Review: The Rio Forge 256MB Sport
Quick Introduction
The Rio Forge 256MB Sport (FORGE256) is one of the best Flash players in the market having most if not all the features I've been looking for in a flash based player. Given the price the CircuitCity.com is offering combined with the mail-in rebate, it's probably one of the best values for an MP3 Player period. If you want to compare prices, try one of my favorite comparison sites:
www.pricegrabber.com
Price at time of purchase (04/2005) from www.circuitcity.com:
Price was: $159.99
You save: -$38.00
You pay: $121.99
Mail-in rebate(s): -$50.00
Shipping: (Free shipping on orders $25 & up + Free in-store pickup on all orders)
Price after rebate(s): $71.99
Positives
1) Quite a bit of music can be crammed into the player with it's decent 256MB on board memory. If you are using windows media player you can rip your CDs into WMA format. I suggest a bit rate of 96 KBPS for this player so you get a good balance of quality vs. file size. They say a bit rate of 128 KBPS is close to CD quality, but I personally prefer the smaller file size since the sound difference is almost negligible. You could get about 70-80 songs on the player by ripping songs to the 96 KBPS bit rate in WMA format.
2) The upgradeable memory is a definite plus considering the majority of the flash players out there have fixed internal memory with a maximum of 1GB. An upgrade is easily done with the SD/MMC Flash Expansion slot, just insert an SD or MMC flash card up to 1GB (1.256 GB total including the internal flash memory). This is also a boon for people who have digital cameras that use SD or MMC cards and have spare cards that they can use with the player.
I'm hoping a future firmware update will allow larger capacity cards like the 2GB SD cards to be playable. Who knows? There may even be larger capacity (3 GB or more) SD Card in the future. Hopefully the price for 2GB SD cards will go down as well. I guess we'll just have to wait see...
3) FM Tuner and FM Record - Play music from FM radio stations with 8 radio station preset slots. There is also a function to record FM broadcasts onto the memory. I live in a big city so I have a strong signal to my fave radio stations. Not sure how well the signal pick up is from more remote locations however. There is also a built-in stopwatch but unfortunately you can't change the music while the timer is running.
4) Downloading and transfer music files of internal and SD/MMC Flash memory via mini USB slot and supplied USB cable. Just plug it into your PC and it will act like a Removable drive. If you have an SD or MMC card in the player, it will load as a separate removable drive under Windows Explorer. You can also put other files in there like a USB flash/pen drive if you have the space.
The data transfer rate is not too bad under USB 2.0, and if you have an SD/MMC card reader and respective card you can also transfer music that way. I haven't really tried the supplied software and I guess you really don't need it if you download and transfer files straight through explorer. And of course, since the memory is solid-state, it is not as susceptible to skips, shocks and failures like hard drive based players can experience.
5) The player itself has an intuitive navigation system. There is a round navigation thumb pad with raised points for Play/Pause [up], Stop [down], Back [left] and Forward [right]. There is also a "Select" button in the center of the navigation pad, a menu button, a +\- volume control lever at the top and on/off switch that has a delayed "off" function so the player won't turn off by an accidental button tap. There is also a slider "lock" switch, which disables all of the controls and helps prevent accidental changes with the controls. Overall, the controls are simple and easy to use with one hand. It also has a decent LCD display for the size of the player and the backlighting works well in the dark.
6) The color of the Rio Forge Sport 256 (silver/gray) in my humble opinion is the coolest of the bunch, easily edging out the 128 (red) and the 512 (metallic-blue). The 512 MB player is arguably better because of the capacity, but you will pay for it in the price, which last time I checked was around $30-50 more depending on where you buy it. If they had a silver 512 I probably would have forked out the extra cash. Oh well...
7) Takes standard AAA batteries. Rechargeable batteries are probably the most cost effective, but you can put in the high quality batteries for endurance. There is no fixed internal rechargeable battery to worry about replacing when the battery eventually wears down and cannot hold a charge anymore like the iPod or similar players.
Negatives
1) Supplied earphones have awkward fit. It's supposed to be an "over the ear" design, but the vinyl ear-hooks are pretty flimsy and the fasteners that keep the ear-hooks in place feel jagged and tend to irritate the back of my ears slightly. The earbuds are huge too and never fit into my ears quite right. The sound is OK, not very crisp and not too much base response though. If you have a better pair of earphones, I suggest using them or buying a nice new pair. I wound up buying the Sony Fontopia MDR-EX71, which is an "inside the ear" type model and has significantly better sound output than the stock earphones.
2) I haven't actually gone jogging with the player. The Supplied armband and clip looks sturdy but I wouldn't try using the supplied clip to hang the player on your belt. With that said a belt clip would have been handy. It looks a little cheap, but since there isn't really any specific aftermarket accessories for this player like the mighty iPod line has. I suppose this will just have to do.
3) Although it is touted as a "sport" player, the rubberized grips and the metal faceplate tend to scuff easily. Since it is a solid-state flash player you can shake it around, but I wouldn't recommend dropping it because it is still largely made of plastic. The plastic cover that protects the mini-USB port is not attached giving it a good chance to fall off and be lost.
4) The panel to access the battery and flash card is made of plastic and it is a little tough to open and close so so take care when removing and replacing it.
5) The volume level, even at its highest setting is not that loud. To get the best quality sound out of this player you need to spring for some quality earbuds like Shure or Etymotic. If you don't quite have the cash for that, the Sony Fontopia MDR-EX71 earphones works quite well for me.
Bottom Line
If you are looking for an upgradeable flash-based player with good quality, Look no further than the Rio Forge Sport 256. Although the earphones and arm band could be better, the quality of the player itself makes up for the iffy giveaways it comes with and with the price Circuit City is offering, combined with the mail-in rebate, it is almost a steal.
