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i'll just stick with my iriver ihp-120.

20gb, usb-storage class, not saddled with shitty DRM, plays ogg natively, decent battery life, and... ...doesn't look like an ugly pile of shit like that rio carbon!

i mean really, who the fuck keeps coming up with these retarded designs? every rio device is unusably deformed in some way or another. it looks like they always sorta start out with a decent design, then someone in marketing says "no, it's not fucked up enough" so they go around and bash all the design engineers heads with ball peen hammers until they're drooling idiots. then they come back with the ridiculous chiba design and suddenly marketing shouts "eureka!" and starts selling it immediately.

the iriver ihp is no work of art, but it's far less annoying than the chiba or carbon.

Does that "stylish and uniquely designed box" look familiar to anyone else?

http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/email/rio/LE/

IMNSHO, one of the things, if not the main thing that makes the iPods and iPod Minis great is the interface.

However, I see no hints in the pictures as to what the interface is like except for the thumb-wheel on the top right. The Pocket Lint article mentions that the interface is the same as the Rio Karma, which I have never used. Can anyone enlighten us as to how the interface compares with the iPods's?

...does it support Ogg Vorbis?

Oh and don't mod me flamebait, I'm serious! Because the Rio Karma DOES support Ogg.

The RIO Karma player is another storage/music solution to consider. It play Ogg files too. http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/shop/_templates/i tem_main_Rio.asp?model=261/

Why is this device any better than just bridging your ethernet to your wireless peer network?

It doesn't require a PC or Mac, needs no drivers, and so can provide connectivity to devices such as Audrey, ReplayTV, TiVO, Xbox with network connector, or playstation2 with network connector.

I think it's closer to the Airpad since that uses USB power, except that this new device doesn't require a computer so it plugs directly into the ethernet port and allows any number of devices to connect to it -- none of which need be PC or Mac computers, and so no drivers are required.

Examples of such devices include Audrey [audreyhacking.com], ReplayTV [digitalnetworksna.com], TiVO [tivo.com], Xbox with network connector [xbox.com], or playstation2 with network connector [playstation2.com] just to list a few.

Slashdot ate half my post, 503 errors suck, here's the full post

Your post confuses me. I read your (broken) link (HTML isn't hard -- try it!) and it seems that "any number" is, well, one. And, unless you mean drivers (which the Airpad requires, but the new D-Link device does not,) I don't understand what software has to do with it.

Most importantly, the product you linked to requires a computer to be connected to the ethernet port, upon which drivers muct be installed, and into which the Airpad connects to allow other computers to share said connection.

In contrast, the new D-Link device plugs directly into the ethernet port and seems to allow any number of (and I do mean more than one!) devices to connect to it -- none of which need be PC or Mac computers, and so no drivers are required. Examples of such devices include Audrey, ReplayTV, TiVO, Xbox with network connector, or playstation2 with network connector just to name (and link) a few.

Maybe it's just me, but given the wording of your post, I expected more than one. I suppose "one" is "any number," but I think that's phrase is usually reserved for cases where there are several. I also expected an equivalent device (hint: USB-power isn't the main feature) which the device you mentioned is not.

And, since the Airpad costs $92 and requires a computer (PC or Mac only,) and the D-link device is $99 with no computer required I can think of (and link to) any number of possible devices for which this new product may have applications where the Airpad can't work.

Current versions of Replay do not include "official" show sharing anymore.

Room-to-Room Streaming - Watch It Anywhere: Now all ReplayTV DVRs come with built-in home networking capabilities that allow you to connect 2, 3, up to 8 ReplayTV DVRs together. Anything you record can be streamed in real-time to any networked DVR in your house. Want to enjoy the big game on the good TV but the kids are watching the big dinosaur? Send the dino into the den-the kids won't miss a minute. After the game, bring the family together for the Sunday night movie that was recording upstairs. A built-in RJ-45 Ethernet connector works with wired and wireless networks (802.11G suggested for wireless streaming).

I only know of one or two dedicated hardware players capable of playing Ogg files.

Not trying to shoot down the rest of your post, but:

All of iRiver's iHP series hard-disk players, and many of their iFP series flash players support Vorbis. I have an iHP-120 and it works flawlessly and transparently with my Ogg Vorbis files. The Neuros line also supports Vorbis. The Rio Karma supports Ogg Vorbis as well. There are plenty of smaller manufacturers out there also creating Vorbis-capable players, but I won't bore you with that list. The three aformentioned makers are the big ones. Even with those 3 companies, that's quite a bit more than just one or two players.

