Rio Forge Sport 512MB MP3 Player

I was worried about getting a flash player, since ...

Posted Feb 28, 2005 - I was worried about getting a flash player, since they don't hold as much as hard drives. After a great deal of research, I concluded that for my purposes (exercising, walking to class) I really didn't have a choice. If you are going to be active with your MP3 player, don't get a hard drive. My good friend bought a RIO Karma during Army training and it is now ruined. Active = flash player, Home use = hard drive.

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I love the tiny size of this MP3 player. It's grea ...

Posted Jun 28, 2005 - I love the tiny size of this MP3 player. It's great to exercisers. A great feature is that it uses regular AAA batteries. The FM tuner works well.

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A Good Value That Exceeded My Expectations

Posted Jul 27, 2005 - Right out of the box I had the unit filled and operational in a few minutes. Great software, excellent ergonomics, and lightweight. I was looking for a replacement for my Nike PSA 120 which I liked because of the armband and it's simplicity. The Rio is much better with bigger capacity out of the box and a lower price. Highly recommended. UPDATE: I have now had the player for a week. The one downside I have noticed are the headphones. Although they have good quality sound they are pretty cheesy. The player is fantastic. Get some headphones that suit your personal needs and enjoy the Forge player. I still give the player five stars!

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So far, so good. Looks nice although a little chea ...

Posted Jun 5, 2005 - So far, so good. Looks nice although a little cheap. Wish it came in different colors or had protective cases for it. Very easy to use and Rio Music Manager makes it really easy to transfer music. Would recommend to a friend, especially with the rebates offered.

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good player

Posted Nov 16, 2005 - I've been happy with it. Plenty of space for music, fm radio onboard, good battery life. It's very lightweight which is great for working out. I haven't had any problems with it breaking (it's been dropped) but the lightweight feel makes me *think* it's going to break. I haven't had any of the problems with skipping, volume button breaking, etc that others have mentioned. The software is easy to use and provides for quick file tranfers.

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I purchased the Rio Forge to replace another Rio p ...

Posted Nov 15, 2004 - I purchased the Rio Forge to replace another Rio player that was lost, and haven't looked back. With this Rio, I've been using the Rio Music Manager and wondered why I didn't have it on my last player. It's so very easy to use. I just drag and drop, and the music's downloaded to the Forge. And with the USB 2.0 transfer, it is so much faster than our previous Rio player (USB 1.1), and makes it even easier to use. The FM isn't anything to brag about, but neither is it too terribly horrible. I like the battery life. It takes one single AAA battery, and I've yet to replace it. I've used the player for close to 15 hours. I was also amazed at how easy it was to interface not only with our Dell desktop, but with our Apple Powerbook. When we had our last Rio player and interfaced the first time, we had to call Rio tech support. We had installed the disk, yet iTunes wasn't recognizing the player. We spent about thirty minutes on that first phone call. But with this player, we installed the software, plugged the Forge into the USB on the Powerbook, and iTunes came up showing the mp3 player. Was a nice surprise. I really don't like the stock ear phones that came with the player, so I purchased another set. The stock ones are ear buds and go over and behind your ears, and one size does NOT fit all. I could get the ear phones to stay only if i were standing still, but once I started moving, all bets were off for them staying on my ears. I wanted an mp3 player that had a larger storage capacity than my other Rio player (512 mb vs. 128 mb) and the capacity for additional memory upgrade. This unit fit my requirements, and the price was right.

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I've had my Rio forge 512 for about a week now. It ...

