Home > Consumer Reviews > Imation RipGO! Mini CD-R Burner & Digital Audio Player

Well, here's a real review for this item. All previous reviews tell nothing about the product, so I'm going to share my thoughts about it.
I owned about five different mp3 players before (Memorex, Rio, TDK). I was very happy with my old TDK Mojo but its size always made me wish it were smaller. An unfortunately accident ended the days of glory of my Mojo, so I started to look for a new mp3 player.
I was looking for something small, so I decided for mini cd players, and then I found the RipGO! from Imation.
The player comes with 2 blank discs and an installation disk with the necessary drivers (required only for Windows 98). It comes with Nero and other two applications I didn't bother to see.
Putting the player in action was very easy. Just plug the player on the USB port and you have a new CD drive (in this case, burner). In five minutes I burned a disc, unplugged the player and stated to listen to my favorite sound track (Cowboy Bebop). I tested it with mp3s encoded at 160kps and it didn't skip at all.
The player has a very funny feature, when it's playing a song and the buffer starts to run empty; it starts to fill the buffer with the next song, avoiding the gap between tracks. The screen is clear and has all the necessary information (track name, time remaining, song length, EQ Mode, etc). The menus and navigation are a bit complex at the beginning, but you will get used to it.
The sound quality is great, better that any other player I heard before and has more presets than other players (Normal, Rock, Pop, Classic, Salsa, Techno, Jazz, Etc). The headphones are just ok, but they'll do the job well.
The player is small, but is not the smaller player out there. It doesn't come with a carrying case or anything, but you can hold it in the pocket of your shirt.
One mayor flaw I found on this player is the battery life. It comes with a rechargeable battery, but it will last only 3 or 4 hours.
Overall, this is a very good product, but if you prefer gigabytes of storage instead of 185MB mini cds go to the Archos Jukebox, they'll cost the same, but they are bigger heavier and may crash sometimes.
I hope this will help you.

The RipGo unit performs as it's advertised. It burns 3" CD-Rs (not CD-RWs) of 185M and 210M capacity via USB port. Although only rated at 4x, lower capacity of the discs make burns at 4x tolerable. The unit does not have buffer underrun protection, however I have not had created any coasters burning 10 discs using Nero software. Playback of MP3 and WMA files is reliable and with no skips during walks. This player can play much louder than most portable units sold today and preset EQs functions very well. The unit also has balance control and random play option. The behind the head headphone is typical inexpensive units packaged with portables and you would want to replace it with a better unit.

After about 4 months of light use, the lid hinge broke on the unit (break in the plastic tab due to defect). Although it was explained to them that the unit was never dropped and was always kept in a case, Imation customer support was very quick to blame me for dropping the unit. They finally agreed to repair the unit under warranty but upon repair, again they insisted that the unit was dropped. It is not a very pleasant experience when the customer service does not believe the word of the customer. Although the merchandise works as advertised, the treatment of their customer service makes me think twice about purchasing any other Imation product.

The Imation RipGO! is a first generation product that has several problems. Although it is feature laden, it falls short on several items.

The battery retainer clips are flimsy, and one broke on my unit the first day. The clips were inadequate anyway, and some electrical tape was required to hold the battery pack in place for even mild athletic use.

The user interface is poor, and disc loading time is rather long (greater than 30 seconds/session). It does not tolerate corrupted MP3 files well. On the plus side, the RipGO! does support multisession discs. Unfortunately, it does not support CD-R/W media.

I would recommend only using 185MB discs with this drive/player. The drive has a difficult time reading the 245MB/8cm discs reliably.

The unit does support ID tags. Firmware is field upgradeable. (My unit was not shippped with the latest version.)

The headphones supplied with the unit are above average in sound quality, but may not fit everyone. Also, the compact switching power adapter is a nice touch.

Overall, the RipGO! is still in need of some refinement. There are better choices if you do not need the CD-R burner capability.

This is really an okay device. It doesn't always do what you tell it to do, though. I have had problems with the burner function, and it's fidgity about MP3's...it won't take some of them. Also, if you're on the road for a while, or on a long flight, the less than 5 hour battery life is really a pain in the neck. However, for casual use, jogging, or mowing the lawn, it's okay. I'd recommend, however, if you have a burner drive in your computer, use that instead of the RipGo's burner (silly, i know)

Above average player for the money ($$).

Pros
- Convenient pocket size.
- Screen information w/ backlit display.
- Battery life.
- Good sound.
Cons
- Slow startup.
- Doesn't play CDRWs.