The revolutionary Rio Nitrus packs 1.5GB into a stealthy, razor-thin design. With the ability to carry over 375 songs**, never before has this much capacity been offered on a player this small.
Fast USB 2.0 connection loads the player quickly. Simple menus, thoughtful controls, and a clear display make navigation instinctive. A 5-Band Adjustable Equalizer provides a custom listening experience. Quality components throughout yield a player without compromise.
- 1.5GB HDD plays back over 25 hours of MP3 or 50 hours of WMA music (over 375 MP3 or 750 WMA songs)
- USB 2.0 for fast transfers
- Transfer content between multiple PCs
- 16-hour continuous playback with the rechargeable LiIon battery
- 5-Band Adjustable Equalizer with pre-sets
1 Good Player and Good Customer Service
I bought a Rio Nitrus about 3 months ago and it was great. I used it for 3 months and it stopped working and began displaying an upgrader message. After trying everything to make it work again I called Rio customer support and told them about the problem. They were very polite and after I told them everything I tried to do to fix it they told me it would no longer work and that they would have to send me a new one. By following their instructions I was sent a brand new Nitrus free of charge. Don't believe the reviews that say the customer support was horrible because it wasn't.
2 Good while it worked
I purchased a Rio Nitrus in the Summer of 2004. I filled it with about 300 songs from CDs and Napster. It met my needs, it was small, inexpensive and held just enough songs. Unfortunately, in March 2005 it stopped working. It was stuck in UPGRADER mode and after many weeks of failed e-mail assistance I called the support number. They told me that the player was broken (really? how about some reasoning) and that I could buy a factory-reconditioned unit for 75$. I was out of warranty and out of luck. I am considering upgrading to the 5GB Zen Micro or Rio Carbon, but I am hesitant to purchase further products from RIO.
3 Nitrus is UNRELIABLE and RIO's customer service is bad
Within a few weeks of owning this player it began malfunctioning. I never jarred it or dropped it but I have thought about smashing it with a brick. It spent its life on a desk top and couldn't handle that job without screwing up. The software included in the new packaging is clunky and only partially functional. The "Rio Taxi" and Rio Music Manager" software with do little more than leave you frustrated by its constant dead-ends and error messages. But, let's get to the worst problem of all - the RIO NITRUS MP3 Player. It's junk !!! The internal hard drive is prone to skipping and locking up. When I spoke with Rio about this they told me, "it was to be expected with a hard-drive player." Giving them the benifit of the doubt, I continued using my player for another 2-3 weeks. Right around that time it became totally unresponsive and impossible to use. RIO's answer to this was to send it back to them (along with $80) in exchange for a reconditioned unit. What a deal,,, buy a $200 mp3 player and 4 months later send it back to the factory (+ $80) for a new (opps, I mean reconditioned) one. The take home message is, avoid anything with the RIO name on it.
4 VERY GOOD MP3 PRODUCT!
For the price that it is, i truely think that this is a great MP3 player. It can hold over 450 songs, you can create many playlists which can inlcude "slow songs," "On the move," "Top 20" (etc.)I know over 450 songs might not sound a lot considering the fact that IPOD can hold over 1000, but think about, that is still quite a bit of songs! When you get tired of one of the songs, you can just erase it and replace is with a song that you currently like. And adding/erasing songs is as easy as counting to ten! You just put the "Rio CD" in that comes with your product, insert it into your computer, highlight the song that you want to delete, push "delete," and thats all you need to know in order for yourself to be able to delete it. Then you just transfer the song that you want onto your MP3 onto it! Easy, huh? The search capabilities are also amazing as you can search via artist, track, track #, album, genre, year, or new music that you have just put onto your MP3.
Another thing that i have to "brag" about this Mp3 product, is the quality of it. It is amazing! There is apsolutely no static in it whatsoever which i found to be excellent/quite surprising considering the cheap price of this product. Obviousely, it also depends on the kind of headphones you have, but the Rio Nitrus itself, has excellent quality also.
It is of course, extremely small, so it is easy to take around with you. In fact, the rio nitrus is even smaller then both an ipod mini, and an actual ipod.
If i had to complain about a con about this product, it would probobly be the fact that it doesn't have very long battery life. Listening to it for two hours a day, for about a week will do it in terms of battery. But if you just recharge the battery overnight everyday, you will not have a problem.
As a result, the Rio Nitrus is an extremely good product, and probobly one of the best MP3's out there!
5 Very Good
About a year ago, i went shopping 4 my 1st MP3 player. I bought a 1.5GB RCA Lyra, but the songs didnt play. Then I got my good old Nitrus. YAY. it has a good amount of space, unless ur a person who wants to put EVRY SINGLE CD on ur MP3. In which case get sumthing from creative. i dont recommend IPODs because the wheel is flipping awful. anyway...battery life is good,design is good, buttons are good. the reason i gave it a 4 is becasue recently, the song have not played correctly. Im pretty sure its a problem with the equalizer. parts that are supposed to play are barely audible. hopefully this wont happen 2 u
6 Great little player, but get warranty
This is a great little player, Ive had mine for about a year now and it still works great. I guess some have been having problems with the hard drive and such, but I can't speak for them. Otherwise it has great battery life, except in the cold, but Lithium ions batteries have that problem always (just like ipods). Def worth what I paid
The bets part is its size: its soo small and weighs hardly nothing and with my sennheiser px100 headphones it make for a great jogging, rowing, biking player - you can shake it all you want and wont crap out like those ipods have been doing.
7 Nitrus Rocks
This little unit rocks. Picked it up used for $50. Just as good as an I-pod, but alot cheaper, and the batteries last alot longer than my I-pod. I was afraid I was going to damage the I-pod or scratch the pretty surface. The nitrus is great for working out or doing yard work. Banged it and dropped it and it keeps on going. Trust me there are many units out there better than an I-pod. How the I-pod became so popular is a mystery to me. If you still must have an I-pod my will be up for sale soon.
8 This little gadget is a god send
Not only is the rio a superb piece of hardware its got a faultless software system which is better than windows media and musicmatch put together. The rio nitrus is perfectly simple to use and a unique shape and size. Also the battery life is something to compete with as well with 16 hours of playtime. Try and beat a rio for a 1.5gb....YOU WONT!!
9 Who wrote the negitive reviews? Ipod makers?
I have had the Rio Nitrus for about a year now. I never go anywhere without it. The software that came with it was so good and easy to use, I almost made it my defalt player. The grips I've read about it, I think, are completely un-true. Except about the headphones. They're not the greatest.
But the volume buttons are something I love about it. And yes, I have big clumbsy fingers and still never have trouble with them.
The scrolling wheel, love it too. And yes, it does work, and work well. It makes scrolling though a list very easy. Only one small complaint about it though. Until you get used to it, sometimes while scrolling you can accidently push the wheel in and choose something you didn't intend. But as I said, once you get used to it, it's not a problem either.
I am currently looking for another player for long trips though. I like a lot of music and 1.4 gigs doesn't carry quite as much as I would like. For everyday use around town and at work, it's great. It's so small and you can load a new album on it in seconds. Off you go with new music to face the world!
BOTTOM LINE: Solid in every way. Great little product that hasn't even come close to letting me down. Rio Nitrus ROCKS!
10 I wished I had read the reviews before I bought this junk
Rio Nitrus is an expensive junk that should be taken off the market. Do not plan to work out with this machine, stick to flash memory. My Nitrus worked okay for one year and then it just died on me. I have spent hours trying to figure out how to bring it back to life with no success. There are multiple websites dedicated to discussing how bad this device is. I am never getting a Rio again. If you don't believe me, just type in Nitrus in google and see what get.
11 Junk
This product is a piece of junk (ZERO STARS). I got it for a gift < 6 months ago, it no longer functions at all! Their customer service is worthless. Do not waste your money on anything from this manufacturer.
12 Not Worth The Trouble
After about 3 mths of use the Rio Nitrus completely crapped out on me. If I hadn't purchased the extended warrranty (which it took 3 mths to receive back the product) I wouldn't have had the opportunity to experience the second failure. It is the same problem; all of a sudden the product will not turn on, it just doesn't work. I will not purchase another Rio Product again.
13 do not buy....
I bought this mp3 player for about 200.00 retail. Six months later, it no longer works. It stopped working again. I turned on the power, and the Rio splash-screen appears for about 60 seconds. It then starts making these weird clicking noises, displays the text "upgrader" on the screen and remains completely unresponsive any input. When I reset using a paperclip, it turns off, but powering it back on again yields the same results. The knowledge-base on RioAudio.com suggested that I upgrade the firmware, so I downloaded the latest and plugged in. My computer recognized the USB device, but the updater (RioNitrusFlash_123.exe) said that the operation timed out. Then I tried the same thing on a different computer, my laptop. Same result. I was advised by Rio Cust Support that the player can no longer be used if the firmware cannot be updated. Buy another product...
