Rio Carbon

Rio Carbon

Carbon Review, by Tom Mainelli April 12, 2005

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• Reviewed by: rolemdl1

  Strengths: Great overall product probably best MP3 player for sound quality as I have tried them all. Best part is that this is a drag and drop technology that you can use as a portable 5 gig thumb drive.

  Weaknesses: If any part breaks on this MP3 player RIO does NOT repair them you will need to purchase another one without a DISCOUNT of any kind. I have gone thru 3 of them due to the volume wheel breaking off.

  Overall: Nice product that lacks manufacturers backing. Either this is a great business scheme by RIO or they just have a lack of business project management when it comes to caring if the consumer will in the future want to buy any other products due to the lack of customer care thru this products problems. Funny that you can continue to purchase this product new all over the place but no one can repair a part on it. ALL BE AWARE of this issue.

• Reviewed by: pjchatman

  Strengths: Battery life, storage, stopwatch (cool), size, adjustable 5-band graphic equalizer, flash firmware upgradable

  Weaknesses: Battery meter is not accurate. It will seem to drain away, it's just the firmware not accurately reporting battery life. Rio DJ requires that Windows Media Player 9 be installed

  Overall: I have read many reviews of the Rio Carbon (5GB Silver model) player and I can say that I really am glad I _did not_ buy the iPod Nano. Though I was just a minute away from clicking BUY on CompUSA.com when I remembered this player.It has more storage space (at 5GB -> iPod's 2GB), longer battery life (20h -> iPod's 8h). Though it may not be color and have all those features it is still a better buy. However, Rio went under so if you can find this player get it. I got mine for under 200$.The software installed fine, but requires that Windows Media Player 9 be installed as well, which is silly. It's because WMA files that are protected with DRM use MP9. I have two PC (XP & Win98 SE). I have had no issues with the USB plug-n-play under XP, however the player will not install fully under Win98 SE unless you have a USB 2.0 port, which mine does not. It will go through the motions, but when you try & access the drive it won't show up in the drives list even though the Device manger says it there.Battery meter is not accurate. The firmware seems not to accurately report actual battery life. I have used this in a cross country trip (LA to Arkansas) and was able to listen to 12 hours of music, and the battery didn't die. This week I charged it full on Monday and it died (shutoff) yesterday (Saturday after midnight). I have 23hrs of music in 388 files (96kbs to 320kbs). It shut off on song 311. So the battery IS just over 20h.All in all a very great buy over the iPod fad. If you can find it, get it. Plus, you can put regular files on it and playlists. NOTE: Someone said you can't generate playlist. You generate a playlist with your MP3 program then put the playlist on the Rio; then you have a playlist to listen to.ADDENDUMS:It will seem to drain away while off. I started the stopwatch, turned Rio off, then 8 hours later turned it on - the stopwatch was still running. I wanted to know just how long the battery lasted. The specifications says 20 hours. But, I used the stopwatch function and (pausing it when it turned it off and continued when i turned it back on) found out that tha battery ran out after 10 hours 10 minutes. I'll try again to see if I can get it to last for 20 hours like it supposed to. I upgraded the firmware from 1.42 to 1.95 and the Rio Music Manager software from 2.90 to 2.96. Upgrading the firmware reformats the Rio, so backup your music first.I have seen a implementaion difference in how the drive is formated (Data and Media folders are separate) and it now supports the PlayForSure music service from Microsoft -- not that I'll ever use it, I'm partial to Real Rhapsody. Also you can now play music from seprate folders.As for whether the battery will now display accurately, we'll see how it handles.Once at work it wouldn't come on, so I thought I'de broken it some how (the power button looked like it was going to slide out); I was even thinking about buying a new player (the 6 GB model even); but then 'my voice inside' said to just take it home and recharge it. Turns out it _was_ just out of battery juice. HAH! I'm so paranoid!I love my Rio Carby!

• Reviewed by: Jamie_the_music_master

  Strengths: It's had hardly no complaints about it, It's cheaper than the ipod mini, great value for 5gb at just £100. Is smaller than ipod mini and more stylish.

  Weaknesses: NON!!!! it's amazing and whips ipods butt. The screen should be colour (just a suggestion, not a complaint)

  Overall: This is the equivalent of god in the terms of music. The ipod mini and nano has had lot's of complaints but this dosen't. Just get it, I have read all the reviews available and this is by far the best. Just don't buy it for running. It's battery life is amazing and for £100 i'm going to hunt you down myself if you get and ipod instead of this.

• Reviewed by: ycats1

  Strengths: Big Memory, can use Limwire, Rapsody, Napster any programs to add, easy buttons to press, very sleak loking, very bright light for nite times, battery lasts a long time

  Weaknesses: can't go from song 1 to song 80 and keep on going to song 81, freezes after you got to 600 songs and then starts to slow up, headfones were really bad, can't figure out how to add a playlist on it

  Overall: overall this is a good MP3 player to buy, i would deffinatley recomend it over the ipod. Just remeber it can go slow at times and don't get frustrated thats just the way it goes.

• Reviewed by: gunshy

  Strengths: 1.any windows platform.2.any file type.3 just drag and drop.4. It's plug n play

  Weaknesses: the scrolling thru to choose a song could be better

  Overall: In my house we own a Dell Pocket DJ and a Rio Carbon. They are about the same price and same storage but the Rio is 1000% better! This is why: 1. With the DJ you have to use music match, a pain in the butt program, and to use a friends computer you have to have the CD. The Rio is plug and play, no disk needed! and it is just drag and drop, couldn't be any easier! 2 I use the Rio to bring large file home from work, Can't do that with the DJ. 3. The DJ will not work on windows 98 or ME (I think) The Rio works on all Windows platforms. 4 It's smaller and better looking. 5 Way longer battery charge (doesn't seem to be 20 hours though) 6 I don't trust Dell any more.....