“Our advantage continues to be our nimble, powerful Rio Audio technology,” said Jim Cady, president of Rio, in a press announcement. “We can bring compelling products to market incredibly quickly. No one else in this industry has been able to demonstrate that — traditional CE companies with their extended planning cycles are unable to adjust and deliver as quickly as we can.”
The Rio 800 Extreme joins the Rio family of portable players and is available in limited supply on the Rio Home Web site with a retail price of US$599. The Rio 800 Extreme has 384MB of memory, supports MP3 and WMA, is upgradable to support future music formats, and features a voice recorder, rechargeable battery, on-wire remote control, headphones, AC adapter/charger and software.
The Rio 800 weighs 2.4 ounces. Its built in Ni-MH rechargeable battery is good for over 10 hours of playtime. It sports USB connectivity. System requirements are a Power Mac running Mac OS 8.6 or higher, 32 MB of RAM, USB port, a CD-ROM drive (for encoding from CDs), 35 MB of available hard drive space, and an Internet connection (for unlocking unlimited CD recording). And in case you’re wondering, it’s compatible with Apple’s iTunes software.