14 One star is too high
I spent over $120.00 for this item. After 1 week it began clicking. After 1 month it died. I would never buy another Rio product again. It was difficult to program and interfase with my PC.
Joe Bauza
15 This Item Rocks
Ok so I got my Rio Nitrus for Christmas from my parents and was blown away by the item. For one thing the sound is awesome my favorite feature being the customizable synthisizer. It also packs a great amount of songs i have over a hundred and am nowhere near having half way filled. Though there is one problem with this product you have to be very careful when handling it because it isn't sturdy enough to be making a lot of falls. I have a lot of cds and its great now I don't have to carry them around anymore. Though it is a good product due to the fact that it isn't good with drops I give it a 4 out of 5
16 Two thumbs up
I bought this player after a friend got it, and I was amazed at how much music he could carry in so small a machine.. at the time I had a old Flash-based Lyra 2 player that could only carry about 20 songs max (based on 64MB of memory) and was full of bugs. In any case, I bought the Nitrus and have had it for a month, and it's quite impressive. It holds enough music that I don't have to repeat on any of my bus trips (and then some), and it sounds good. I hooked up a pair of Sony earbuds I had to it, and they sound better than the ones that come with it IMHO.. but that's the case with the headphones that come with almost any music player, IMHO! LOL
The controls are simple, and adequate (the joystick is cool, I just wish they'd have made the jog dial on the side a little less sensitive to clicking), and one thing I like is that it has a playlist feature in it, so you can better organize music according to your mood. A lot of the time though, I'll just set it for Shuffle and Play All - you never know what will come up if you do, unlike players that only have a few songs.
The battery life is more than adequate for my needs, although since it's built-in, if you were to take it on a multi-day trip you'd want to take the adaptor and charge it at night if you can.
I'm buying a pair of headphones that are the kind that combine an earplug with earbuds, I'll be looking forward to trying those with this player.
One caveat about the software package though - Rio Taxi WOULD NOT install, no matter what I do... and I had to download the firmware update, software package, and driver from the Internet, because the CD bombed out on me. Once I did that though, it worked fine. I don't really care much about Rio Taxi... I bought the Nitrus as an MP3 player, I don't need it to carry data. I have a keychain drive for that.
The Music Manager that comes with it is great BTW... I prefer to do my encoding with Winamp Pro though. The Nitrus has no problems playing high-quality MP3s encoded with LAME, provided you use either alt preset standard or extreme. It has problems with the CBR out of LAME for some reason.
All around though.. it's a great player, you won't be disappointed, as long as you don't mind it not holding an entire 20GB+ music collection in its entirety - which doesn't bother me at all.
17 Worst Ever
WARNING- Don't ever buy from this company.
Was sent faulty component. After much talking on the phone with someone in another country, was sent a remanufactured player. It worked until I updated it. Has not worked since, and the warrenty expired right after I received the replacement. Big mess. Worthless product.
One star is the minimum rating, but does not even deserve one.
18 Will never purchase RIO product again!
I purchased a Nitrus Nov. 2004 and it failed in Dec. 5 weeks later. The replacement they sent me took 7 weeks to arrive and had a "Refurbished" sticker on the back of the device. This player stopped functioning after 3 days. Neither of these devices were abused in any way. I listened to them while in my vehicle on the way to and from work, and while working at my desk. Dealing with RIOs customer service is a nightmare in itself, they are absolutely of no help what so ever. I personnaly will not purchase a RIO product again and if I can dissuade anyone from purchasing a RIO product, anywhere or anytime, I will.
19 Garbage
This product was one of the worst MP3 players on the market. I have this product and it went bad with in two weeks. I called there support and they were no help. They told me to hit the item in order for it work and you always have to upgrade the product. Upgrader keep coming on the players screen and didn't allow any of the functions to work. The online upgrade didn't help at all. I am disappointed in the Rio Nitrus. I was a good idea for a product but too many flaws in the item.
20 Stay away
I have really liked my Nitrus(now that I have one that works, after I had to return 2 that failed within days of owning)- it has been great for skiing, small and fits in the small zip pocket in my parka, everything works well---- ooopps!!! Was skiing for about 4 hours and the battery died. OK time to get a new battery- Rio emailed me to let me know the battery is not replaceable, and guess what--- Lith Ion batteries die- in 2-3 years and that's it. So no wonder all the reviews are of problems- the unit was designed to fail!! Planned obsolescence.
It will probably last this season and then only work when plugged to the battery charger.
21 World's crappiest MP3 player
Don't buy this thing. It is the worst. I got it for Christmas last year. The packaging says the battery life is up to 10 hours. Well, that lasted for one or two recharges. Then it dropped to four hours. Soon after to 2 hours. The warranty is only 90 days. After 4 months I had software issues where I couldn't upload, remove or in anyway manipulate songs on my computer not communicate the computer with the player. So the songs on the player are the ones I was stuck with. After a week I found out about the upgrade (the Rio website is not clear about it, I had to learn through a chatroom). So that little problem was fixed, but certainly not the worthless battery life. Over the last couple months when I turn on the player it takes over a minute to startup, yet the word "upgrader" appears on the player. What is this? Who knows? I am so sick of it. I have to play with the power button repeatedly to get the player into a state where it will play my music. Now the battery appears to be dead. I have had the play for one year. I wish I had gotten an I-Pod.
22 Update on Rio Nitrus Garbage
Okay, this is my second post. I upgraded the firmware on both faulty players (2 out of 4 purchased didn't work). One had no change and is completely worthless (powers off in 5 minutes or less) the other worked great - for one whole day. Now both are completely worthless and in the garbage. Money down the drain. The other two? Working flawlessly. That is 50% failure. Flip a coin. Maybe you'll get lucky. Look at the reviews here. Everything is either 5 stars or 1. That is very scary. Buy an Ipod, I guess...
23 Could be good, but not worth it
I bought my Rio mp3 player because I didn't want an iPod. I had a flash mp3 player previously and really liked it except it only held 128mb. I thought 1.5GB was a great amount of storage. I looked at several different models of mp3 players and decided on the Rio Nitrus. Right off the bat I had some complaints.
1. The scrolling button is completely worthless.
2. I didn't like the software that it came with. I would have much preferred a drag-and-drop format where the player shows up as another drive on my computer.
3. I thought that the USB plug and the power cord were too close together.
4. It didn't run on battery for as long as it claimed to.
I bought it in August. I didn't get the 90-day warranty. That said, I liked the player once I got used to the interface. I'd use it in the car on the way to work and it's small and discreet enough to listen to at my desk without being totally obvious that I'm listening to music. I'd also use it on my cross-country flights.
In December, my Nitrus started having problems. It started out that it would just shut itself off as it sat on my desk. I always made sure that it was plugged in so it wasn't running off the battery. I thought it was a corrupt file and deleted and reloaded the file.
Then came the notorious "upgrader" display. I downloaded the firmware and the problem was fixed. Temporarily.
Then the upgrader message wouldn't go away. I called Customer Service and they were extermely blase amd unhelpful - anything they told me I had already read under Support on the website. I wanted a refund or a replacement player, but I decided against asking because I could never get through to them; the hold times are unbelievable.
In summary: the Nitrus was quite servicable for the short amount of time it worked.
A note to Rio: improve your customer relations/service and the quality of your product.
24 50% of all units are faulty
I work for a company in Clearwater, FL. We bought 4 Rio Nitrus - new in the box. Two of them had the notorius "Uprader" error within a few hours. That's 50% failure rate. That's unacceptable. I can only hope that Rio will have to pay the litigation piper! Have you seen the price on these things? Dear God! How many faulty units has Rio sold? How many millions has Rio pocketed by selling worthless players?
25 For the Love of GOD BUY the Extended Warranty!!!!
This is a great little unit but it has a pretty limited life. There are so many things I like about it though that I'm buying another after trying many many other brands. My first Rio worked consistently well and I still have it. I bought another and it took a digital crap on me after about 4 months. Getting help from Rio by phone or through their website is IMPOSSIBLE. This company doesn't know the meaning of the phrase "customer service". But damn them, they make a great little product. It's easy to set up, easy to use, has a good volume level and good software. I cannot emphasize this strongly emough. Buy an extended warranty! You more than likely will need it. I have tried Creative Labs, Sandiscs, RCA's but this one really is my favorite.
26 Don't Be Deceived
I purchased a Nitrus in August and I LOVED it. It was easy to add or remove music and it played really well, but only days after my 90 day warranty was up, my Nitrus went into "upgrade mode" and froze there. I could not reset the player, nor would a firmware update install. I called tech support and spoke to several incompetent people, none of which knew how to help me, and they all told me I was out of luck because my 90 day warranty was up, even though it was only up by 3-5 days. I never mishandeled or mistreated the player in any way, and I was listening to it as normal when it malfunctioned. I have friends that have had problems with Rio products and have read other reviews that state situations similar to mine, and I have concluded that Rio does not make a quality product. Please save the money and buy a better quality player.
