High Speed USB 2.0Extended Battery Life up to 20 hours playback on one AAA batteryMultifunction 2-Line Alpha-Numeric LCD displaymp3/WMA/WMA DRM Playback256MB Flash Memory with external SD/MMC slot
1 Works as advertised, almost
Update to original review:
I ended up returning this unit. I tried two of them and both had an annoying hiss/whine during playback. I found another review online for the RD1080 that had a similar complaint and blamed low-quality audio components. The noise would've been tolerable if you only intended on using it in the gym; it isn't *really* loud and normal gym background noise covers it up. However, if you plan to use in a quiet setting and a hiss or whining noise in the background of quite sections of music would bother you, I'd pass.
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I bought this player because it is relatively small, has one of the best quoted battery life ratings (20 hrs vs. 12-18 of other devices), has EQ presets, and has the SD/MMC expansion slot.
Downloading using Windows Media player was very easy (even though I hadn't done it before). Getting songs on to the SD card was just as easy. All controls and features are easy to use and the volume buttons shaped like "+" and "-" are handy when you are running and can feel which button you are about to press. The sound is the same as most other portable devices.
Only a few minor cons:
* My Sony headphones (2 pairs) don't work with this device; they have some high-pitched chirping coming through that is not tolerable. I suspect it is because they are 16 Ohm and the Lyra phones are 32 Ohm. Too bad; I would like to have my choice of which phones to use. Given a choice, I would not always use the two piece clip-ons supplied since when you stuff phones like this (the ear bud type, too) into your bag or pocket, they *always* end up tangled.
* The "lock" switch is not accessible when the player is in its case
* The case seems to barely fit the player - you have to pull the top over tightly to let the LCD show through the cutout. This would be ok, but since an SD/MMC will stick out the top of the player, I think you will have to be careful not to damage the card.
Would've been 5 stars if not for the above
2 Very nice!
I bought my Lyra when my Ipod broke (which by the way I thought the Ipod broke way to easily. A 3 foot drop onto a carpeted floor and it was toast). So far, I like it a lot better than the Ipod, but I can imagine tastes would differ on that.
The advantage the Lyra has over the Ipod is that the controls are simple and easy to use. If you're working out, it's sometimes hard or annoying to move through a bunch of different screens to get to where you want to go. With the Lyra, you just push a couple buttons and you're on your way.
An Ipod obviously holds a lot more music than the lyra does, and is better at letting you organize it. The Lyra is not your device if you want to put your entire collection on it and have all your music availabe whenever you want. However, if you're like me and don't really want to spend the time recording hundred's of CD's to MP3 format, you aren't going to do this anyway.
I do wish that the Lyra had an option to fast forwards within an MP3 file. I often download radio shows as MP3s, and you have to listen to the whole thing beginning to end in one sitting with the Lyra. Of course, this is not an expensive top of the line model, so I shouldn't complain.
The only reason I haven't given the Lyra 5 stars is because I've had a couple issues with it. I've had one episode of it not working for about 12 hours, and then suddenly working again. A twice I've had it freeze in the middle of a track, which is no big deal with music but sucks if you're in the middle of a 90 minute radio program and have to start over from the beginning.
3 Excellent Product
I got the 256MB RCA Lyra, and I am extremely happy with it. The price is excellent and the features are basically what you would get with a portable CD or Tape player.
It's a little "cheap" feeling in that it's very light-weight. Besides dropping it, just watch for the battery compartment lid - it could break easily if you're rough with it. Other than that, it's excellent.
The low-down, as I saw it:
(1) Inexpensive, but does what you expect a basic MP3 player to do.
(2) Runs for 20 hours on one AAA battery
(3) Connects to computer with USB 2.0 - NO DRIVERS NECESSARY (unless you're still running Win95 or Win98)
(4) Plays MP3 with bitrates from 32k to 320k
(5) Plays WMA with bitrates from 48k to 160k
(6) Comes with headphones that sort of clip onto your ear (like wire-frame glasses)
(7) Comes with an arm-band strap, so you can strap it to your arm while running, etc.
(8) Unit has a little metal hole on top so that you can string it to something else if you want.
(9) Function buttons on left side of unit: (1) VOLUME UP, (2) VOLUME DOWN, (3) DSP, (4) MODE ; Function buttons on right side of unit: (1) ON/PLAY/PAUSE, (2) OFF, (3) Track Prev, (4) Track Next
(10) Limited LCD readout, but absolutely fine for my needs. When you turn it on, it displays the number of tracks in memory, then starts play track 1.
(11) VERY NICE FEATURE: SD-Card slot. For about $70 you can add a GIG more of memory. If your music is encoded at 128k, with an average of 40MB per album, this unit holds about 30 albums.
For what it is, I give it 5 stars!
// CHRIS
4 Very easy to use
I received this as a gift from my wife. My daughter checked out all the MP3 players and found that this one delivers the most bang for the buck. I transfered music from my computer to it with no problems at all. I was surprised by the ease and speed of the transfer. It holds 76 songs (depends on length, of course) without an additional memory card, which I'm looking for now. I'm very pleased with the sound quality! The clip-over-the-ears headphones took a while to get used to, but one can always get other headphones if they don't like these. It came with a carrying-case that you can wear on your arm (with an adjustable strap).
I highly recommend this MP3 player, especially if you have a lot of songs on your PC that you'd like to transfer, or copy.
5 Great Product.
After checking out dozens of MP3 players this one was great:
1. Price was under 100.
2. Can add space with SD cards!!!
3. Easy to use!
4. No feature creap... Who needs half the features most of them sell you! This is a small easy to use music player.
5. If you want more space than it + SD card (1Gig is 60 dollars). Get something bigger I just resync to get new music.. What a workout mate!
5. It's a RCA too no brand you haven't heard of.
6 Excellent for the $$$
Okay, I am not sure what people expect MP3 players to do. I've read really dumb reviews. I mean really anything you drop on a concrete groud while playing hoops is going to break. Here's how I break it down. 1. Was it well priced? YES 2. Was it easy to download music without having to spend hours troubleshooting? YES 3. Does the music sound good? YES 4. Does it meet your basic music needs? YES. Then by all means this is a great product for the price you pay. NOw if you want something bigger and better then you pay the hefty price to do so. I get exactly what I paid for. I just wish people would give a good honest review about products and stop whining about stupid things like "I dropped it on the ground and the battery cover broke" Well gee, do you have to wonder why it broke? I enjoy my mp3 and can't be any happier with it!
