Diamond Multimedia Rio MP3 Player (PMP30)

Warning! My Rio's battery case broke so I was right about the case being junk. I was listening to the rio and the battery fell out. When I looked at it, the very small clip had broken off.

New: I've now got a PMP300 Special Edition which comes with 64 Meg and I've got two 32 m memory cards so I can carry around 96 mb of music now.

More Warnings! The credit card processing system at Diamond is broke and they will double and triple charge you. Be careful. I'll report how long it takes them to fix things when they do get it fixed.

Some of the songs I play on my Rio are on my Melbourne Music Page

Overall:
Great toy but not ready for prime time.

It's a nice toy and I like it but this unit is ready for the real world. While the sound is exceptional compared to other forms of portable music, this product is missing a quite a few very important details. Perhaps their next product can fix some of the problems.

1. Sound is quite good.

The only his I can hear is from tracks that have some hiss on them. I've been using Audio Catalyst from xing  to copy discs to disk and then transferring them
using a Rio driver for Linux from Snowbird Alliance. I'm using the supplied headphones (earpiece style). There are pops and clicks when it turns on but that's almost expected (but could be fixed by better power supply filtering).
2. The case isn't ready for prime time abuse.
• already scratched up.
• it feels "cheap"
• its made of very thin plastic
• its way too big (considering what's inside it)
3. Diamomd's order processing system is very poor (buy from any other dealer)
• Had to call then several times
• Cancel my order because their web page was buggy
• Never sent email about what was going on with the order
4. It eats batteries way too fast when off.
• The thing is always "on" and can't be turned off.
5. The display is poor.
• the "upload" indicator is too small to
• can't display track name
• It uses a generic display that was made for some mobile phone
6. The user interface is poor. Its a copy of a CD player
• The A-B button (repeat a small section of song) is worthless because of the pause between the repeats
• The menu button doesn't do anything when its playing
• the intro button messes up other features
• The EQ button breaks up the sound.
7. The volume has 20 steps and needs more

In a quiet room I tend to listen to the rio on volume setting 4 or 5 but I would like a setting about 1/2 in between.  Twenty steps on an audio product is quite pathetic.  The volume level should allow for slight increases, so slight that they are bearly audiable.  If the volume level increases a great deal between steps, then there aren't enough steps.
8. it can't transfer while playing

I can't listen the the Rio while downloading music.  Its bad enough that I can't hear my CD player while its converting to MP3 so I can't even hear music while I'm transfering music.
9. No WinNT or Linux drivers

Like most products they took the easy way out and only produced drivers for the most popular OS.  They left out the second and third  place OS's and failed to proviide Linux or Windows NT drivers.  Everyone I know that will buy a Rio has Linux.  I can't say that about any other OS.
10. Protocol isn't documented

So what is Diamond tring to hide?  It isn't rocket science to decode packets and document them (as has been done with every thing else).  It just makes sure that third party software will make the rio look buggy when it gets upgraded.
11. Can't upgrade its firmware via flash

Every device with firmware these days should have flash upgrade.  Its not like the devices is low on memory.  Upload a new image and reprogram the unit for new features.  Its not that hard is it?
12. Price. US$200. That's AUS$300
13. Not enough memory. They are about to produce a "special" one with twice as much flash ram for US$250
14. MP3 players will be under US$100 by Christmas.