27 Does not last very long
The product worked great for approx. 10 months and then began to re-boot automatically. I performed the firmware update and re-format that was suggested on the manufacturers website; the suggestions not only did not help but made things worse. The Nitrus currently cannot even get passed its boot-up, the system just hangs and the hard drive just spins away. Since the system never really boots up, my computer cannot recognize it and I cannot attempt another firmware upgrade.
The warranty on the product is only three months and you cannot change the battery. It looks like the manufacturer did not expect the product to last very long.
In my opinion, this is a poor product that has been designed for short term use. The manufacturer is probably hoping that it lasts only long enough for them to put out a newer version. They wouldn't want to hurt their sales by providing a product that lasts a long time!
28 I haven't had any problems and am totally happy with it
I was wary of purchasing a Rio Nitrus due to some rather unsatisfactory reviews I had read on various consumer product websites. What I gathered from these articles was that (most of all) it seems to break quite easily and/or locks up when managing/skipping songs.
But I decided at $169.99 (or roughly that price) it was a lot cheaper than an Ipod and I would never need to carry around 350 MP3s/750 WMA files at one time. Besides, you can delete them very easily and add new tracks! So unless you're going to be without your PC for months on end there's no problem.
In October I purchased a Sony MiniDisc player after hearing it was better than MP3. I do enjoy using it but found it difficult to use. First of all no wires were included. I took advice from the manual - on top of $260 I spent another $13 on an optical cable only to have trouble. Eventually I had to find a special A/V-to-optical cord that was *not* mentioned at all in the help guide. The quality of songs was good but not great and you have to spend much time making sure the wires don't slip out while you're recording or that they're securely in place. Also adding track titles/etc. takes ages as you have to type in each letter manually. MiniDisc is great but definitely for those with patience.
Rio Nitrus is great if you're on the go and I found it far more professional. The wires and CDs are all included. It's incredibly easy and fast to take music from your PC and download to the device via a 2.0 USB cable which is _very_ high-speed - I downloaded 170 songs in less than five minutes. No lie.
The Rio lets you organize songs by album, artist, year, genre, etc. So if you want to listen to all of Guns N' Roses' songs just go to PLAY SONGS - ARTIST - GUNS N' ROSES and it'll play them all. Or PLAY ALL which is great. The LCD is sharp and easy to read - it shows the title of the song, the artist name underneath, then the album. By clicking ENTER you can scroll through a variety of options including track time countdown (i.e. view how much time is left in the song), date and time, file format (MP3, WMA for example), song genre, etc.
The Rio also includes equalizer presents - 5-band that includes rock, rap and blues amongst others. It's very easy to access.
I also enjoyed the stopwatch feature. If you're a jogger like me then, when you're running, you can time yourself by laps and it will give you an average lap time - while you're listening to your music! This is very helpful for athletes. I assumed the stopwatch would just be a basic "start/stop" but the ability to time and record individual laps is very honorable and impressive.
The size is great - it fits in the palm of my hand and is sleek in design. The buttons are well-placed and not nearly as "cheap" as I had expected, particularly the LCD (which I mentioned above) which is so professional-looking that it seems like a very expensive piece of equipment.
Overall I really can't find faults in this. It's incredibly small and slim. I took it out in cold weather and noticed no problems. It has not locked up - the most it's done so far is pause once or twice as I scroll through tracks, but nothing major (and this was due to my excessive speed in the first place - if you skip tracks a million miles a minute you're sure to screw something up once and a while!). The LCD is sharp and clear, the music arrangement and classification is very helpful and impressive. It's extremely user-oriented which is a good thing. The sound quality is CD quality to my ears. The included headphones are good, the process of downloading tracks is great. I like that it takes Windows Media Files, which IPod does not. Some users have complained that it wouldn't download their WMA files for some reason. I don't know - but I've downloaded my entire CD of Velvet Revolver's "Contraband" (all files in Windows Media Audio format) and they're perfect, sound absolutely spectacular. On top of this I've downloaded more that I got off Kazaa and Shareaza and they all work fine as well.
It holds a lot (I'm not even halfway and I've already got 170 tracks so they really don't lie when they say it holds 350 MP3s!).
I haven't had it very long so perhaps in a few months' time I'll start to experience problems and change my mind. If that's the case, then I will edit this review. But as of December 25th, 2004, the Rio Nitrus is an extraordinary product that is well-made and very easy to use - it's great for any music enthusiast and the best portable music player I've ever used.
Highly recommended.
29 Works great at first...
I have gone through 2 Rio Nitrus players in the past 10 months. Both players completely froze up and could not be repaired. Fortunately for me, the first player was covered under their small 90-day window warranty. I received a new Nitrus (free) and it stopped working after 5 months. They've offered me a new player, but it will cost at least $100 to "replace". The other problem is that before both players were completely dead, they constantly had problems with turning on and off when changing songs. I was impressed with the Rio Nitrus when I first got it and convinced two other friends to buy them. They have also experienced the same problems and have since bought new mp3 players that do not bare the Rio name. I would not recommend this product unless you want an mp3 player that has a 5 month life-span. Please notice that most of the positive reviews of this player are old and were written when the person first received it.
30 I love it now...
The reason that I bought the Rio Nitrus was that it was listed by MusicMatch as one of the players that supported playing their copyrighted WMA files and it was in the price and capacity range that I was looking for.
Right out of the box in December 2003, the Rio Nitrus had problems playing about 1/3 of the songs that I purchased from MusicMatch. I reported the problem to both MusicMatch and Rio and came to find that there was a firmware bug that Rio was working on and would have a fix for eventually. Since both MusicMatch and Rio quickly responded with credible and intelligent replies, I stuck with the Nitrus. I'm glad that I did.
In May 2004, they finally got all the bug that I had experiecned worked out so that the Nitrus could play all of the copyrighted WMA files that I had purchased from MusicMatch. Before May, I was able to load and listen to the songs on my Nitrus, but first I had to burn the songs that I bought to CD, then rip them to MP3 before uploading them to my Nitrus.
Ever since May, I have been happily using my Nitrus as a personal music player and as player for in my car. I purchased a Sony cassette tape adapter that allows me to plug my Nitrus headphone jack into this device which translates it to magnetic impulses that the tape player in my car can use. The sound quality is remarkably good. Much better than I was expecting by using this adapter. The Nitrus holds just enough songs for a 10 hour car trip (your mileage may vary) with no repeats.
The user interface for selecting play mode and song titles to play is a little clumsy, but since I almost always keep my player set to play all music randomly, I really don't care.
31 Nitrus is a great product
I have had my nitrus for about 4 months now and it has worked really well. I experianced the UPGRADER message on my nitrus and I read a review posted here on amazon that said that if you got the message, just gently smack the player on the bottom of the back side. To my suprise it worked and when the player came back to life, I used the Rio INternet Update software that came with the player and downloaded the Upgraded Firmware for the Nitrus. Never had the problem again. The sound quality is great if you have decent headphones. I have put about 150 songs of which about 1/3 are MP3's and 2/3 are WMA's and only about half the space has been filled. The battery life is about 10-13 hours per charge, and the battery inside does not take long to charge. The only problems I see is that there is no case and the volume buttons are too small and close together. Unfortunatly me being a clutz, I have dropped my player 8 times. STILL WORKS PERFECTLY. The custom equalizer feature is a great addition. The nitrus is small and compact, but is still, I believe better than the Ipod/ Ipod Mini. Ipods cannot hold Wma songs, which have good sound quality but take up much less space. The nitrus can, thus saving space to fit more songs. The menu buttons are easy to use and are easier to figure out than the Ipod;s horrible setup. All in all it is one of the greatest gifts I have ever recieved. DONT BE AFRAID OF THE UPGRADER MESSAGE, IT IS FIXABLE, JUST RE-READ THE BEGINING OF MY REVIEW!
32 A REALLY REALLY REALLY BAD CHOICE
Yes it is true. Mine only lasted 4 months. Stay away from this product.
33 The Perfect MP3 Player!!!
I have had the Nitrus for about 4-5 months now and the only problems I have had with it was I did get the upgrader message. It was no problem though because I updated the firmware and that did the trick. It also once wouldn't get past the Rio screen but after I just smacked (I'm not kidding) it a little bit, it worked fine. No big deal problems after that 3 months later. I love the size and weight of it because I can stick it into my pocket and I don't even know it's there. The screen is easy to read and you can see the artist, song name and album name while playing a song. The menu is easy to navigate and you can even create your own playlists. My playlists are based on if I have a full cd on it and I just want to listen to the full CD in order. At one time I did have the 20GB iPod but I think it's too big. And who can fill up 20GB anyway? I even have dropped the Rio Nitrus twice and no damage was done but on the other hand, if i drop the iPod, I feel like something will happen. The iPod is too fragile.
