Excellent Mp3 Player! Two Thumbs Up!

After doing an extensive research on the Rio Cali 128mb, I decided to purchase it. As soon as I opened the box, I installed the Rio software that comes with it, plugged in the cords and I was transferring songs in 30 minutes. The MP3 Player came with a USB cable, Itunes CD for Mac, Rio Software, armband, plastic case, ear phones and 1 AAA Battery.

The player comes with a 128 MB built-in memory which is a pretty good size. That would be around 40-60 tracks depending on the size. I was able to download 28 songs that are a mixture of WMA's and MP3's. The player supports MP3 and WMA. If 40-60 songs are not enough, the player has an expansion slot where you could insert additional SD (Secure Digital) or MMC (Multi Media Card) memory of up to 512 MB. I did not an additional memory because I think that 128mb is enough memory for now since the main purpose why I purchase it is just for working out. It also has a 5-Band Graphic Equalizer with presets (Jazz, Rock, Pop etc.) which is very handy in case you want to adjust the sound to your own taste. I would give the sound quality 2 thumbs up. I really love it. Even if this player is very small, Rio did not compromise on the sound quality. I used the earphones that came with it and it works fine. The earphones are actually good. They fit perfectly and it seemed like it was reducing background noise. This makes my listening experience real fun!

It also has a digital FM tuner that works amazingly at home and at the gym. I get pretty good radio signals with it.

The player itself is very user-friendly. The joystick is very easy to use and it makes navigating through the menu very easy. The volume button is also shaped and placed for easy access without looking at it. I was able to adjust the volume just by feeling the 2 buttons. It's also backlit. This feature makes it easier for the user to read the menu and song information. The light blue color of the screen looks very cool. The LCD screen is also big enough to display information about the song like the Title, Singer and time.

The player is lightweight. It weighs around 2 ounces therefore it is perfect for me as I like to workout at the gym, run and lift weights. The armband that comes with it is a great accessory. I love the way it fits my arms. I also have the option to clip it on my short's waistband but I prefer it on my arms. It is so light that sometimes I forget that it's there. It also has protective rubber around it. It can also function as a stop watch which comes in very handy when I am running laps.

Rio provides a 90-day warranty with the player. Right now, there is also an ongoing $20 mail-in rebate.

Overall, I am really impressed on the performance of the player per se. The only thing that it's missing is the ability to act as an external drive so I could just drag-and-drop files to it. The Rio installation software that comes with it is okay. It does the job of ripping my regular CD's so I could download them into the player but for a person like me who is not a computer whiz it took me around 30 minutes to figure the whole thing out. The one thing that I was not able to that was really frustrating was transferring the songs I purchased from Itunes (I am using Windows OS). As soon as I figure out how to do it, I will update this review. Since I was not able to figure out how to download my Itunes music to the player, I just burned the Itunes tracks to a CD and then allowed the Rio software to rip the tracks so I could transfer them to the player. This made the process of transferring files longer.

Aside from the little software difficulty that I experienced, I am very pleased with the RIO Cali player. It performs beyond my expectation. I am very picky when it comes to sound quality and I must say that this little MP3 player really has excellent sound quality compared to other players I have tried.

I think that for the price I paid for it, I really got a great deal!

I give the RIO Cali 128mb player a two thumbs up!