Posted Apr 25, 2005 - I've had my Rio forge 512 for about a week now. It took me a couple days to figure out how to use it. I couldn't figure out why I could only fit about 14 songs on it when it was supposed to hold 260. I finally figured out that I had to set the quality to the lowest bit rate (64) under "tools, options, copy CD" on the Rio music manager screen. I thought the user manual could have been more clear about a lot of things. Also, when I first tried to use it after downloading music onto it, it wouldn't play or even turn off. I reformatted and updated it a couple times. Not sure what fixed it, but it's working great now. *shew!* I got very stressed out thinking something was wrong with it and I'd never get my money back. This is my first mp3 player. I bought it because I've recently taken up jogging and my CD player was skipping all over the place. Now that I have the Rio forge working, I LOVE it! I love that I can shuffle all 261 songs and set a bookmark so that the next day when I go jogging it will pick up where I left off, even if my son played with it the night before, and it even tells me how many songs I have listened to so far. Being able to choose music by genre, artist, or album is pretty cool. The lock button is great. I used to bump buttons all the time on my CD player and screw things up. I'm also very pleased to have a built in stopwatch - one less thing I have to carry. I am going to purchase some different earphones. The ones that came with it keep falling off. I've been carrying the player in my pocket as I don't trust the clip for the armband. Looks like it would come off and hit the ground pretty easily. Will have to come up with something else for this summer when I am wearing clothes that don't have a zippered pocket (maybe a little cloth bag tied to my bra strap??). After hearing how many people lost the cover for the USB cable, I taped mine on to secure it. I was a little disappointed at how long it took me to load the music from CD to the player. I was hoping that I could just transfer the hundreds of songs I already had stored in Windows Media Player but they were downloaded at the highest bitrate and are too big to fit on the Rio (that's why I only got 14 on it). If anyone out there knows a way to change them to smaller files without having to use the original CD again, please let me know. Even with all the problems I mentioned, I still love my Forge, and I am enjoying my morning jogs a lot more lately because of it. I gave my 12 year old son the old CD player, but he's still pretty jealous of Mom's cool new mp3 player :)

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This is my 3rd Rio MP3 player; the others haven't ...

Posted Jan 29, 2005 - This is my 3rd Rio MP3 player; the others haven't failed; I've just upgraded each time and gave my previous players to family members. If you want a solid MP3 player that won't dissappoint, I'd recommend it.

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I bought this for my wife before a long flight. S ...

Posted Jul 6, 2005 - I bought this for my wife before a long flight. She loved being able to load all her music on it and a book or two. It is a great way to listen to you digital media. It also is great for you sports lovers. The arm band is a great way to attach it to your body. It also has a stopwatch to time your run.

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I think this is a good player. It is not difficult ...

Posted Apr 25, 2005 - I think this is a good player. It is not difficult to figure out how to use it..The interface on the actual player is simple and kind-of self-explanatory. Even though the music manager requires Windows Media Player, you can still use the player like a removable disk.

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love my forge!

Posted Dec 1, 2005 - excellent features for the money. i deliberately chose a reconditioned unit over new due to more rigorous testing and retesting of a used unit plus what will break has already broken and been repaired ;) i am actually overjoyed with the units performance. i bought a $20 set of philips surround sound ear bud type headphone....excellent sound btw...and the lil unit stood up and blew me away . great sound. a plethora of features for an excellent price. yes the chrome ring will scratch, yes the batt. door is chintzy who cares! it works great! just be careful with it lol. oh yes sd card intigrates flawlessly w onboard memory. i have a 128 card in the in addition to the 512 onboard and i have more music on it then i can get through in a 10 hour workday. im thinking of getting more as christmas gifts. *warning* with the sd cards on board once the battery voltage drops (ie the battery is around than half dead ) the forge will shut off and refuse to run until fresh batteries are installed. not surprising given it runs on 1 AAA and for a long time i might add. so just have a spare battery handy or dont use the sd option. again excellent buy for the money.

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Own two of them! One is great, the other just crapped out!

Posted Sep 25, 2005 - I'm new to the MP3 player mania going on in this country and after doing some research decided to go with the Rio as it looks like it's the best bang for the buck! My wife is a very active body body builder/aerobics fanatic and wanted a small player to replace her cd player which skipped while working out etc..etc.. so I decided to give her an MP3 player for her birthday. I ordered online and received it a few days later. I took it out of the box and began loading music to it by dropping and dragging files into it as the Music manager kept locking up my computer. I showed her how to use it and she was on her way! I liked the player so much that a week later I ordered the exact model for myself since I play drums and was also experiencing the skip and stop of my cd player while playing along to some tunes. A week ago she complained that her player was not turning on and asked me how long the battery was supposed to last. I put a new battery in and the player powered back up and I set the battery saver feature on. Two days ago she calls me up at work to complain about the player again. This time nothing was happening. I got home and looked at it and could not get it to come on. I switched batteries and still nothing. I called my son whose friend owns one and had recommended it. They both told me to re-flash and install the firmware which I found on Rio's website. After doing that the player still would not work. The word "UPGRADER" is displayed on the screen. I have now e-mailed the online retailer I bought it from to request and exchange of the product or a refund since I called Rio customer support and ran into a brick wall. Their website is pretty much useless and when you call the customer support number they have an automated menu and give you their hours of operation monday thru friday which are not very long. Some customer support. I would give the first player (my wife's) a 1 star and mine a 5 star rating, but now after reading all these reviews and doing more research I wonder if I should have even purchased them. Looks like the company was bought out by a bigger company and they will no longer be making these players.

