Page 1  2  3
Portable MP3 players-- tiny, skip- free units that play MP3 files sans computer-- definitely hit the market in full force this year. If there's an online music geek in your life, one of these Walkman-style players might be the perfect holiday gift. We reviewed every player we could get our hands on this year, and came up with three that really stood out from the crowd.

Diamond's Rio was one of the first MP3 players out on the market. Diamond's latest, the Rio 500, has something the other players lack, a USB connection, which drastically reduces the time it takes to download your fave MP3s from your computer. The Rio will also please Apple fans, since it's the only portable MP3 player we know of that supports the G4, iMac, and other USB Macintoshes. In our book, the USB connection alone is enough to award the 500 with "most favored MP3 player" status.

Available in 32MB and 64MB versions, the Rio 500 also has a slot for a removable SmartMedia card so you can pack in even more tunes. The Rio Audio Manager software does a great job compressing your audio files into MP3s, and makes downloading and organizing your music files a snap.

Page 1  2  3