Installation is a breeze, with the USB connection making things simple. The Rio software seems quite competent and you not only allows you you build up a database of your music and playlists to download to the 600SE player, but you can also burn your own CDs from the same software.

The 600SE itself is very curvy and pleasing to the eye - also to the touch as its quite a tactile device. Overall solidly made only the slightly fiddly battery cover clip seemed a bit fiddly. The display is great, high quality with lots of information, and a nice pale blue backlight for use in lowlight. The controls are straightforward and easy to use and the player supports plenty of features via a natty little set of popup tabs.

Though no audio buff the quality of the sound seems great to me and the headphones with the round the ear clips sit nicely without falling out or you having to continually adjust them as they move about.

Ive had the player for a few weeks now and here are my experiences with the player :- The music quality is excellent from the player. Ive played MP3s at 128 kbps and WMA at 64kbps and they both sound excellent even with the supplied earphones. I tried some headphones from my walkman, but they didnt sound as good as the Rios. Normally "in-ear" phones hurt my ears, but the Rios were very comfortable and they are excellent for running and exercising in they gym where they stay securely in place.

The software supplied with the Rio, was very frustrating to use. The first annoyance was that the software searched my HD for all digital audio, this included Windows wav files and other media which I didnt want it to use. I couldnt find a way to tell the software to look at a specific folder on my HD for the music I wanted it to use. I have a folder with MP3s and another folder with WMA music, the software picked up both and it was dificult to tell via the software which was an MP3 or WMA. In the end I gave up and used Windows Media Player 8 (XP). I had a problem with that as well, with an obscure error, but after a few days, WMP seemed to like the Rio and the error disappeared and everything is now working perfectly. I wouldnt think of using anything else other than WMP for organising my music to upload to the Rio. If you are using earlier version of WMA, you will need updated drivers so that your Rio is recognised and you can organise your music.

The extra 32mb of backpack memory allows about another 30-60 mins worth of music to be crammed onto your Rio and with the 64mb onboard memory gives about 4hrs of music if you use WMA format. When you first use the 32 mb backpack, you must download new firmware so that the extra memory can be used by the Rio, and it appears as 2 seperate drives. I did however find the battery charge indicator on the Rio somewhat confusing. When you use it for the first time, you must leave it on charge for 300 minutes, so that the Rio can correctly display the amount of charge and play time remaining. On a number of occasions, I have just charged the Rio and found after a hour or so use, that the Rio tells me the charge is down to 46%! Once I was at the gym and the battery was showing over 50% charge left, but after an hour in the gym the Rio just went flat! Very unusual!

The soft pouch supplied with the Rio doesnt fit too well. When inside the pouch the Rios screen doesnt line up properly with the clear window in the pouch making viewing very difficult. I suppose if you have it clipped onto your belt then you wont see the screen anyway, but annoying none the less.

The controls of the player are easy enough to use with plenty of options to control equilasation, playlists, repeat, random play etc.. One complint was the one piece jog dial. I have found myself pressing the wrong button and have paused the music, when I really wanted to go the the next song.

Most importantly, the sound quality is good (providing the mp3s that you have stored on your computer are recorded at 128kbit/s. I tried some at 64kbit/s, and they sounded pants). You have a limited sort of graphic equaliser on the player, in that you can set the intensity of the bass and treble ranges. The headphones that came with the player are totally comfortable, but I didnt think they could provide much bass, so Im using me old walkman headphones, cos they rock. At 128kbit/s I managed to get 105 minutes of music on the 96meg of memory.

Physically, the player is actually a bit bigger than I though itd be (not by much mind), but its still very light, only requiring 1 AA battery (which gives about 11 hours of playing time). It comes with a soft case, which is quite nice, and Id recommend using it, at the rubberised coating on the player scratches easily.

With respect to the software, it took me a while to get used to it, but once Id figured out how to actually copy stuff from my computer to the player, its not bad (Im using winows XP, by the way). The menu system on the player itself is quite intuitive. Its got random play, repeat, programmed play, all the stuff youd expect.