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When the Forge came out in august, I immediately p ...

Posted Jan 5, 2005 - When the Forge came out in august, I immediately purchased the 256MB model (only the 128MB and 256MB were available at the time). I chose it over the other players because it had more of the features that i wanted. Unfortunately, it turns out the Forge had some design issues that caused it to restart or shutdown at random times, had weak battery terminals so light to moderate bumps caused it to restart, and the FM tuner had _extremely_ poor reception. I ended up exchanging it for a Forge 512MB two months later; I was told that the problems were addressed in the forge 512MB. I can verify that the forge 512MB does not restart or shutdown randomly, and although the FM tuner is not great, it actually works. The volume gets plenty loud and the audio is crisp and clear even with the supplied headphones. even after tweaking the equalizer settings, i would like more bass, but it is very acceptable. The forge snaps into a plastic holster that has a small metal clip on the back. This holster probably wasn't intended to be a belt clip, but occasionally i use it as such and it works pretty well. the holster clips onto a strip of leather that's sewn onto the armband. For a while, everything was fine. Unfortunately, after about 2 months, the leather strip began to stretch and tear. As a result, the holster wobbles a lot on the armband when i run. Also, it turns out that the forge is not entirely secure in the plastic holster. I wore my Forge during the NYC marathon and there were three incidents where i bumped into other runners and the player popped out of the holster. Ever since then, I use an elastic band to make sure the player stays in the holster. The feature that I like best about the Forge is that windows computers treat it as a mass storage device; you plug in the USB cable and the computer sees it as removable drives and you can drag-n-drop directly to it. I also like the buttons. The volume button is prominent and well placed so it is easy to adjust the volume. Also, the button for the keypad is also raised so you can change tracks without having to look for the buttons. I have a number of gripes 1) When you wear the forge on the armband, it is oriented in such a way that makes it difficult to look at the display without having to take it out of the holster. 2) the chrome ring in the front of the forge and the grippy rubber on the edges are purely cosmetic and does not make the forge any more rugged. In fact, they make it less so (they are very easily scratched). 3) The Forge came with a plastic cover over the USB port. However, this plastic cover is not secured to the player in any way so it fell of and was lost immediately. Ever since then, sweat and grime has been building up around that area. 4) The battery cover is secured in place by two plastic tabs. it's only been a couple months but the tabs are about to break off. 5) Although it's marketed as a sports player, the Forge is not any more rugged than the other flash-based MP3 players on the market. A moderate to hard jolt causes my player to restart. 6) The stopwatch feature is pretty much useless -- you can only see the last two splits, and you pretty much have to take it out of the holster to see the display to operate it. 7) You cannot organize your music in folders in the player; if you have a lot of songs, it is difficult to organize the music unless you setup and upload a playlist from your computer. 8) Rio's customer service is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. It took 4 days for them to respond to my e-mail, and when they finally responded, it was tell me to call them. When I called them, i spent an average of 30 minutes on hold. Every time I called, I had to speak to somebody new, each time I had to explain my problems from the beginning, and they were always unhelpful. There were two occasions where they promised to have a manager and technical person call me back. For both occasions, I never heard back from Rio. 9) Their warranty period is only 90 days; most of the other players have a 1 year warranty. Documentation says that if your player is defective, they will fix or replace it. But they don't tell you that if they replace it, it will be with a refurbished unit.

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Meh...glad i got the warrantee

Posted Nov 2, 2005 - Liked it a whole lot, much better than my previous (mercury) mp3 player. Pretty easy to use and set up. BUT... After ONLY a week, this little unit wouldn't turn on. I switched to fresh batteries. no response. I plugged in the usb, no response. again new batts, finally i took out the SD card i had in the expansion slot and it came on (same trick worked for my palm too when it was having problems). So basically i'm hoping that solves the problem every time, but not looking hopeful.

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Rio Forge 512 - broke after 6 months

Posted Sep 22, 2005 - Mine broke after only 6 months. Volume switch failed. Apparently this is a common problem. For a sport player, I would have expected it to last longer. Try your luck with another player.

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