Some initial impressions:

Player - Nice and small, good heft. It takes a bounce off the floor well (yep, already).

Install - on a W2k box SP4, no problem. A overall install status bar would've been nice. The 'Finished' dialog box wound up under the master installer menu screen, so I wasn't aware it'd finished until I started poking around.

Rio Music Manager: So far it's crashed 5 times when I try to play a song from the interface, both during & after the scan has completed. This crash causes RMM to re-scan, which on my machine (4-5 k songs total) takes about 4-5 minutes. In fact it's doing it again now. I'll be avoiding this from now on, but I think Mr/Ms Average Consumer would be pretty pissed about this, as it's certainly fun to play a song or two when the scan is taking place.

Packaging: Not bad. The plastic box isn't my favorite, but it's gone in a few seconds (need scissors). CD- came in a plastic sleeve. For $400, at least a paper one. Sheesh! The storage bag was a nice touch though, as were the included USB & CAT5 cables.

Music upload: I used USB 2.0 (for the 1st time ever). Whooah nellie! FAST.

Earbuds: They're quite good for 'included' ones, but the Sony Phontopias kick their butt. My wife'll think they're fine.

Early Likes: Upload Speed, form factor, control layout, understandable menu scheme on the player.

Early Dislikes: No detailed .pdf manual or Windows help link in the Start Menu.

Install Goofs: moved aux input jack when installing the USB card (not included) causing me to curse that the RCA outputs weren't working (they are).

Time to throw a few more songs and make a few playlists. Caribe 2003 Mix is wearing thin.

Oh yeah, good idea including the tunes. I liked goofing with them and the interface before I got RMM installed.

-Zeke

Edit: Sound quality is fantastic.