, there are tons of brand new ones at great prices.
If you are considering the Rio Forge - realize that its made for portability. Other MP3 players might have better designs or features, but the Rio Forge performs beautifully at what it's meant to be: a portable and durable MP3 player for on-the-go people.
# 256 MB of memory stores up to 4 hours of music
# Sport Clip Earphones
# Sports Case with Armband
# USB 2.0 for Fast Transfers
# Stopwatch & Lap Timer
# FM Radio
# Up to 20 hours Battery Life
# MSC Compatible for easy drag and drop of music and data files.
# Great, Durable Design
Review ID: 10000000000000598  Thank you for voting. If your vote meets our guidelines, it will be posted within 24 hours. You cannot vote on the helpfulness of a review you wrote. Your request cannot be processed at this time. Please try again later.   Interesting if not nearly compelling 13 of 16 people found this review helpful.
I would file this under "interesting/ nearly compelling", and actually deserving of five stars despite the memory limit (other flash players go to 1Gb today). The keys to the Rio Forge's success are a very functional user-interface, nice "other-than-music" goodies, and support for SD/MMC cards.
The user interface uses the LCD real estate quite well. Songs have full ID3 tags displayed, scrolling when necessary. Title, artist, album info is stacked, so scrolling is minimal unless you have long info in all fields. The navigational system is intuitive, and while it isn't a clickwheel, the tiny joystick/ button combination works well once you adapt to it.
The music output is more than acceptable, but not quite equal to Creative's quality or level. It handles MP3s, WMAs, and iTunes AACs without incident. This makes compatibility fairly broad.
The best points illustrate the marked evolution of the Forge from its earlier Chiba/Cali roots. The device no longer requires proprietary software in order to copy files; the device is recongized as an external drive with all rights and privileges afforded to them via USB. A nice feature is the aggregation of the optional flash card into the removeable drive storage total. This allows you to copy a full 1.5Gb of music over to the device, assuming you have a 1Gb MMC or SD card inserted.
You can also format/copy/delete the aggregate; this might be a bit of a problem because you lack the ability to segregate, say, device content from flashcard content. I would tend to say it's not that much of an issue. Smart use of folders on either will help identify which content is removeable.
The device uses a single AAA battery and will go twelve hours easily at mid-volume. You can also specify the kind of battery (Alkaline or NiMH) and it adjusts the battery meter accordingly. This is actually a pretty good idea, considering the ubiquity of AAA batteries.
Some things I like are the FM tuner and stopwatch. It is designed to be a workout companion, and these two features make it especially appealing for big club members; televisions broadcast over locally-based FM, so your cardio workout is now accompanied by sound to go with the visual. The stopwatch is, well, a stopwatch. It also handles splits, so it's decent for running, not at all useless.
Review ID: 10000000000002062 Thank you for voting. If your vote meets our guidelines, it will be posted within 24 hours. You cannot vote on the helpfulness of a review you wrote. Your request cannot be processed at this time. Please try again later. | |
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