I highly recommend the Rio Nitrus to anyone who is looking for a small MP3 player that packs a huge punch!
34 Not So Nitrus
The programming of the Nitrus was very easy after I had created an account on the Rio website. I didn't like the fact that I had to stay current with Rio just to maintain the "proper functionality" of the device. Its not a computer, it's a jukebox! I was not impressed with the functions of the device as I would have expected better personal control over the it's functions, for the amount spent on this particular model. The menu was difficult to navigate and, again, should have flowed smoother for the $$ paid for the device. I do not think I would own another, and I am currently searching for a replacement that is easier to use.
35 o star i need help from you please
i bought a rio nitrus without the software. i took it home charged it and it plays fine. it doesn't have the upgrader problem but it will dot be recognized by my computer. have emailed rio but they are stupid indians
downloaded rio software and driver
have xp and 98se
doesn't work on either
if you can help please email me
my address is jimmyefrye@earthlink.net or thedew02@yahoo.com
if you have a rio with a bad hard drive email me and maybe i would take it from you
36 GREAT PLAYER!
I got the mp3 player as a graduation gift from my sister about 8 months ago. I've been using everyday since. It's easy to use, convenient, light weight, user friendly and enough memory. Unlike the iPod where you have 20GB which no one could ever use up the Nitrus has enough memory to fit your personality use. I just went recently on a road trip that lasted more than 12 hours and i had my Nitrus on the entire time! so the battery is great too... i definitely would recommend this to anyone.
37 *sings* Another Nitrus bites the dust!
Please save your money and do not buy this product.
I too assumed my Nitrus would be free of the issues presented here, and in many other places. I incorrectly assumed that the problems may have been caused by misuse, and that I would take good care of mine so that would not happen.
I purchased my Rio Nitrus from....a retailer whose predominant colors are royal blue and yellow. It seemed like such a steal for 1.5GB for only 134.95. I'll admit that it was a serious error not reading reviews before purchasing one. Hindsight, 20/20, all that jazz. I did read the reviews here and other places, and quickly returned to said retailer to get their extended replacement plan. Not always necessary, but Rio offers the shortest warranty of any mp3 player on the market. Makes you wonder why?
I treated my Nitrus with extreme care. I did not take it jogging or to the gym. It was never jostled about or dropped. And it wasn't heavily used, I mainly just listened to it for a few hours a day, 2 days a week at work while stuffing envelopes. When not in use, it was safely in a case, tucked in my desk drawer at work. Hardly anything that could even closely constitute abuse.
I purchased my Nitrus on July 25, 2004. On October 28, 2004, 3 days out of the manufacturers warranty, it died with the dreaded "Upgrader" message. I tried all the fixes short of opening the player. I am not the most mechanically inclinded individual, so I did not want to inflict more damage or void my replacement plan in case all else failed. Tapping the player--failed. Upgrading firmware--failed. Resetting it (using both methods)--failed.
I understand that with any electronics purchase, you run the risk of running into issues. Its like that with anything really. However, one does have expectations about the life of a product. You think that when you pay over 100 dollars for portable audio equipment, it will last you longer than 3 months.
Now given, the product performed great in the 3 months it did work. That does not excuse, however, the fact that it just up and died.
Save your money, pinch some more pennies, and buy an iPod. People love them for a reason.
38 Work's Great...but life expectancy is kinda short...
While I haven't had the software problems that others here have posted, I have experienced something just as bad. My Rio Nitrus worked fine for the first 5 months (I did get some "Upgrader" message, but somehow I was able to get out of it). It's great, does its job for the most part, and is small enough to fit somewhat comfortably in the palm of your hand if you want to hold it.
However, recently my power plug hasn't been recharging the MP3 player at all, unless I really fudge with it, and even then, it sometimes takes a while. I haven't done anything extreme with it, but the fact that it's become a ritual to recharge this thing when I used to simply be able to plug it in is really annoying me.
I paid $170 for this. I should've just forked over an extra $130 or so and got like a 10GB Ipod instead. I would not recommend this product at all, unless you have money to burn.
39 DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT
This was a wonderful product while it worked, then I recieved the dreaded "upgrader" message. It would work for a while after the firmware upgrade, but eventually the message would appear again. Now after saying the firmware was successfully upgraded it immediately displays the "upgrader" message when powered off and then back on. It is permanately stuck in upgrader mode and is unuseable!
Customer support is useless and if English is your language of preference, don't even bother calling because the outsourced accents are so heavy it is a tremendous struggle just to comprehend what the support person is saying. They basically just keep quoting the manual. I will never buy a Rio product again!
40 Great while it works
I bought one of these at a (...). Nice price and excellent features. The fist one was DOA right out of the package. Thinking it was just a fluke, I exchanged it for another. Worked great and I loved it.....until a couple of days past the warranty period. It then started giving me problem after problem. Finaly I got the dreaded "UPGRADER" message. I tried all of the "official" cures with no luck. Then I researched around a bit and discovered a quick fix....a couple of firm taps to the back of the player. After that, it worked fairly well for another few weeks but it has recently began to act strange again (frequent lock-ups, powering off for no reason, skipping songs, takins hella long time to power on, etc). Now for the kicker:the HDD has started clicking in the past day or so and I fully expect that it's just a matter of (short) time before it completely dies. AVOID THIS EXPENSIVE PAPERWEIGHT AND ALL OTHER RIO PRODUCTS!!! Don't be a cheap (...)like myself; Spend a little extra green and buy a quality player. I sure wish I had!
41 Worst Buy Ever
After receiving my Rio Nitrus as a gift I was initially ecstatic, after all I was upgrading from a dinosaur MP3 player. How I loved my first Diva MP3 player and thought the Rio could see me through all those lonely runs I do.
However, before we even left the door the problems began. Doing the research on the web I see it's a familiar problem. The "upgrader" message started. The first upgrade of the firmware fixed the problem but not for long. Now we have moved onto the "restarting" problem. After the firmware upgrade the player sits in restart mode forever. A detailed email to the customer service got a word for word reply out of the user book, I hate when they treat you like an idiot.
As this player was bought overseas I doubt I have a warranty but will be checking. If your Rio Nitrus is working, good luck to you, the sound was great, the storage and ease of use cannot be faulted. I just wish I had one that worked.
42 Can't be beat for price
All the negative reviews make it seem like Rio put a bug in the system to make it die on the 91st day. Look people, you take a risk when buying electronic products. My player has worked flawlessly, even asking me to upgrade the firmware when I plug the USB cble. No problems or conflicts with software or hard drive. I mean, take out an extended warrenty if you are worried. But for 1.5 gigs and the long internal battery life, plus the quality of the sound make it a decent purchase. Had I know the 5 gig version (Carbon) was coming out, I would have purchased that one. Don't become an iPod nerd....stick with Rio.
43 Good MP3 player, when it works
I bought this player about 6 months ago and have had a continuous stream of problems with it ever since. First, the player locked up on me, and they told me it was a software problem. I tried to install the new software on it, but that didn't work so they sent me a new one. A few weeks later, it did it again, except this time I was able to install the new software and get it working, but I had to go to all the trouble of putting my music back on it all over again (which takes a while). Now, once again, the player is not working, and the Rio software on the computer doesn't even recognize the player anymore, so I'm sending it back yet again.
When it worked, it was great, but its not worth all the hassle. If I coul do it over again I would definitely NOT buy this player.
44 another Nitrus to bury
Best gift my husband ever bought me! Have loved it all 9 months it worked! I deleted one song and all 500 were deleted from the player! Tried the reset, upgrade firmware and software...to no avail! Now, it has the all too familiar clicking which would indicate a problem with the hard drive. Rio Cust service is useless. SPent 1 hour on hold to be told I have to pay $75 for a refurb one. I am waiting for a supervisor and if I don't get a new one at no cost, I will trash this company and it's inferior products on every site I can. It's AWESOME when it' working; can bring you to tears when it stops working for no reason at all..and the company only offers a 90 day warranty. Every website (rioworld and riovolution) goes into detail about a variety of problems with this player and the consistently horrible service from RIO> Don't Buy one!
45 Avoid this product
I recieved my Rio Nitrus in December 2003 as a gift and was very pleased with it's performance. For me, the sound quality was perfect, and the fact that I didn't need to carry CD's back and forth from college was a huge plus. The Nitrus worked very well until May 2004, two months after the warrenty ended. I got the all too common "UPGRADER" message. I tried everything I was told to do, including upgrading the Firmware. However, I then got stuck on the "RESTARTING" message. Because I was out of warranty, I was told by customer support that I would need to pay $125 to replace it.
In my opinion, this product is excellent if it works, but I would not take the chance on another Rio player. If you consider yourself a smart consumer, you will not either.