The Rio Forge 256MB Sport (FORGE256) is one of the best Flash players in the market having most if not all the features I've been looking for in a flash based player. Given the price the CircuitCity.com is offering combined with the mail-in rebate, it's probably one of the best values for an MP3 Player period. If you want to compare prices, try one of my favorite comparison sites:
www.pricegrabber.com
Price at time of purchase (04/2005) from www.circuitcity.com:
Price was: $159.99
You save: -$38.00
You pay: $121.99
Mail-in rebate(s): -$50.00
Shipping: (Free shipping on orders $25 & up + Free in-store pickup on all orders)
Price after rebate(s): $71.99
Positives
1) Quite a bit of music can be crammed into the player with it's decent 256MB on board memory. If you are using windows media player you can rip your CDs into WMA format. I suggest a bit rate of 96 KBPS for this player so you get a good balance of quality vs. file size. They say a bit rate of 128 KBPS is close to CD quality, but I personally prefer the smaller file size since the sound difference is almost negligible. You could get about 70-80 songs on the player by ripping songs to the 96 KBPS bit rate in WMA format.
2) The upgradeable memory is a definite plus considering the majority of the flash players out there have fixed internal memory with a maximum of 1GB. An upgrade is easily done with the SD/MMC Flash Expansion slot, just insert an SD or MMC flash card up to 1GB (1.256 GB total including the internal flash memory). This is also a boon for people who have digital cameras that use SD or MMC cards and have spare cards that they can use with the player.
I'm hoping a future firmware update will allow larger capacity cards like the 2GB SD cards to be playable. Who knows? There may even be larger capacity (3 GB or more) SD Card in the future. Hopefully the price for 2GB SD cards will go down as well. I guess we'll just have to wait see...
3) FM Tuner and FM Record - Play music from FM radio stations with 8 radio station preset slots. There is also a function to record FM broadcasts onto the memory. I live in a big city so I have a strong signal to my fave radio stations. Not sure how well the signal pick up is from more remote locations however. There is also a built-in stopwatch but unfortunately you can't change the music while the timer is running.
4) Downloading and transfer music files of internal and SD/MMC Flash memory via mini USB slot and supplied USB cable. Just plug it into your PC and it will act like a Removable drive. If you have an SD or MMC card in the player, it will load as a separate removable drive under Windows Explorer. You can also put other files in there like a USB flash/pen drive if you have the space.
The data transfer rate is not too bad under USB 2.0, and if you have an SD/MMC card reader and respective card you can also transfer music that way. I haven't really tried the supplied software and I guess you really don't need it if you download and transfer files straight through explorer. And of course, since the memory is solid-state, it is not as susceptible to skips, shocks and failures like hard drive based players can experience.
5) The player itself has an intuitive navigation system. There is a round navigation thumb pad with raised points for Play/Pause [up], Stop [down], Back [left] and Forward [right]. There is also a "Select" button in the center of the navigation pad, a menu button, a +\- volume control lever at the top and on/off switch that has a delayed "off" function so the player won't turn off by an accidental button tap. There is also a slider "lock" switch, which disables all of the controls and helps prevent accidental changes with the controls. Overall, the controls are simple and easy to use with one hand. It also has a decent LCD display for the size of the player and the backlighting works well in the dark.
6) The color of the Rio Forge Sport 256 (silver/gray) in my humble opinion is the coolest of the bunch, easily edging out the 128 (red) and the 512 (metallic-blue). The 512 MB player is arguably better because of the capacity, but you will pay for it in the price, which last time I checked was around $30-50 more depending on where you buy it. If they had a silver 512 I probably would have forked out the extra cash. Oh well...
7) Takes standard AAA batteries. Rechargeable batteries are probably the most cost effective, but you can put in the high quality batteries for endurance. There is no fixed internal rechargeable battery to worry about replacing when the battery eventually wears down and cannot hold a charge anymore like the iPod or similar players.
Negatives
1) Supplied earphones have awkward fit. It's supposed to be an "over the ear" design, but the vinyl ear-hooks are pretty flimsy and the fasteners that keep the ear-hooks in place feel jagged and tend to irritate the back of my ears slightly. The earbuds are huge too and never fit into my ears quite right. The sound is OK, not very crisp and not too much base response though. If you have a better pair of earphones, I suggest using them or buying a nice new pair. I wound up buying the Sony Fontopia MDR-EX71, which is an "inside the ear" type model and has significantly better sound output than the stock earphones.
2) I haven't actually gone jogging with the player. The Supplied armband and clip looks sturdy but I wouldn't try using the supplied clip to hang the player on your belt. With that said a belt clip would have been handy. It looks a little cheap, but since there isn't really any specific aftermarket accessories for this player like the mighty iPod line has. I suppose this will just have to do.
3) Although it is touted as a "sport" player, the rubberized grips and the metal faceplate tend to scuff easily. Since it is a solid-state flash player you can shake it around, but I wouldn't recommend dropping it because it is still largely made of plastic. The plastic cover that protects the mini-USB port is not attached giving it a good chance to fall off and be lost.
4) The panel to access the battery and flash card is made of plastic and it is a little tough to open and close so so take care when removing and replacing it.
5) The volume level, even at its highest setting is not that loud. To get the best quality sound out of this player you need to spring for some quality earbuds like Shure or Etymotic. If you don't quite have the cash for that, the Sony Fontopia MDR-EX71 earphones works quite well for me.
Bottom Line
If you are looking for an upgradeable flash-based player with good quality, Look no further than the Rio Forge Sport 256. Although the earphones and arm band could be better, the quality of the player itself makes up for the iffy giveaways it comes with and with the price Circuit City is offering, combined with the mail-in rebate, it is almost a steal.
posted by Unknown at 4:25 PM
1 comments
