Diamond Rio PMP500
This classy and well-designed MP3 player belongs to the second generation of RioÆs MP3 players. The PMP500 features 64 MB of onboard Flash RAM that can be upgraded to 96 MB. Immediately apparent with this player is the steel grey colour of the device, and the large and clear screen. A backlit dot-matrix display screen indicates a range of features such as the name of the track and (depending upon the mode chosen) other information like equalisation settings, battery level, track order, track length etc.
The thumbwheel knob on the right enables easy navigation through various menus and also doubles as a button that can select modes while navigating the menus. There is also an equaliser for setting various types of modes of audio playback like Normal, Classic, Jazz, Rock and Custom, where you can specify individual settings for Bass and Treble. A single AA battery provides power. While inserting the 32 MB Flash RAM module into the slot in the player, it took a bit of fiddling around before the card was seated firmly. The software bundled with the device is rather confusing, with many parameters like albums and playlists. Also, files cannot be transferred from the portable back to the host computer. Once file transfer was mastered, this MP3 player boasted of blazing rates, copying five MP3 files totalling 24,256,353 bytes to the player in 52 seconds flat, making this the fastest loading device.
With an assortment of intuitive features and high-quality audio playback, the PMP500 is one of the finest MP3 players available. If only the price tag had not resembled that of a complete home audio system!