46 Don't get mad.
Nearly every item sold in the USA is covered by an Implied Warranty under the Uniform Commercial Code, Sections 2-314 & 2-315. For example, does your product "conform to the promise or affirmations of fact made on the container or label if any." Section 2-719 provides these remedies: "return of the goods and repayment of the price or to repair and replacement of non-conforming goods or parts;"
The internet is not just a playpen, there is much to learn out there young grasshoppers.
47 this is a waste of plastic
this thing sucks. it worked for me for about 3 months, just long enough for the warranty to expire by 2 days. the player would automatically skip thru songs and not play any, and when i tried to re download them it would do about half the songs i tried, and then not play those. the dirtbags at rio have their heads shoved so far up their butts they can't even answer the phone. take it from a pissed off kid with no money. spend the extra $50 dollars and get a dell jukebox or i river.
48 Another Nitrus dies
Add me to the disturbingly large list of people who have the Rio Nitrus just up and die after a few months. About 20 days after the warrenty expired (now we know why it is only a 90 day warrenty), I got the UPGRADER thing and the clicking hard drive. I went to the manual and the solution is to re-set the device using a paperclip (did that but problem persisted) then re-load the firmware update but the problem is you can't do that while the hard drive is clicking (it will time out). If I leave the Rio on for 10 to 15 minutes, the clicking stops. I can then load the firmware but then the device just gets stuck on RESTARTING for ever. From what I've read it sounds like my RIO is dead and I'm SOL.
It's too bad because I absolutely loved it while it was working. But no way I'd buy another Rio product and I certainly can't recommend this one.
49 Save Your Money
I had this player for less than a month before it broke. It was a great player for about 3 weeks and then it failed to power on. I went on the Rio support pages and managed to get the player to turn on, only to be greeted with the dreaded "Upgrader" message. I installed the new firmware many, many times, but the player would never advance beyond the "Restarting" message. According to Rio's discussion boards, this happens to many other people, and it means that your hard drive is dead. Fortunately I was able to get a full refund, as it had been less than 30 days. Rio's warranty is only 90 days - I would be interested to see how many people actually had a functioning RioNitrus beyond 90 days.
50 There needs to be a 0 star rating
Like most others out there I have been dupped by this company and paid my hard earned money for a product that is not worth a dime. I had mine less than 2 months before the "upgrader" message struck me. In trying to resolve the problem using the suggestions on their website and from their support I also recieved the "Operation Timed Out" error and the clicking sounds. Regardless of what others have said the reset switch does not fix the problem. My player has been reset numerous times with no success. The one time the firmware update appeared to go through the player displayed a message of "Rebooting" and promptly locked up again. When contacting Rio about the problem they said that it was a defect and needed to be replaced $100 since I could not find my receipt. I logged a formal complaint with the retailer I purchased the player through, Wal-Mart, and they contacted Rio about my problem. Rio then contacted me both via phone and email leaving me snotty sounding messages about how they wanted to resolve the issue but their resolution remained, "send us $100 for a replacement." Rio even admitted that it was a defect in the player as well as a known issue but they offered nothing to take care of their mistake. After reading the problems that others have had I understand why. If they did decide to responsibility for their obvious problem and replace the players that they knew were defective then the company would surely go out of business because for every player they sale, it will take one or two more just to replace it. As for the positive reviews...either those people have not had their players long, they got very lucky, or it is a marketing ploy using company representatives to create false postive posts in hopes of counteracting the negative publicity that their shoddy workmanship and pitiful excuse for support has brought them.
51 GREAT MP3 PLAYER!!!
I got this for my birthday about a half a year ago, and have been using it every day since. Even after all that use, its still working fine. Once you get the songs onto your computer, it takes less than a minute to put an entire cd onto your player.I have about 15 hours of music on it, and plenty of space left. The only bad thing i've seen, is that you only have 1.4 gigs. The other .1 is probobly used up by the stop watch and all the other features, which is not all that big a deal.
There were a couple of things wrong in the product description...(the part where it says batteries required), it has a rechargable internal battery that lasts 16 hours every time you charge it, and i belive it also said that it weighs 2.0 lbs, DEFINITELY NOT RIGHT!, its more like 2 ounces.
IT'S A GREAT MP3 PLAYER, AND YOU SHOULD DEFINATELY BUY IT!!!
52 Horrible Company!!!
Bought one of this company's mp3 players and I lost my cord which connects it to the computer. I ordered a replacement and waited WEEKS to get it despite the next day air priority shipping. For over a week they showed that it was ready to ship, but they still didn't send it out. If you buy this item, pray you never have to replace a part!
53 Don't waste your money!
I bought this player to replace a flash memory player because I wanted greater capacity. All was well for the first three months and in its fourth month it suddenly died for no reason. The hard drive was "clicking" and it would not recharge. I bought it when it first came out so I paid $179 for it and I would expect it to last longer than four months. I even read a review here where we were offered the advice of "smacking" it. I can't believe that someone would even suggest that. I am not in the habit of having to hit a sensitive piece of electronics and should not have to. This is 2004 not 1904!
The pros are good, easy to use software and the con is that it is poorly built.
Buy it at your peril!
54 Give it a smack
This is the best micro hard drive player out there. However, a new version is to be released in Late August 2004, the Rio Carbon, which is to be a 5GB re-vamp of the Nitrus with a voice recorder at $250.00 starting price and will be at $200 a month or two afterwards. So go purchase that if you haven't got a Nitrus.
The Nitrus is truly a great player though. Upon the release of the Carbon its price should drop to around $150, so if you don't have $100 extra bucks then the Nitrus will suit you perfectly. Great sound quality, 5 band parametric equalizer, easy navigation in the menus, nice rio stick, and 1.5 GB storage are all in a nice, small player. The player looks big in the pictures but is really only the height of 2 and a half US Quarters. It does lack some features but you can't go wrong with $150.
If you do have a Nitrus, I too, have expierienced the UPGRADER and Hard-Drive Clicking sounds. There are two ways to fix this. But before you use my remedies, try resetting with a paper clip or something. But if all else fails first try the recovery mode, turn off the player, hold down the menu button and turn on the player. Then install the new firmware. That will stop the UPGRADER message but not the clicking, the player won't start up. This is when you have to hold the Nitrus firmly in your hand and smack the back of your unit in the palm of your hand. But if it doesn't work the first time, don't give up. 3-5 good smacks should get it back on its feet. The clicking happens is because these hard drives aren't meant for mp3 players. The spinning hard drives get stuck, therefore making the clicking noises. All it takes is some force to get the hard drive un-stuck. Any other problems will be easily solved at www.riovolution.com since many Rio Engineers hang out there and answer questons. My Nitrus has now lived for 9 months and my Karma has lived for 8, each problem is quickly solved by the Riovolution.com and rioworld.org forums.
55 Tend to break
It worked OK for a couple of months, but then I came to charge it up one day and it broke. There seemed to be some fire inside because it became really hot and smelt of burnt electronics. It had only lasted 10 weeks.
When it was working, it was OK, though.
56 piece of junk
Please do not waste money and time on that piece of $%@#!
Never got to listen to a song, died instantly.
Do NOT go there...
57 It will break. Yes, yours will too. Do not buy.
Add another one to the list of broken players. I read the reviews online, figured that if I took good care of this thing it'd work fine. Silly me. The player worked great for six months, and then, for no clear reason, died with the oh-so-common permanent 'upgrader' message.
Now, I could live with that, despite the fact that I took good care of this thing, if tech support was able to help me out at all. However, (after pointing me to the help files I told them I had already read and found to be very little use) they told me it'd take $125 to fix my player - over 2/3 of the player's original price. After this, they stopped responding to any and all of my email (and yes, my email was all civil).
The price for this player looks pretty low for the capacity you get, yes - but in terms of how long it actually functions, you certainly get what you pay for.
58 great device
i've carried this thing halfway around the world and it's never let me down; easy file transfer from cd, great battery life and solid playback. good audio quality from .wma and .mp3 file formats (could accept more formats in playback), but, overall, a very happy addition to my collection.
59 Fits right in the little key-pocket of my running shorts
I love my little Rio Nitrus. I've had it since Christmas, and have never had a problem. I upgraded the firmware about a month after I bought it and have never seen the infamous 'upgrader' message about which others have posted. I also really like the music manager software that connects with the player via USB. I was able to upgrade the software free of charge from Rio in order to rip mp3s from disc, very easy to use and no nonsense. I run about 25-30 miles a week and put this HD player through some serious shocks, and it doesn't seem to mind at all. And as I said, it's just small enough to fit in the little key-pocket of my running shorts.
60 Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you buy this
I read the reviews saying that the Rio Nitrus goes belly up after a couple weeks and thought, "that's okay, it won't happen to me." Well guess what, it did stop working on me. As of this writing, Rio has sent me 3 refurbished replacements, none of which has worked for more than a day. I am now caught in a viscious cycle of waiting for UPS to drop one off, finding out its another piece of sht, and sending it back.