256kbps listening tests are not really useful in this context. The Sony device has a small hard disc drive, but claims to be able to store more songs than an iPod because the Atrac3Plus compression allows much lower bitrates for equivalent quality (they claim 13,000 songs on the 20GB HDD, which means they'll be calculating based on the lowest standard Atrac bitrate, IIRC about 44kbps).

We should really be concentrating on whether circa-44kbps Atrac3Plus is better or worse than AAC, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis at that bitrate, if we're to take Sony at their word on capacity. I mention Vorbis as this player is not just competing against the iPod - it competes against devices like the Rio Karma [1] and Neuros players too.

A codec showing itself to be almost transparent at 256kbps is hardly cutting edge in this day and age - even MP3 would achieve this as far as most listeners are concerned. Having tried the double blind testing software from the Hydrogen Audio tests, I'm also fairly confident of their listening test results.

[1] (BTW, I'm biased; I went for a Karma. Great so far, just waiting for the HDD to die ;-)

I'm a Linux zealot and Mac lover and go no where without my iPod.

If you're a Linux zealot, then you like open source, so how can you use a portable music player that doesn't support ogg Vorbis?? And it only has 8 hours of battery? Rio Karma Baby!!!

Sorry, i know this is off topic

The best, most rigorous listening test in the world results in the conclusion that the results are within the margin of error.

So, it would be fair to say then, that it is arguable whether AAC is really better than Ogg?

The tie-breaker is the fact that AAC is available and supported, while OGG is not.

That's funny, Ogg seems to be available for every computer platform I care about. There are many portable music players that don't support it, but there are a few now that do. My PDA plays Ogg files just fine, too.

It's interesting that you seem to interpret "AAC meets my needs better" as "AAC is better". AAC doesn't meet my needs better than Ogg, so for me Ogg is better.

steveha

You can get ReplayTV with lifetime subscription for $300:

http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/shop/_templates/c at_listRTV.asp?cat=51

So unless you already have a TV Tuner card with your ready to dedicate to PVR-ing computer and both combined cost less than $300 does it make sense?

Oh yeah, plus you get a remote with ReplayTV.

I'm not sure what other competitor's deals are but they must be in the same ballpark, also. Until the cost of the computer+tv tuner card go down, this is not a cost effective solution.

This would be interesting to me if it supported Ogg/Vorbis/Theora. I just bought the fantastic Rio Karma digital music player, and I chose it over the other offerings, specifically because it supports Ogg Vorbis. I'm in the process of encoding my entire CD collection in this format, for both quality and philosophical reasons.
Besides the Rio, there are two other HD based players that support Ogg/Vorbis, the iRiver H120 and the Neuros but I went with the Karma mostly because it's the smallest of the three, the price was right, and the sound is excellent.

Or, how about purchasing a player that does support OGG files such as the Rio Karma. That will provide you with a portable player that does play OGG and you will be supporting a company that provides OGG playback. They are good quality players, I have one!

The Karma's a whopping 1.1 inches thick to the iPod's 0.62. It also appears to have been designed by someone with a terrible hangover from the late '90s.

After that, everything else is just quibbling. Still, I should point out that you neglected to mention the iPod's new lossless codec.

Then buy a Rio Karma and shut the fuck up.

Yeah, 20Gb, 16hr battery life, Ogg Vorbis/Flac and has 5 band eq and can handle gapless. The Rio Karma, retails for ~$250USD

PS I sure wish that someone would create a portable Ogg player with OSX support :-/.

Wish no more

The Karma works equally well under OS X, Linux, or any other OS that has ethernet and Java support. There's a native windows client, but every feature of the device is available under just about every OS. It plays oggs, flacs, wmas and mp3s. I've had mine for about 6 months, and I've got nothing but good things to say about it.

a technology with little corporate backing, no mainstream supporters, and not built into any native OS distributions... is there anyone that crazy?

It is hard to implement on the iPod because of it's buffering architecture. However, some players can do it.

The rio karma does something similar. Random shuffle depending on genre, most often played, never played, certain years, etc. Mighty cool stuff.

J

May I suggest the Rio Karma?

