Rio Cali 256 MB Sport MP3 Player

[Archived in $100 - $200, Audio, Over 65 MB MP3 Players, Products, Rio]

Manufacturer: Rio
Price at amazon.com: $149.99
Usually ships in 24 hours

Used & new from $100.03

List price $149.99



Product Features:

• 256 MB of memory for over 4 hours of MP3 or 8 hours of WMA music
• Secure Digital card/MMC expansion slot provides up to 512 MB of additional memory
• Built-in FM Tuner
• 18-hours of continuous playback with one AAA battery
• Compatible with computers with USB 1.1 ports running Windows 98 SE, 2000, ME, XP, Mac OS X

Product Description:

Wrapped in grippy, protective rubber, the Cali 256 is built to play hard. Solid-state electronics carry over 60 songs* with no skips—ever. Comfortable Sport Clip earphones, case with armband, and integrated stopwatch with lap timer make the Cali a functional sport accessory. 5-band adjustable equalizer gives more control over your sound than most players. Onboard FM tuner means you always have something to listen to. An empty expansion slot allows you to add up to 512MB of additional SDTM... read more

Average Customer Rating:

---

Comment: Great mp3 player. please read this review Rating:
Hi. I bought my Rio Cali 128 mb about 3 weeks ago, and it is great! It is my first mp3 player, but I've done loads of research on them, and this is great! Read these:

It's got rubber on it, so it won't break! I've dropped it on comcrete, and not even a scratch!

The Rio Joystick is sweet! not neccessary, but i love it.

The LCD display is great, you can clearly see what the song is, the artist, what cd it's from, the date and time, and many other things in one glance. (another great thing is you don't have to title the song, when u load it onto your mp3 player, it displays it without u doing anything)

The included FM tuner is great! sometimes it is staticy, but i'm pretty sure it uses the headphones as the antennae (dont ask me how), and when I bought a good pair of headphones, I got great reception...so buy another pair of 'phones.

really light! less than 2 ounces WITH the AAA battery in it!

speaking of batteries, the AAA battery last up to 18 hours...amazing

The software's pretty good. If you dont have Windows 98se or up (i have Windows 98 ), don't worry, it comes with RealOne player, which works on lower versions. You have to have Mac OS X for macs...but if you don't, on the iTunes cd (included) it has an installer for Mac OS X.

The included case is great! It is plastic, but fits very snugly on the mp3 player. I dropped it on concrete, and it didnt come off.

i hope this helped you on your quest to get an mp3 player, and i hope u get this one!

(none of the times i dropped the mp3 player were on purpose)

---

Comment: not at user friendly as I hoped Rating:
My first MP3 player purchase, I was looking for something my wife could use while running, less cumbersome and less likely to skip compared to her portable CD player. Amazon had better reviews for the cali than the nike model.

Likes: small, easy to wear, good sound quality, comfortable ear pieces

Dislikes: product arrived with base language in French (phone call to rio support walked me through rebooting it), unable to transfer my itunes directly into my rio manager, can only hold about two CD's of music.

Overall I regret not saving the extra money for an ipod with greater storage and only slightly larger size.

---

Comment: YOU'D BETTER READ THIS BEFORE YOU DECIDE Rating:
Ipod shmipod. I think I will die with my Rio Cali on... or at least be buried with it. Music has never sounded so energetic and tangible until now. The acoustics are incredible. I feel like I'm in a recording studio. The low's, mid's and high's are so crisp with the Rio, a whisper or an unfamiliar noise in a song startles me at times, because I think there's something or someone else in the room. Besides the quality of sound and despite it's miniature size, I get 384 kb of music with the memory expansion card, which is like 120 songs in wma format (for those who aren't CPU aficionados). On my old mp3/cd player, I found myself replacing the batteries every four hours or so. With the Rio full blast on Rock setting I get at least 16 hours of play. As a matter of fact, I'm listening to a few of my favorite soundtracks right now. And did I mention the surprisingly powerful bass response? The armband is a nice addition, too. However, it would have been better if the armband was roomier, and not so scratchy when I'm moving around or working out. But whatever, guess I can't get it all. Well... get one and stop reading reviews.

Posted at November 11, 2003 06:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)