What really gets my goat is that the functioning player was great, and had a nice navigation and display and all the other stuff I wanted in an mp3 player. $170 later, though, I have nothing to show for it. Find another mp3 player! I command you!
61 You'll be happier getting the iRiver mp3 player!
I bought this particular brand and model solely for its storage size of 1.5 GB. My wife bought the 256 MB iRiver model at the same time. I figured I just wanted as much storage as I could get for the $179 I paid -- my wife paid $189 for a far superior product.
Problems:
- the porgram they give you to transfer files from your computer is quirky and designed for the AOL user/lover crowd. It works goofy, it looks goofy.
- the power plug and the USB cable plug are so close together that you have to force it to work when they are both plugged in
- randon mode doesn't seem all that random
- nowhere to tie/clip a strap if you wanted to hang it from your belt or wherever (you know, like your cell phone)
- it is really difficult to see the artist/song name as it scrolls across the screen
- I wish I could put certain songs into folders so that I can listen to just a pre-selected group of songs instead of just by artist, genere, or album. Instead, I have to create playlists.
- buttons are microscopic and might be difficult to use for some people
- the headphones supplied with this player are those horrible 'earbud' kind. They don't stay in, especially if you are jogging.
- does not come with a jogging/arm strap (the iRiver does)
Good points:
- Perfect for your pocket (this is where the iRiver falls short with its triangular design)
- 1.5 GB!!!! (I have yet to fill it up)
- loads/initializes fairly quickly
- good sound (but only after I fiddled with the EQ)
- battery seems to last a long time. It has an internal battery that is rechargable while plugged into a wall outlet
- files transfer quickly
- blue backlit display is nice (except for the scrolling words that you can't really read)
- feels durable
- has a 'lock' feature that keeps it from being accidently turned on/off, or from using any of the buttons
- Ultra quiet during operation. Actually, I can't hear it at all
- size of a credit card
If storage is of your main concern buy the Rio. If features and ease of use is what you want buy the iRiver models.
62 BUYER BEWARE!
I had gotten this player as a Christmas gift and about 6 months later (after the warranty ended) it started acting up. Then I couldn't even use it any more because the hard drive had gotten stuck on something. I never abused it in any way. I don't recommend this product.
63 Nice Hockey Puck, thats about all
Mine started acting up shortly after warranty... While searching for a replacement I decided to see what people were saying about RIO products... now I understand (thanks to all)... I won't be buying another RIO product and based soley on my experience, will not be recommending one.
64 great disposable MP3 player
Here's from an email I sent to Rio. Three weeks and four follow-up messages later, I've yet to hear anything back.
----
I'm a frustrated first-time Rio customer. Here's my story. Last winter, my wife- Helen- became jealous of my Creative Jukebox Zen. (It's a fantastic product if any of you guys are in the market. Great sound quality and reliable as the sunrise.) So in January of 2004, I bought her a Rio Nitrus at Best Buy for $230. Within 10 days, it stopped working, so we returned it to store where I bought it. Just a few weeks later, the new one stopped working. Best Buy wouldn't touch it, so I contacted Rio customer support. They gave me an RMA and, a few weeks after that, a new (refurbished) Rio Nitrus was delivered to my door. That was a couple of months ago.
Yesterday it stopped working again. I turn on the power, and the Rio splash-screen appears for about 60 seconds. Then it starts making these weird clicking noises, displays the text "upgrader" on the screen and remains completely unresponsive any input. When I reset using a paperclip, it turns off, but powering it back on again yields the same results. The knowledge-base on RioAudio.com suggested that I upgrade the firmware, so I downloaded the latest and plugged in. My computer recognized the USB device, but the updater (RioNitrusFlash_123.exe) said that the operation timed out. Then I tried the same thing on a different computer, my laptop. Same results.
Three different Rio Nitrus units in the past six months. None has lasted more than 90 days.
Working in software the software industry, I know that the first tendency of many customer support representatives is to blame the user. And considering the technical aptitude and general intelligence of the American consumer, that attitude is usually justified. You probably have a favorite story of someone prying the case open with a butterknife or washing it in the dishwasher or something. So let me assure you this device has been subject to nothing but the most scrupulous care imaginable. Helen rarely even uses the thing, to my disappointment. Certainly no children have ever touched it. And my Creative mp3 player has lasted almost two years under a much heavier work-load.
I just got off the phone with your support-line. Sandey helped me out, and seemed like a very nice man. He said that the thing was outside of warranty, but given the circumstances of my case he offered to reduce the out-of-warranty fee from $100 to $50. I told him something like this, "It isn't enough that it doesn't work? That I've spent tens of hours on support-lines troubleshooting the stupid thing? Now I have to pay $50 for a new one because Rio can't make a quality product?" He sympathized, but said there was nothing he could do. I believed him, but I wouldn't buy a brand new Rio Nitrus fo $50.
I don't want to yell or curse at Sandy, or anyone else from customer support for that matter. I know that customer service didn't engineer this thing, you didn't test it, you didn't approve its release to manufacturing. And although I might have a few words to say for that last group, what really bugs me is the warranty policy: 90 days!
So you're telling me that Rio believes in the quality of its products so much that it stands behind them with an iron-clad 90 day warranty? I'd like to see that on the marketing collateral: "After three months, you're on your own!" Or (if I felt like a real smart-mouth) "Rio Nitrus: The one product your goldfish are sure to outlive."
I don't have any stick to threaten you with. Customer support is immune to further customer complaints at this point, if my experience has been anything close to typical. I guess I could post this email on my web-site, along with any humorously un-helpful responses you send me. Or maybe I could even forward this message to ArsTechnica and CNet and related publications. If it's a slow week for tech news, they might look into it. Probably not, though.
I could make the moral argument. I bought this product in good faith, expecting it to work. It doesn't, and all I get is "Sorry buddy, but that's our policy." That probably won't do any good either. The worst part is that this isn't even mine. It's belongs to my wife, and I bought her a crappy Christmas present through no fault of my own.
What I want is either (1) my money back, or (2) credit for my purchase price at the Rio company store, or (3) a new Rio Nitrus waiving any out-of-warranty fee. If you don't have the authority to help me, please forward this case to someone who does.
65 Nice while they lasted
I bought two Rio Nitrus for Christmas 2003, one for me and one for my son. We both loved them for the few months they worked. My son's went first, losing battery capacity then losing all function. I thought maybe he had dropped it or something, although he said not. Then mine went! All of a sudden, in the middle of a song, all I get is clicking and whirring noises. Of course this all happened just after the warranty expired. It had been treated with kid gloves so I knew it was not anything I had done. Rio doesn't seem concerned about the "little problem" I'm having; I was told they will fix it for $125.00--only $39.00 less than I paid for it. I'll be putting that money toward an IPod.
66 97 Wonderful days...
.
I bought the Nitrus for my daughter and was a hero for ninety-seven days. Seven days out of warranty, seven days from saving myself $175 bucks, she now has a black piece of plastic that is too small for a doorstop, too light for a paperweight, and a despondent Dad with a short-lived hero status.
After upgrading to the latest firmware, the all-too-common "upgrader" reared its ugly head. A very well-spoken and polite Indian lady offered several suggestions:
1. Use a different USB port.
2. Use a differenct computer.
3. "Snap" it from one hand to the other.
I tried each without success and now realize that, like so many other before me, I too had fallen into the stylish, sleek, and slim little black hole called "Nitrus."
67 Great Value-Pristine Sound-Easy Interface
The Rio Nitrus Is a great player that is worth every penny ofits price. The fact that it can play wma files makes every thing very easy,as I can use Windows media to add songs to it. This player will make you very happy indeed.
68 Expensive paperweight
I bought this player for my wife to use while exercising. It started having problems after about 95 days (after the warranty was over). I upgraded the firmware and the unit completely died. Support quoted me $175 to fix the unit. That price is $20 more than I paid for it new! My old Archos Jukebox 20 has been going for over 3 years without a single problem. The Rio Nitrus is a piece of junk! Spend your money on an Archos or an IPod instead!
69 Rio Nitrus
Some quick observations on this product now that mine has had a hard drive crash.
1. This thing has a hard drive rather then flash memory. I only learned about its sensitivity after mine crashed. As the help desk told me (after the fact) don't use it for exercise or any thing else that could jostle it while playing.
2. The display screen scratch's easily making even more difficult to read then it normally is.
3. There is no back lighting on the display.
4. If it goes out of warrenty they will repair (replace) for $100. I talked them down to $80 but am having second thoughts as to spending good money after bad. Does it really meet my requirements?
5. The device is ok if you are a passive listener. We used ours on a month long trip to Costa Rica and really enjoyed it. I would not recomend the unit for anyone who might use it while they actually move.