That'd be a Rio Karma. There's a Java app for loading tunes and it has ethernet, which means it's supported on pretty much any platform you can mention. And that's officially supported by the manufacturer - not just-about working via some hacked up reverse-engineered thirdparty sourceforge product. Not that there's anything wrong with that - but I prefer official support. Costs around $250 for 20gb, plays Ogg/flac/acc/wma/mp3/wav (audible coming soon), has 5 band parametric eq, better sound than an ipod, 16 hours battery life, full gapless playback (even from mp3s, which should be impossible!), on the fly playlists, and a bunch of other stuff. Rules :)

Maybe you should look at other players.
On the other hand, if you've got a Neuros player, then you might want to just wait until they include it in the firmware like they've hinted numerous times that they might do.

The Neuros Audio Player supports Ogg, has a 20Gb hard disk, Linux version of its software and is only $200. You couldn't really ask for more, but if you did want to ask for more they also have a very active community forum and listen to your suggestions and stuff.

• Rio Karma is probably the most popular OGG portable.
• Roku Soundbridge is a great home player that supports both OGG and Itunes DRMed AAC.

For what they do (and what they are) iPods are extremely expensive. Like all Apple hardware, you pay for the design (which is undoubtably nice) and the "cool" factor (helped by the marketing people). If fashion is more important to you than value and/or functionality then iPods are great (and I'm not criticising, some people value fashion highly and I have no problem with that). But if you want something which just plays music well, is functional, and is much better value, you should look else where.

I actually have one of these ridiculously overpriced pieces of pop-garbage. Here are my thoughts about it.

I consider myself a power user of gear. I'm an older geek with some disposable income, but I hate wasting money. I usually take weeks to shop for and decide on a new toy. I have an older flash player and before buying the mini, I purchased and returned many other players currently on the market. I found that they were all either poorly constructed, or suffered from poor interfaces.

For example, the battery cover on the Rio Chiba falls off at the slightest touch. You have to snap the player into the belt clip if you want to keep your battery cover.

The Nitrus seems nice until you start using it. The volume buttons are mushy and don't always work. The only button on this player that works and feels nice is the "Riostick." But even that doesn't hold a candle to the clickwheel on the mini.

I have also used some of the RCA players, but Music Match is a horrible, crashy piece of software and getting files onto the player is unnecessarily difficult. My old flash player uses Music Match, and I found that as a result, the player tended to collect dust. I only went through the hassle when I really needed to. Usually only for long flights.

I did like the Rio Cali, even though the battery cover on this is a bit wonky too. But the player is $179. After adding an $80 256 meg SD card, I would be at $259. Why not buy better design and 4 gig for the same price? The marketing guys at Apple knew what they were doing. Though, if I were in the market for a solid state player, I would probably pick up the Cali or one of the iRiver players.

So, after trying many players, I decided to look at the iPod. When I first picked one up, I instantly knew that I had just moved into a new world. These things (minis and full-size iPods alike) are industrial design masterpieces. They feel good in your hand, they are solidly built, the backlight and display are beautiful, the wheel control is BRILLIANT, the GUI is transparent and iTunes is a simple pleasure to use. With the aluminum case, I feel like I could stand on this thing and not hurt it. The On-The-Go playlist deserves mention too.

The whole iPod experience is unobtrusive and pleasant. The mini fits seamlessly into your life. I have several gadgets that I carry with me. I wish they were integrated into one well-designed device. Until that happens, I need my pocket gear to be SMALL so that I can actually take it with me and use it. I can't even feel the mini in my front pocket.

I thought about getting a full-sized iPod, but I'm glad I didn't. The trade-off for size is worth it. I think the "for only $50 more" argument is silly. How many damn songs can you listen to on one charge? The mini holds 3 days worth of music! Your battery will drain after about 9 hours. With your firewire or USB 2 cable, you can quickly swap out music while you charge. iTunes is so easy to use, that the swappage is no hassle at all. And I have not found an easier way to rip CDs and organize files than iTunes.

For the record, I don't fit the "Mac Trendoid" stereotype (although I don't know many Mac users who do.) I have a beer gut, poor social skills, and I'm balding. I pretty damn practical and far from stylish. My wardrobe consists of jeans, t-shirts and sneakers and I only replace them once a year, if my wife is lucky. I'm probably one of the Curmudgeons mentioned above. But I do enjoy the finer things in life, and well designed electronics is one of the finer things.

