Gear box - Connection

Latin Trade, Feb, 2002

RIO VOLT SP100

Compact disc/MP3 player

Price: US$149 retail

www.riohome.com

* The Good

This is great sneaky technology. Folks who burn compact discs at home as collections of MP3 digital music files are usually stymied when it comes to listening to them easily on the go. By decompressing each MP3 as it plays, one compact disc can hold 13 hours or so of continuous music.

* The Bad

Digital music is heading for its watershed year and there are already fully digital devices that use no disc and play 10 times the music, so cheats like this will likely be pointless soon enough.

* Who Should Buy

Got CDs already burned and waiting? This is your machine.

* Who Should Not

New to MP3? Wait, and check into items like the Nomad Jukebox.