70 I Recommend
The ongoing rumours about Rio's players are perhaps justified. What is also true is these players are very well designed, perhaps not very well engineered. So if you can take a chance, like I did with the Nitrus, do keep your finger crossed and enjoy the experiance. SO here are my marks, hope it helps:
1. Sound quality. 70%
2. Headphone. 50% You have gotta get a decent pair of headphones with this player
3. Design & portability. 90%
4. Battery life. 70% Dont believe the written hours
5. Software. 70%
6. Accessories. 30% (A custom made pouch would be fantastic)
7. Interface. 70%
8. Value for money 100%
My ***** criteria is based on its remarkable portability and value. There are simply no machine that can offer this size,capacity, cost and functionality. As a foot note I do hope the thing does not break down tomorrow.
71 Rio NO MO
When I attempted to upgrade the firmware as suggested by the Music Manager software, the player simply died. I reached technical support, after several minutes on hold. I spoke with a kind gentleman with choppy English (being quite kind). He took me through a number of steps and then informed me my original diagnosis (dead) was accurate. He stated the internal board was "defective." I purchased the Rio 7 months ago, so I was offered an "Out of Warranty Replacement" for $125.00. Seemed kind of pricy for a unit that is likely to last only 7 months or so. I was told that this is not an "often problem", but a "sometimes problem yes." I greatly enjoyed the Rio during it's short life span, but definitely recommend against purchasing one.
72 If its too good to be true...it probably is
I should have remembered that saying because for this product it couldn't be more right. A previous reviewer wrote an excellent review that I couldn't hope to even compare to. I wish I took heed to what he was saying because he was totally correct. Don't believe the few 4+ stars up there they are totally wrong.
I did nothing to this player and it will not even turn on anymore. It worked correctly for 10 mins and then it just...died. After reading how fragile they are I took great care of it and still it doesn't work.
73 Best Player Ever.
At first i was skeptical of purchasing this mp3/wmv player but i finnaly did. I am very happy with my purchase, it holds grips of songs, downloads them ultra-fast and looks cool as hell. I got mine for 150 bucks at Walmart and it hasnt failed me yet. Dont cheapo out and buy another player or a crappy ipod just buy this player you will not regret it this thing roks! BUY IT NOW!
74 Stay away....Stay FAR FAR Away!!
I have had nothing but problems with both the Nitrus and with Rio's customer/technical support.
My unit failed to complete a firmware upgrade the first time the software tried to perform one. After that, it couldn't be used. It took a total of 4 calls, 3 faxes, and 2 emails to get my proof of purchase to Rio in order to get an RMA number to permit me to send it in for repair or replacement, none of which is with 800 numbers of course. During this time I had to deal with questions like "are you sure you got a 'fax transmitted' message?" and "have you ever used a fax machine before?". The office which receives the faxed proof-of-purchases is not in the same as those answering the tech support line, so they kept 'losing' my faxes until I emailed a scanned image of the receipt to a supervisor to get the RMA.
When I finally did get an RMA (with brief, handwritten, unpunctuated 'sorry for the hassle' kind of wording; at least the shipping address was readable) and returned the entire product (with earphones, charger, etc.) since they say they will either 'repair or replace with new or reconditioned product at their option', in very short time I did receive a replacement....for the Nitrus body unit only. No earphones, charger, USB cable, etc. At this point tech support stopped taking my calls. A call to customer support resulted in them attempting to charge me *shipping* to send me the earbuds, etc. Reason: "We didn't tell you to ship everything back to us." Response: I read them the email that came with the RMA and asked them to tell me where it said to return only the 'part' needing repair (it didn't). Finally a supervisor agreed to waive shipping charges, and so it stands right now. We'll see if I get anything, since I'm now past my original 90 day warrantee.
I'd love to review the sound quality, the comfort of the earbuds, the unit features, storage capacity, and the like, but in the 90 days I've "owned" the unit I've listened to it for a sum total of about 3 hours, and that was a month ago. (Did I mention the replacement unit I have is useless when received uncharged with no headphones or DC adapter?).
Stay away. Stay very, very far away.
p.s. Icing on the cake: Although the Rio support website says that repaired/replacement parts are warranted 30 days past the time of the replacement or to the end of the original warrantee period, whichever comes first, the box with the replacement part explicitly says "there is no new warranty period for the refurbished product", and you have to 'accept' this by breaking the label to open the box. So at this point I have an out-of-warantee, useless, uncharged unit.
I should've just flushed my $200 down the toilet. At least backing up my home plumbing would've been more exciting and pleasant than this ordeal has been.
75 Great MP3 Player
This is the first mp3 player I own. It is wonderful so far. The software is easy to download, and easy to manage. The player is small, light, and has tons of space. I have loaded about 200 songs, and it's not even half full. I haven't done anything with the playlist yet. It looks like you'll have to create the playlist on the computer instead of on the player itself. But it looks pretty straight forward. Sound quality is very good. I was a little skeptical about the tiny joy stick. But it has proven very handy and easy to use. I really enjoy this little player. Too bad no holder comes with it.
76 A few reservations.
Facts:
Foreign support only- firmware upgrade or defective are the only troubleshooting tips offered ($100 replacement after 90 days). Hope you have a good long distance provider.
If your player suffers from any problems before the 90 days you should fight to have it replace for no fee. After 90 days Rio is no longer responsible for anything, it's our fault for buying their player before reading the reviews.
Personally my player had defects from the first day- and it wasn't till after 90 days that I acted on their policy (which I admit is totally my fault). I also have Intel's pocket concert for going on 3 years and it's the greatest player (even though it has a modest 128mb chip). After this experience I would NEVER recommend this or any player with a drive based memory, or a rechargeable battery. Your best bet is to get a player in which you can replace or use rechargeable (removable) batteries (cause if the permanent one goes, you're out of luck). And you should also invest in ram based memory- like memory sticks, because if you plan on 'using' the player for jogging, running, lifting, or breathing in general the HD will eventually fail. I can't speak for all Rio products but considering all the ones available on their site only have the 90 day policy, I would be quick to assume that they are of comparable quality.
Conclusion:
All in all- while it works it's a neat little player, lots of cool features and would undoubtedly be worth the ~$200 if was able to last longer than your summer break.
Good luck with your audio, and hoped this helped!!
77 terrible
don't buy this player! worked great for 3 weeks and then nothing but problems! it's constantly freezing etc.
78 FANTASTIC
I LOVE IT, I USE IT WHEN I SKATEBOARD AND NO SKIPS,OR ANYTHING HOLDS ABOUT 500 SONGS FOR ME! NO PROBLEMS MY FRIEND HAS AN IPOD AND HE WANTS THIS INSTEAD
79 Only lasted a few minutes after charge was complete
Bought the Rio Nitrus after reviewing them and seeing there were great reviews along with the bad ones. I guess you could add us to the list of the dreaded upgrader message. Downloaded a couple of books and songs and then wanted to test it with a fm transmitter and it wouldn't turn on. Just clicked away and got hot. Hate to tell the guy who said just use the reset button... must have tried that 10 times. Finally have given up and returning it. starting the search again!!!
80 Awesome!!
I got the Rio Nitrus a couple days ago and i love it! The sound is great! DON"T GET THE iPod!!!!! My friend got one and it is a rip off! the controls suck on the iPod! The Rio Nirtus is the way to go!! This definetly gets 5 stars and 2 thumbs up!!!
81 Add me to the list of DEAD RIO NITRUS
150 days and the hard drive failed... click of death!! Andy at RIO support said "1 in 100 HDs fail" and offered to fix it for $125 (after 90 days you are out of warrentee!). Guess I'll look into ram drive players next, they don't have the HD technology perfected yet. Too bad Rio.
Also the plastic over the screen is almost unreadable from scuffs.
82 Twice Failed
After 2 months, RIO had to replace the Nitrus due to a hard drive failure. After taking almost 3 weeks dealing with Rio, finally it was replaced on April 8. Today the replaced unit failed exactly the same way. I now will try to get our $ back or have it replaced. I will never buy another Rio product. 2 failures and customer service was NO service.
Time for an Ipod!
83 It won't last long!!!
i bought a new Rio Nitrus just a month ago. it's very easy to use, not a hassle at all. it's fast enough with the downloading and stuff. the features are good and browsing through the music library is really accessible. BUT!!! there's something wrong with it. suddenly, it just stopped functioning. a message just appeared, "upgrader." i asked people who also got the same message and it's not repairable. a real pain. get the iPod.
84 Rio Nitrus is the BEST
The Rio Nitrus is a great value for anybody looking for a decent Mp3 Player. It has a good Hard Drive, not too big, not too small, and it was overall easy to use. The equalizer is very nice, and I liked the overall menu.
The menu button can be a little more responsive though...
The headphones were decent.
