 MP3 players come in all
shapes and sizes but we must admit that the Rio Nitrus was one of the more
unusual shapes we'd seen when it arrived last week, the 1.5gb model sits
between the flash based devices and the larger hard drive models and sports
a USB 2.0 connection for quick downloading of MP3's which is handy as with
such a small hard drive you'll be doing a fair bit of that.
The Rio Nitrus has a small backlit LCD
screen through which you can navigate the tracks stored on your device,
control is via red joystick arrangement this allows you to play pause etc,
plus scroll through the menu option, the screen only displays some 10
characters at a time so most text scrolls across the screen which can take a
little getting used too.
On the plus side it comes equipped with
good quality Sennheiser ear buds which deliver tight and yet full bass with
good top end, it will run for some 16 hours on a single charge of its
lithium Ion battery, most users choose to control the nitrus from a PC
running the supplied software, indeed some features like track delete are
barred from the device control panel. There are some very clever features
in the software that allow you to set the percentage of material to change
each time you sync and because its USB 2.0 it only takes 10 minutes to fill
the Rio from empty.
Other nice touches include a bookmark
system that allows you to mark places within long tracks, useful if like us
you download MP3 mixes to listen to but hate having to spin through them to
find where you left off, you can also select replay by how long the track
has been on the Rio, so you can always find the music you just put on it.
All round the RIO is a compact device with excellent audio performance and
features, it is small and so there are compromises. Your decision to buy a
Rio Nitrus will depend on budget for £250 you can get 15gb Ipod and at £170
the Rio Nitrus is a sizeable investment but you are paying for its compact
size and great software if you want a more portable MP3 player this could be
for you.
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