Rio Forge : The best mp3 player for audio books

On the last post How to choose a mp3 player for audio books, I told about what requirements a mp3 player should meet to be suitable for audio books. Today, I am going to introduce you Rio Forge, the best mp3 player for audio books.

Rio Forge was a digital audio player released in 2004, by Rio Audio. Although it is an old product, because of its outstanding features, it is still very popular among audio book users.

Features

Rio Forge comes with 128, 256 or 512MB built-in flash memory, and can be supplemented with a MMC or SD card. A 2G non-SDHC card should have no problem working with the mp3 players, some users even managed to make it worked well with 4G non-SDHC cards.

Rio Forge support MP3 ( up to the conversion rate of 320kb/s), WMA and Audible files.

This mp3 players support both bookmarking and resume function, allowing users save and return to the exact audio book at the some point to continue their book.

Rio Forge runs on a single AAA battery, which means you can easily replace the battery whenever it runs out.

This player is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac OS system, and you even can drag and drop audio files directly into the player as USB mass storage device, so no extract software is required to transfer songs and audio books.

Rio Forge also can receive FM broadcast signals, and 256m and 512m models can record from radio to memory ( or 128 model with 3.04 firmware )

Issues

Characters other than English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese may have problem to be displayed.

If the files on the device are changes ( new audio books are added ), the player will take some time to start up. ( about 1 minutes )

You can not play files by folder. ( 3.04 firmware add the feature, but only allow it works on internal flash memory)

Price and where to buy

It is an old player, you may not buy on one the market, but you can search for you luck on ebay. I got one for $10, and it is good!

Userful links

Forge firmware (1.20, 1.33)
http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/support/rio/product.asp?prodID=213

Forge firmware (3.04, the developer's cut version)
Rio Forge firmware "3.04 The Developer's Cut"

Manual
Rio Forge User Guide

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