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Features:

• 64 MB onboard flash memory
• Upgradable to 96 MB (SmartMedia cards)
• Plays MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps and VBR), MPEG2.5, ADPCM, Audible.com
• content
• USB support for Windows and Mac

Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
Shipping weight: 1.0 pounds.
ASIN: B00000JSGH

The Rio 500 contains an updated hardware design featuring easily accessible controls and a backlit display that shows song/book title, artist, time, and more. And it uses just a single AA battery for up to 13 hours of continuous play.

Average Customer Review: Number of Reviews: 2

An electronics enthusiast from Bay Area, California , August 8, 1999
Revolutionary New Technology for the Person on the Go
The Rio 500 is the second member of the first wave of technology harnessing the awesome power of mp3. Mp3, which stands for MPEG Layer-3 (of course), is the digital music format that can compress music to 1/11 of the original size without a loss of intergity. Needless to say, this scares the music industry... Among the Rio's innumerable benefits are its lack of moving parts, which in turn means no skipping while you move around with your Rio. Also, the new Rio 500 has 64MB of flash memory, which will allow you to carry one hour of 128kps music (cd quality) or 2 hours of 64kbps (near cd quality). Flash card accessories will expand this capability another 1/2 hour at full and 1 hour at half quality. The Rio 500 is an absolute necessity for the technology enthusiast. (I recommend the teal :)

Darryl Steyn from South Africa Johannesburg , July 26, 1999
This product is da bomb!
Tis product the Diamond Rio make listening to music much more easier than before.

Now you pay the price and then just download all the songs you want. Instead of going to the music store and saving up for those CDs that are getting more and more expensive buy this product.

I give it 2 thumbs up.

Get more information or order click here

Diamond Rio PMP 300 Special Edition 64-MB Portable MP3 Player
by Diamond Multimedia
Our Price: $249.99

Features:

• Cool, transparent teal case
• 64 MB built-in flash memory (upgradable to 96 MB)
• Palm size for easy portability
• Expandable playback time with removable flash cards
• Skip free--no moving parts

Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
Shipping weight: 2.4 pounds.
ASIN: B00000JHYS

The only real improvements over the original Diamond PMP 300 are in storage capacity and cosmetic appearance. Diamond has enhanced the case design of this compact unit with a stylish, transparent teal that distinguishes it from the stodgy, solid-black or metallic design of other portable players. As with the original Rio 300, this special-edition Rio plays MP3-encoded digital music, the open Internet standard that's shaking up the music industry.

This special-edition Rio stores your music files in 64 MB of RAM instead of on CD or tape, so it has no moving parts and won't skip during playback. About the size of a deck of cards, the Diamond Rio weighs under three ounces and can store up to two hour's worth of music encoded at 64 Kbps or about an hour's worth of files at 128 Kbps. The supplied Windows software and PC-connector cable let you upload new selections, delete old ones, change the playback order, and even create new MP3 files from your own CDs.

What about sound quality? MP3 is a compression technique that discards a lot of the information captured by normal CD encoding. True audiophiles will hear the difference. But the overall effect is surprisingly clean, and the Diamond Rio's extreme portability more than makes up for the subtle degradation.

Using the Diamond Rio is fairly simple. You connect the Rio to your PC via its connector cable, which passes through an included parallel-port adapter to your computer. The parallel adapter has a pass-through connector so that you can use the port for your printer or other parallel device. You can easily disconnect the Rio when you are ready to take it on the road. A single AA battery (included) supplies power for the device, which is amazingly lightweight.

We found software installation to be a snap. The default installation puts two applications on your system: the Rio Manager and the MusicMatch Jukebox. These are the same software programs included with the standard Rio PMP 300. You use the Rio Manager to download new selections to the Rio player, delete selections from your lineup, or clear all memory so you can start with a fresh slate. It also lets you view the size of each selection, control the play order, and see how much RAM remains for storing music.

The supplied software also lets you make MP3 files from your own CDs using your computer's CD-ROM drive. You can select 128 Kbps, 80 Kbps, or 64 Kbps encoding. The highest-quality encoding (128 Kbps) will give you the best listening experience, but it comes at a price. MP3 files created in 128 Kbps are twice as big as those encoded at 64 Kbps. If you have plenty of hard-drive space to spare, this may not be an issue. However, storage space for the portable flash-media cards can be somewhat expensive. A 32-MB flash-media card generally sells for about $100.

