I purchased this RCA Lyra RD1080 128MB MP3 player before I bought my iPod because I wanted to see if getting rid of my CD’s would be worth it or not.

I did not want to pay $150 or more on an iPod and later decide that it was not for me, so this was my try out player. I only used this player when I went to school and maybe sometimes at home too. Overall the unit provides good quality sound and it has radio.


DESIGN & CONTROLS :
The RCA Lyra MP3 player is very light weight and compact for efficient portability, but with certain limitations. This unit is about 2.4 inches in height and width, and about 1.2 inches in depth; amazingly it only weighs 2.08 ounces.

The face of this player has all the necessary buttons to control the music quickly and efficiently (play/pause, stop, DSP, mode, and arrows). To turn on the player, just press the play/pause button and to turn it off, use the stop button. You can use the DSP button to adjust the quality of the sound with preset equalizer settings (flat, bass, pop, rock, jazz, tone). The mode button allows you to select between repeat one, repeat all, random playback, random shuffle, program and program repeat all modes.

The unit takes two triple A (AAA) batteries to operate which is located in the back of the unit. I personally had a hard time figuring out how to open the battery compartment cover. I still have a hard time opening it; I never got used to it.

On the bottom of the unit there is an USB port so you can connect it to your computer and transfer music to the internal memory. You can also use Secure Digital (SD) or Multimedia (MMC) flash memory cards to store and play music from. On the top there is a slot to accommodate for both these card types.

On the top left side of this unit are the volume control arrows. Press the up button to increase the volume and likewise the down button to decrease it. On the top right there is a little loop so you can put a chain (or something similar) and wear it around your neck.

The LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) is oval that displays big and clear characters. Well it is not really a LCD screen but a 3-line dot matrix display (kindda like LCD). There is backlight on the display so you can clearly see and read it when it is dark. This screen displays you a variety of things like total tracks, the track being played, elapsed time, bit rate, DSP modes, play modes, volume level, battery indicator, hold, radio frequency, and USB download status.

---