Overall, A GREAT PRODUCT
85 This is a piece of garbage!!!!
I think I may have broken the record. This piece of junk crapped out on me after 4 days of use. The first 3 were heaven (which is why I had to give it a star), then the nightmare began. Constant rebooting after half a song. The stupid thing froze up while loading tunes and stayed froze until the battery died. I plugged it back in and it was up to its old rebooting tricks. I returned it to best buy, no questions asked, and picked up an iPod.
86 The RIO Nitrus Sucks!!!!
The Nitrus' internal hard disk failed after 4 months (warranty of 90 days) of limited use!! They offered to replace it for $125. I will buy a better product next time!!!!
87 schweeet little player
Great DAP with decent sound and battery life. The gui is also easy to use, though not the best out there.. You pay for what you get, and in my case I couldnt be happier. There are no horror stories with upgrading the units to the latest rev. (you gotta wonder about some people.. duh..) Ive gone through a few already, couldnt of been easier. Rio makes great products that serve their purpose well. The only real gripe I have with this player is on ocassion it can take around 3-4 seconds for the next track to play. Other than that, highly recomended.
88 RIP OFF!!!!!!!
who is the genius that thought this piece of crap up. It sucks, i went through two of them with their own different problems before i gave up and shelled out the extra cash for an iPod. The first player had an off center joystick so that i could not scroll forward through my songs, only backwards (very frusterating when passing a song by one click) then the second one just plain wouldn't turn on, it would get hot as hell and make a wierd clicking noise, but it would never turn on. Beleive me, go pick up an iPod for a 130 bucks more, it is well worth it for what you get.
89 worst purchase ever
I wish I could say that the player worked well, if only for a little while, but I can't. The software was pretty easy to use but 2 days after loading up my music it hit me....The "UPGRADER" bug. It may not have been too bad if not on the way to Afghanistan at the time. Most honest to God review.....If you can keep doing maintenace on it, don't have to deal with customer service,(they offer no help online either)or if you have a lifelong service contract(your life not the players) buy the player, otherwise run, as fast as you can. Read all the reviews for this thing. Over all everyone says it sucks or needs constant maintenance. Be aware of those who have owned it less than 3 months( thats usually when the problems start and then it will be out of warranty ).
90 Don't get ripped off.
This thing costs too much for its storage space in the first place, i would have never bought it. I received this as a Christmas present. At any rate, it worked fine for a few months, RIGHT UP UNTIL the warranty ran out. It started failing to upload songs, and it would shut off in the middle of playing FREQUENTLY. This was rather annoying but i could deal with it. Then it stopped working entirely, giving me the dreaded "upgrader" message. Despite the continued advice of "upgrade the firmware", i can't get it to work. What a waste of money. I should have taken it back and spent some extra dollars on an ipod.
Also, you may have been reading some recent positive reviews. They're bull. It's the sheep rio fans trying to justify the existence of this piece of crap, take a look at this thread in a rio forum (...)
Don't let Rio rip you off. I'll never buy anything from this company again.
91 Great Player
This is a great player for the price, nabbed mine for $160!
I really like how small, lite, and fluid it feels.. easily tucks away in a pocket. Ive had no issues with mine, upgraded to the latest bios with out a hitch.. not sure why others are haveing an issue with this.. duuhh..
Over all, great player and highly recomended!
92 The day after the warantee ended....
Well, it was actually more like a month, my Rio stopped communicating with my computer. After about 40 hours of first me troubleshooting, then going through both web technical services, and a telephone technical support person, I was told that since it was after the warantee, well, there was nothing they could do. So I have a slick, razor thin useless piece of euipment, and the option of shelling out $100 for a post warantee replacement. Yea, me!
93 To answer some stuff and a review
I had the Rio Nitrus in a couple of days and have researched. It is very good, great memory, great options, inexpensive.
First off those who get the upgrader screen Oh my gosh just use a paperclip or something tiny to push the rest button near the AC outlet. It works perfectly. Upgrader doesn't mean "Rio Nitrus is dead" If the player runs out of battery (permenentaly) use the AC adapter to run on AC instead of battery. Not portable but oh well.
94 Not a reliable product - avoid
4 hours after purchase, my Rio Nitrus locked-up with the kiss of death message "upgrader". The unit refused to do anything (there was no fix to the problem) except display this message and actually generate heat! (not a good sign). Before it died, I did manage to load 5 albums and play one song. Needless to say, it was returned and I won't buy another one.
In spite of other comments.... when it says "upgrader" it IS DEAD... no amount of paper clip resetting will fix this.
95 Rio Nitris #1. Slim & Small 1.5 GB package + great features!
I bought my Nitris on Ebay for $169.00 in September of 2003 and it has worked flawlessly ever since. I dont know why these other folks have had problems, I suspect that they either just got a bad unit or more likely used them improperly and crashed them. My roomate has an iRiver iHP-120, 20GB player and he thinks its just great. I think its waay too clunky for my taste. Plus I dont really need 20GB of storage. I mean he's like a fiend trying to fill that thing. Even after i have ripped all of our CDs to MP3 at like 256bit, he still cant fill that hog up. Like he really needs too, I mean he just looks for stuff to throw on it. what? like 1000 songs not enough for ya. I have like 30 CDs on my nitris, and I could still put more on it, but I dont realy need to, I am at peace with my little Nitris. It fits nicely in my shirt or pants pockets and has great sound and I didnt spend $399.00 for mine like he did. Its like that Cable TV AD for Dish network: Its just PIGGISH ! WHO LET THE PIGS IN !?!?!?? lmao..just kiddin. HAIL NITRIS! #1
96 Rio Ntirus Rocks the House
Got mine a couple of days ago and loaded 211 songs with over 1/3 HDD space still left. Plays MP3 and WMA with no gigs whatsoever. You'll hear some people complain about it not working, but just upgrade the firmware and software as soon as you get it, and you'll be experiencing the iPod Mini replacement. Must remember that with any HDD MP3 player, it is still a HDD with read heads and other moving parts. Any excessive abuse will hurt it. I'm very satisfied with my purchase. Try to get a 1 year warranty with it - it's definitely worth it with any electronic gear you buy.
97 Works great!
I noticed all these negative reviews and thought I should tell you my experience. I have had my Nitrus since November and it has worked perfectly. When I was shopping I was looking for a player that I could use while running that had more storage than a flash based player. This player is awesome for running. It has never skipped and I run hard 25 to 50 miles a week. The battery life is great (14 to 16 hours per charge) and the RMM software works just fine. I have had absolutely no problems with my player. If you are active get a Nitrus (or possibly an ipod mini), if you are a couch potato then maybe a Karma or Ipod will be best. It would have been nice if the player came with a case but I found that the amphipod case works great.
98 Did We All Get The Same Indian Lady?
Like almost everyone else, I loved my Rio Nitrus with a passion UNTIL 35 days later ( 5 days too late for Best Buy to give a refund )when I reached the dreaded UPGRADER screen. This is where I stand now. I am trying to download the software upgrade since the firmware timed out and wouldnt load. If this doesnt work than the Indian Lady said to send it back and theyd replace it with a player that doesnt have my 365 songs and hours of invested time. For anyone looking for an mp3 player that wont break, THIS AINT IT.
99 Great while it worked....
Like many others have stated, the Rio Nitrus was great while it worked. I really liked it, but then three weeks into owning it, it deleted all my files, wouldn't hold a FW upgrade and just sat there clicking away. Customer Support stated that it was a "known problem with all harddrive-based devices" and that it would need to be returned for another one. Well, I returned it, but decided to spend $30 more and get the Dell DJ with 15x the capacity and with the Dell name. Hopefully, their "harddrive-based player" will not suffer from this "known problem."
100 Perfect player for me
I've had it since Christmas 2003 and it has treated me very well.
I was looking for a player with more than a gig of space but still small enough to fit comfortably into my pant's or shirt's pocket. Those were my minimum requirements and the Nitrus met them easily. On top of that it has excellent battery life (12-15 hours!), excellent sound quality, and great software. Before I played with a lot of players I thought software didn't matter much, but after testing the Nitrus, iPod, and Nomads I was really impressed by the difference that good software can make. EQ, Playlists, Bookmarks, Tag-based auto-playlists. All very easy to use and very helpful in everyday use.
The only complaints I have are that it scratches easily and that sometimes 1.5GM isn't enough space (at least for me) for long trips away from a computer. I use mostly 192 vbr files and when full the Nitrus hold anywhere from 300-350 tracks on it. Thus far I've only ran into one occasion where I spent so much time with it that I got tired of the music I had loaded to it and I didn't have access to a computer to delete old/transfer new songs.
I got it before the iPod mini was available, but now that I have played with both I am very happy that I went with the Nitrus. 30% of my files are WMA (not iPod friendly), the Nitrus battery is MUCH better than the iPod battery, and I the little stealth fighter of a player just looks cooler than Easter-egg pastels.
