Cheap RCA MP3 Player w/ FM Tuner (RD2211CF64) (Electronics) Price

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Customer Reviews of RCA MP3 Player w/ FM Tuner (RD2211CF64)

Very easy to use!
I''ve gone through many different mp3 players. this is the only one that has lasted me more than a mere week. i've had this for almost a year and so far it has been the best! A real good thing is definitely the radio. even though many people say that it doesn't work, it really does and works well.

It is very easy to use and it comes with a remote so it makes it even easier! But, unfortunately perfection does not come in most mp3 players. this product does have some drawbacks. this player is a little big. also, the cf (compact flash) cards that come with the playerare 2 64 mb not 1 128. Other than that though, this mp3 player is great! u should definitely buy it!

What makes a GREAT player?
I originally wrote a very wordy review, but deleted that in favor of stating just what you need to know. The RD2211 is small enough to be easily portable. It's easy to find and play the tracks you want to hear. The sound quality, even at its dismal 75 db signal to noise ratio, is sufficiently good for everyday use. The solid state construction means it won't skip while jogging or simply walking to the train platform. Let's skip past all that, and get down to the real issues.

First and last, this player is usable only with WMA files. The advertised MP3 compatibility is accomplished via the included software: it converts MP3 to RCA's proprietary MPX format. You need not read farther if your music library is predominantly MP3.

The advertised 128 MB total memory is supplied as two 64 MB CF cards. This is unacceptable. I have not decided if it's enough of a deal breaker to take advantage of Circuit City's 30 day return policy. My intention at the time of purchase was to swap the overly generous 256 MB CF card in my camera for the 128 MB card. This is no longer feasible, and my options are to return the device, or purchase a 128 MB card.

The CF card is removed from the player and inserted into the supplied USB CF card reader to upload music. I perceive real longevity issues related with doing this on a regular basis. The player "boots" its playback programs for WMA and MP3 from the CF card. In theory, this should make software upgrades easy. In practice, it's one more worry on two fronts. The player sometimes has difficulty reading the CF card; the card needs to be removed and re-inserted to "boot" the player. This gives rise to the robustness issues I note above. The second concern is that the required files are not supplied (that I can find) in the software installation. I made several copies of the player software in several locations on my harddisk, and even archived a copy on CD-R. (I find this last to be the most ironic; I recently retired a CD-R MP3 player because of the incessant skips.)

The CF card reader connects to the PC via USB, and appears as a removeable drive on the file system. The supplied driver is not specific to the RD2211; I used the card reader to download pictures from my camera (although it makes no sense to, since the camera connects via USB also, obviating the wear and tear on the card and connector). This works fine for me, since I still run Windows 2000 on my primary PC; the driver didn't work on my XP notebook.

Uploading music files is a simple drag and drop operation in Windows' explorer. (WMA files only; see above about MP3.) This, at least, was as advertised.