RCA Lyra RD2765
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"Great little player, nice size, easy to use and packed with features." on by Damon Bottner
Pros: Convenient size, nice style, color display, displsays album cover art, nice controls, easy to use 5 position joystick, great sound quality, supports subscription services such as Napster and Yahoo Unl
Cons: Finish attracts finger prints, carrying case not functional.
Summary: I have owned the RD2765 for about 3 weeks now. It’s not too big and not too small. The size is just perfect for my lifestyle. I really like the high tech mirror finish it makes the iPod mini look old fashioned. The down side is that it collects finger prints so I have to keep wiping it off. It fits nicely in my shirt pocket and if I place the player so that controls are facing out I can operate the basic functions like play, pause and skip just by feel. At first I was concerned that the simple looking controls would not do the job, but the 5 position joystick is actually very convenient and fast. The operation is easy to learn, but it helps to read the users guide to figure out all the things that it can do. The color screen is nice for displaying album cover art, but it only seems to work for MP3 files that were tagged by MusicMatch or some other service that embeds the jpeg cover art in the ID3 tag. It works OK with Windows Media Player and protected content, but you need to keep it in what they call MTP mode. By the way it works great with the new Yahoo Unlimited subscription service. I find that if you are just working with MP3 files it is much faster to use the MSC mode, but then you need to use their Profiling utility before the songs will show up in the Music Menus. I like the fact that you can switch between the MTP and MSC mode with a menu option. With the latest firmware v1.25 this little baby Rocks. I really like the new NEX SET feature they have added with this latest firmware. While you are playing a song the UP/DOWN keys let you jump to the previous or next SET of music. For example if you pressed Play on an Artist it will play all the songs by that Artist, but if you press DOWN it will jump to the next Artist. This also seems to work for Album, Genre and Year, but it does not work if shuffle mode is on. The carrying case leaves a bit to be desired. It is only good for protecting the product from scratches. You can not operate the controls while it is in the case. The sound quality is excellent if you use a good set of earphones. The Sennheisers that it comes with are OK, but I prefer a set of Sony Fontopia MDR-EX71SL which I already owned. Wow the bass and the highs are unbelievable for such a small set of Earbuds.
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"The best small player on the market, lots of nice features" on by GabDowner
Pros: Auto Playlist Software, Size, color display, easy navigatin, good controls
Cons: Surface finish smudges easily, only 5 GB
Summary: For those complaining about slow navigation get the latest firmware (v1.25) upgrade from the RCA web site. It's very fast and responsive since I ran the upgrade utility.
What I like most about it is the included software called LyraDJ. It lets you create playlists automatically based on acoustic analysis of each song. It only works with mp3 files, which is OK for me. Once you run LyraDJ it has a good help section telling you what you need to do to use it.
Well kept secret. This feature is hard to find if you have Windows XP because it is not automatically installed with the supplied CD, but if you browse the CD-ROM you will find it in the Applications folder. It is also available at their web site. I took me a while to figure this out, but you also need to put the player into the MSC mode in the advanced settings section. And you have to enable the LyraDJ menu item in the Settings - Customize menu. Once you have done all this and run LyraDJ it will take about a second to analyze each song on the player. Oh and one more important thing all your music must be in a folder named Music on the device. When it is done it will create a bunch of new playlists called Sets and you can navigate to them in the LyraDJ menu on the player.
I have had many players over the years, like this one the best. -
"a very nice, very small player" on by rob128
Pros: small, light, sounds great, compatible with Yahoo music subscription
Cons: battery life is on the low side
Summary: It's small, light (2.9 ounces), sounds great, plays loud, and it's compatible with Yahoo music (which means you can load in as many albums as you want for a flat fee of $5 per month). The user interface is excellent and has both a wheel and a joystick. Overall I'm very happy, but there are some small cons: The battery only lasts 6.5 hours; It takes two seconds from the time you hit the skip button until the unit responds; and the soft case covers the controls.
Note that you can buy it for $200 on RCA's web site, which at least as of today is less than the other listed retailers. -
"An outstanding Micro-drive-based MP3/WMA player" on by urr_quasdim
Pros: Large capacity yet very compact & light, drag-&-drop makes it easy to download music/photos, nice color screen, intuitive file-based navigation, excellent controls, well made, good sounding earphones
Cons: Earphones difficult to fit in ear, screen too small for some photos.
Summary: For a change, I actually OWN this wonderful MP3/WMA player and have some experience with it. It's a joy to use, easy and intuitive. Very small and light-weight and well made. The drag-n-drop feature for downloading music
and photos is a great advantage. The Sennheiser ear-phones, while not easy to
fit in the ears, are great sounding! I have a much more expensive Sony 71SX ear-phones which don't sound nearly as good (at least for classical music). I don't know yet how long a fully charged battery lasts (certainly not the 170 hours mentioned in CNET). It is the ultimate in portability. Nice color screen with easy folder-based navigation is an extra bonus. Screen size may be a bit too small for photos but this is 1st & foremost a music player. I don't know about previous RCA/Thomson MP3 players but this one is a winner!Updated
While most MP3 players provide a selection of several pre-set equalizations, this one also has a user-based 5-band equalizer for tailor-made sound. It makes a big difference! -
"NOT TOO SHABBY" on by j_galvez36
Pros: Great design
Cons: Not all features work like they are supposed to.
Summary: I like this player because it's very easy to use and small enough to fit in your pocket. I also liked that it supported Yahoo Unlimited files. The bad part is that it freezes up sometimes and the sound quality isn't that great. Overall, I'd say it's a good player from someone who would like an easy to use and inexpensive player.
