There was a time when I jogged, and once in a while even brought a walkman. Maybe it was just me, but the tape player was always pulling my shorts down. Plus, tapes sounded warbly and CDs skipped. Diamond Multimedia's new portable MP3 player - the Rio PMP300 - does away with all that. The tiny 2.4-ounce unit plays flawless digital audio you download from the Internet or grab from CDs ("ripping" music is legal only if you own the CD). Since there are no moving parts, there's no way for the music to skip or get funky.
Simplicity is at the Rio's heart: Start by getting some music from one of the many MP3 Web sites. Then drag and drop the songs onto an application that uploads them via your PC's serial port (there's no Mac version). The Rio holds about an hour's worth of music in its 32-Mbyte internal memory. Don't like a song? Take it off. An hour-long file takes six minutes to load from PC to Rio.
The best thing about the Rio is that it reintroduces the concept of the single. I've got a ton of CDs with only one good song on them, and now I have an easy way to listen to them. But I would never just borrow a CD from a friend to rip the only song I liked. That would be illegal. The music industry hates the Rio for just this reason and even tried to stop Diamond from selling it. Never mind that the unit itself actually doesn't help copy songs or distribute pirated music. Any illicit copying has to be done on a computer. And if you want to sell pirated music, recordable CDs are much cheaper and more universal.
But the Rio wins for coolness, portability, and nonskipping sounds. It's also the first step toward separating music content from the delivery medium. In a world of unlimited bandwidth, music labels have less to offer. It's this shift the recording industry fears, so get a Rio and fight the Man - or at least stop holding up your pants while you jog.
Rio PMP300: $199.95. Diamond Multimedia: www.diamondmm.com.
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