Diamond Rio 500

Diamond was one of the first manufacturers to release an MP3 player and one of the first to deliver a 64Mb model. The Rio 500 benefits from looking less like a toy and more like a serious accessory, but it's not only the looks that have improved. Apart from the obvious advantage of having more memory to play with, we were impressed with the device's user-friendly nature.

The bundled Rioport Audio Manager software is the best in the test and lets you drag and drop music files from one location to another. Upon installation, it will scan your hard disk and neatly round up all the MP3 files on it. Transfer of the tracks from your hard disk to the player is also noticeably quicker, chiefly because the device uses a swift USB connection. It made short work of downloading the tracks, managing to completely transfer 64Mb of music data in about one-and-a-half minutes using the parallel port. The other MP3 players we tested took between two to four minutes to transfer only 32Mb.

See also:

Iomega lets users play MP3s from Zip disks

Iomega, creator of the Zip drive, has unveiled an MP3 device for playing music stored on its 40Mb PocketZip disk.  22 Sep 2000

MP3: making sweet music on the net

The music industry has been shaken up by the emergence of MP3-based music websites such as Napster. Critics accuse them of facilitating piracy while advocates say they make it easier for unsigned musicians to have their music heard. We look at what all the fuss is about.  08 Aug 2000

REAR VIEW

  27 Sep 1999

Diamond launches next generation MP3 player in US

by Jan Howells, VNU Newswire  23 Sep 1999

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