Most of the companies, though, promise that you'll be able to download new programming for the unit if the need arises. Diamond Multimedia's Rio portables are without question the most widely used MP3 players on the market today. The first major electronics manufacturer to enter the portable digital market was RCA, which introduced the Lyra in October. Additional memory upgrades are available, and the company expects to offer a 300-megabyte upgrade sometime in 2000. The Memory Stick Walkman, scheduled for distribution in January, weighs only 2.5 ounces.
Users can collect various Memory Sticks or record over the provided unit endlessly.
What makes the Rave MP special are the features, which quickly turn this player into a personal digital assistant. It comes with a microphone, allowing users to record up to four hours of speech, and it can store telephone numbers or text files. There are also audio input and output jacks, so the user can connect to a tape player, a tuner, or a car stereo with a cassette adapter. The first Nomad is still on the shelves, but Creative Labs has already announced it has a new version of the unit. The unit has an FM tuner.