I bought a Rio Nitrus about 3 months ago and it was great. I used it for 3 months and it stopped working and began displaying an upgrader message. After trying everything to make it work again I called Rio customer support and told them about the problem. They were very polite and after I told them everything I tried to do to fix it they told me it would no longer work and that they would have to send me a new one. By following their instructions I was sent a brand new Nitrus free of charge. Don't believe the reviews that say the customer support was horrible because it wasn't.

I purchased a Rio Nitrus in the Summer of 2004. I filled it with about 300 songs from CDs and Napster. It met my needs, it was small, inexpensive and held just enough songs. Unfortunately, in March 2005 it stopped working. It was stuck in UPGRADER mode and after many weeks of failed e-mail assistance I called the support number. They told me that the player was broken (really? how about some reasoning) and that I could buy a factory-reconditioned unit for 75$. I was out of warranty and out of luck. I am considering upgrading to the 5GB Zen Micro or Rio Carbon, but I am hesitant to purchase further products from RIO.

Within a few weeks of owning this player it began malfunctioning. I never jarred it or dropped it but I have thought about smashing it with a brick. It spent its life on a desk top and couldn't handle that job without screwing up. The software included in the new packaging is clunky and only partially functional. The "Rio Taxi" and Rio Music Manager" software with do little more than leave you frustrated by its constant dead-ends and error messages. But, let's get to the worst problem of all - the RIO NITRUS MP3 Player. It's junk !!! The internal hard drive is prone to skipping and locking up. When I spoke with Rio about this they told me, "it was to be expected with a hard-drive player." Giving them the benifit of the doubt, I continued using my player for another 2-3 weeks. Right around that time it became totally unresponsive and impossible to use. RIO's answer to this was to send it back to them (along with $80) in exchange for a reconditioned unit. What a deal,,, buy a $200 mp3 player and 4 months later send it back to the factory (+ $80) for a new (opps, I mean reconditioned) one. The take home message is, avoid anything with the RIO name on it.

For the price that it is, i truely think that this is a great MP3 player. It can hold over 450 songs, you can create many playlists which can inlcude "slow songs," "On the move," "Top 20" (etc.)I know over 450 songs might not sound a lot considering the fact that IPOD can hold over 1000, but think about, that is still quite a bit of songs! When you get tired of one of the songs, you can just erase it and replace is with a song that you currently like. And adding/erasing songs is as easy as counting to ten! You just put the "Rio CD" in that comes with your product, insert it into your computer, highlight the song that you want to delete, push "delete," and thats all you need to know in order for yourself to be able to delete it. Then you just transfer the song that you want onto your MP3 onto it! Easy, huh? The search capabilities are also amazing as you can search via artist, track, track #, album, genre, year, or new music that you have just put onto your MP3.

Another thing that i have to "brag" about this Mp3 product, is the quality of it. It is amazing! There is apsolutely no static in it whatsoever which i found to be excellent/quite surprising considering the cheap price of this product. Obviousely, it also depends on the kind of headphones you have, but the Rio Nitrus itself, has excellent quality also.

It is of course, extremely small, so it is easy to take around with you. In fact, the rio nitrus is even smaller then both an ipod mini, and an actual ipod.

If i had to complain about a con about this product, it would probobly be the fact that it doesn't have very long battery life. Listening to it for two hours a day, for about a week will do it in terms of battery. But if you just recharge the battery overnight everyday, you will not have a problem.

As a result, the Rio Nitrus is an extremely good product, and probobly one of the best MP3's out there!

About a year ago, i went shopping 4 my 1st MP3 player. I bought a 1.5GB RCA Lyra, but the songs didnt play. Then I got my good old Nitrus. YAY. it has a good amount of space, unless ur a person who wants to put EVRY SINGLE CD on ur MP3. In which case get sumthing from creative. i dont recommend IPODs because the wheel is flipping awful. anyway...battery life is good,design is good, buttons are good. the reason i gave it a 4 is becasue recently, the song have not played correctly. Im pretty sure its a problem with the equalizer. parts that are supposed to play are barely audible. hopefully this wont happen 2 u