While this second-generation Rio from Diamond is not a groundbreaking improvement over the original, it is a cool alternative. If you are looking for the largest built-in storage capacity possible in the current wave of MP3 music players, this is the unit for you.

Pros:

• 64 MB of storage
• Compact, lightweight design
• Uses MP3, Internet's open standard for music
• Allows you to create MP3 files from your own CDs
• Near CD-quality audio

Cons:

• Requires a Windows PC to use
• Extra flash-media cards can be costly

Average Customer Review: Number of Reviews: 20

Ian Switall, from Ontario , September 15, 1999
Portable Mp3 player... Awesome Idea
I find that this is a very good purchase. Its small, doesnt skip, light, same quality of sound as cds, you can customize the songs and order and you never have to buy cds again.

An electronics enthusiast from Detroit, MI , September 15, 1999
Just wait a little longer
It is very smart idea to puts songs on this special device, but for only 2 hours and then paying so much. First of all you will spend time trying to copy these things on this machine, second you will get bored after listining to the same stuff for 2 hrs and third if you are patient enough there is gonna be a similar thing but a lot more sophisticated, the one you can make your own CD's and play them and record also from Internet so be patient, altough if you have the money and don't know what to spend on this toy will amuse you for about 2 months and then you'll get bored of it.

, John Doc Holliday from Possum Kingdom, SC. Current Electronics Student at ITT Tech. , September 7, 1999
This Product is good, but it in no way shows its potential.
It would be nice if for once a company would think about what they could do with a product before they just slapped it together and threw it on the shelf, specially for $200+. They could have made this product capable of so much more, such as recording from most any audio device. They could and should have given it more memory.I also believe that if they can't offer you more quality, more memory, and more options for recording from different devices; they should take the price down, atleast 50-100 dollars. Is that to much to ask. I think the product is a wonderful idea, but it should have been given more thought. Thank you.

from santa cruz, california , September 2, 1999
huh are we really serious here?
listen, we all think it is a great idea but it simply isn't enough for me. i dont think that mp3' s are horrible. i actually love them... but i feel that the technology needs to advance some more. unfortunently, those of us who know economics, know that if we dont purchase these items and supply demand, it will eventually disappear into the night. by the way, forget mini disks! they s**k! good idea, but when its this hard to find good titles whats the point? im not gonna pay $---.00 of dollars so it can record a song i can put on a simple walkman. we should consider making mp3 cd players. that way a cd could hold up to 30m songs or more. add it up, thats more than an hour of music (like with the rio. come on people lets put our heads together!!!!!!!

from Clearwater, Florida , August 31, 1999
Great for running, walking, it never skips.
The Diamond Rio PMP 300 is in one word, "great." it is simple to use, very trustworthy, and reliable. It beats any cd player any day.

Randy Wintjes - from the Netherlands (Drenthe) , August 28, 1999
64 MB FOR ONLY $250 !!! WOW! what a bargin (NOT!)
Okay, the Diamond Rio PMP 300 SE is one of the less baddest MP3 portable players. You all agree if I say that this player is way to expensive. It can hold only a little more than 1 hour of audio (Yeah... yeah... I hear you saying "no way, I have over 2 hours of music on mine") I'dd like to hear good quality audio instead of a lousy 64Kb/s

And there is something else.... a Flash card that can store a half an hour of audio cost you more than a HD of 2 Gigs

Conclusion : Wait until there is a serious MP3 player competition going on between the manufacturers. Or.... buy one now and cry if the price drops down 50 % within a year.

IBM!!! get your lazy a** over here!!! and fill the body's of the next generation MP3 players with your holy Micro HD's

from Buenos Aires, Argentina , August 24, 1999
The Rio Sucks
I have a Sony Mini-Disc Mzr-55 and my friends dad told me that the Rio is much better, well im sorry to disapoint you but the product sucks. first of all a mini-disc costs less than a rio disc and it has more memory (Rio=64Mb, MD=650Mb). The sound quality is the same or better than a Cd. the MD is easier to record with, you can connect it to anything (Portable Cd Player, Stereo system, Computer, other MD's and any systems with a line out), the Rio can only connect with the computer and you have to download the songs that you like or transfer them from CD to MP3.

thats why i chose the MD and i got it for a lower price than the Rio.

An electronics enthusiast from Wynnewood, Pensylvania , August 24, 1999
this product is awsome
i think it is awsome. since i download lots of MP3's i can use this so much. i was looking for this all over and i found it here.

Some user tel use that Rio 300 dos not support the Mac Platform !!! But the Rio 500 is OK.

Get more information or order click here