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Welcome to the final installment of the Feed Reader Friday series of feed reader reviews here at BBGeeks.com. Over the past 10 weeks we have profiled a number of RSS reading options available for BlackBerry devices. Some of these applications are very well thought out and offer a superior experience, while some aim only to provide a bare bones feature set. Depending on what your needs are, you are sure to find a suitable RSS reader in our list. Please take a look at the earlier reviews and compare your options.

This week we are going to put the Rio V2 feed reader in the spotlight, which is produced by The arc90 Lab.

The Rio V2 feed reader is a web based application for use free of charge. Simply point your mobile browser at the following URL: http://rio.arc90.com.

Overview

The arc90 Lab: Rio V2 is a web based RSS reading application, which means you do not have to actually download any software onto your BlackBerry device. The Rio V2 application can be located at the URL above. Once you have accessed the correct URL with your mobile browser you will notice a search box and a list of selected news sources, which are grouped by specific category.

You have the option of entering a search term, news source or blog into the search box in order to locate a specific feed or subject matter. If the source that you have identified is not formatted properly to display mobile content, it will be automatically stripped down via Google’s Mobile Parser.

Requirements

There are no specific requirements for accessing the Rio V2 feed reading software on your BlackBerry. The software should run on any OS and any model of BlackBerry you may own as long as you have your mobile browser enabled.

Features and Functionality

Standard List of News Feeds
Rio V2 offers you an initial list of news feeds so that you can jump right into the RSS experience. In addition to the search box, when you load up Rio V2 on your BlackBerry you are immediately presented with a series of categories, each containing multiple news feeds.

Categories include: Top Stories, Sports, Business, Technology, Entertainment, Health & Science, and Cool Stuff.

• Top Stories (12 news sources)
• Sports (6 news sources)
• Business (6 news sources)
• Technology (8 news sources)
• Entertainment (9 news sources)
• Health & Science (5 news sources)
• Cool Stuff (10 news sources)

Low Data Usage
The Rio V2 RSS reader is specifically designed to use as little bandwidth as possible. This goes a long way to save you on data usage while browsing your favorite news feeds. If you are in a contract with a service provider who does not offer an unlimited data package for your BlackBerry, this is certainly a concern for you.

Support of various feed types
There is full support for both the RSS and ATOM feeds. Additionally, if the content you wish to view is not formatted for mobile viewing it will be converted into a format suitable for display on your BlackBerry.

Bookmarking and Sending to a Friend
While there is no specific feature within the Rio V2 web based RSS reader that will allow you to bookmark a news item or send it to a freind, these are all possible using the default mobile browser functionality.

Adding and Removing Feeds
Using the Rio V2 RSS reader, you will notice that you can not add or remove feeds from the predefined list of news sources. When using the search box to identify or discover new news sources, you will have to manually enter the full URL, keyword for each new search. You can not save your searches unfortunately.

My Opinion

I have to say, the arc90 Lab: Rio V2 RSS reader is an excellent application choice for an individual who is new to the concepts of RSS reading. With it’s stripped down interface and no-frills presentation, there is really nothing to distract you from your news or confuse you. That being said, I think that experienced users will be underwhelmed with what arc90 Labs is putting forth here. If you fit into the later category, you might want to check out some of our other RSS reader reviews for an option better suited to your needs.

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