This is also the first Apple pro

I actually have one of these ridiculously overpriced pieces of pop-garbage. Here are my thoughts about it.

I consider myself a power user of gear. I'm an older geek with some disposable income, but I hate wasting money. I usually take weeks to shop for and decide on a new toy. I have an older flash player and before buying the mini, I purchased and returned many other players currently on the market. I found that they were all either poorly constructed, or suffered from poor interfaces.

For example, the battery cover on the Rio Chiba falls off at the slightest touch. You have to snap the player into the belt clip if you want to keep your battery cover.

The Nitrus seems nice until you start using it. The volume buttons are mushy and don't always work. The only button on this player that works and feels nice is the "Riostick." But even that doesn't hold a candle to the clickwheel on the mini.

I have also used some of the RCA players, but Music Match is a horrible, crashy piece of software and getting files onto the player is unnecessarily difficult. My old flash player uses Music Match, and I found that as a result, the player tended to collect dust. I only went through the hassle when I really needed to. Usually only for long flights.

I did like the Rio Cali, even though the battery cover on this is a bit wonky too. But the player is $179. After adding an $80 256 meg SD card, I would be at $259. Why not buy better design and 4 gig for the same price? The marketing guys at Apple knew what they were doing. Though, if I were in the market for a solid state player, I would probably pick up the Cali or one of the iRiver players.

So, after trying many players, I decided to look at the iPod. When I first picked one up, I instantly knew that I had just moved into a new world. These things (minis and full-size iPods alike) are industrial design masterpieces. They feel good in your hand, they are solidly built, the backlight and display are beautiful, the wheel control is BRILLIANT, the GUI is transparent and iTunes is a simple pleasure to use. With the aluminum case, I feel like I could stand on this thing and not hurt it. The On-The-Go playlist deserves mention too.

The whole iPod experience is unobtrusive and pleasant. The mini fits seamlessly into your life. I have several gadgets that I carry with me. I wish they were integrated into one well-designed device. Until that happens, I need my pocket gear to be SMALL so that I can actually take it with me and use it. I can't even feel the mini in my front pocket.

I thought about getting a full-sized iPod, but I'm glad I didn't. The trade-off for size is worth it. I think the "for only $50 more" argument is silly. How many damn songs can you listen to on one charge? The mini holds 3 days worth of music! Your battery will drain after about 9 hours. With your firewire or USB 2 cable, you can quickly swap out music while you charge. iTunes is so easy to use, that the swappage is no hassle at all. And I have not found an easier way to rip CDs and organize files than iTunes.

For the record, I don't fit the "Mac Trendoid" stereotype (although I don't know many Mac users who do.) I have a beer gut, poor social skills, and I'm balding. I pretty damn practical and far from stylish. My wardrobe consists of jeans, t-shirts and sneakers and I only replace them once a year, if my wife is lucky. I'm probably one of the Curmudgeons mentioned above. But I do enjoy the finer things in life, and well designed electronics is one of the finer things.

This is also the first Apple pro

I actually have one of these ridiculously overpriced pieces of pop-garbage. Here are my thoughts about it.

I consider myself a power user of gear. I'm an older geek with some disposable income, but I hate wasting money. I usually take weeks to shop for and decide on a new toy. I have an older flash player and before buying the mini, I purchased and returned many other players currently on the market. I found that they were all either poorly constructed, or suffered from poor interfaces.

For example, the battery cover on the Rio Chiba falls off at the slightest touch. You have to snap the player into the belt clip if you want to keep your battery cover.

The Nitrus seems nice until you start using it. The volume buttons are mushy and don't always work. The only button on this player that works and feels nice is the "Riostick." But even that doesn't hold a candle to the clickwheel on the mini.

I have also used some of the RCA players, but Music Match is a horrible, crashy piece of software and getting files onto the player is unnecessarily difficult. My old flash player uses Music Match, and I found that as a result, the player tended to collect dust. I only went through the hassle when I really needed to. Usually only for long flights.

I did like the Rio Cali, even though the battery cover on this is a bit wonky too. But the player is $179. After adding an $80 256 meg SD card, I would be at $259. Why not buy better design and 4 gig for the same price? The marketing guys at Apple knew what they were doing. Though, if I were in the market for a solid state player, I would probably pick up the Cali or one of the iRiver players.

So, after trying many players, I decided to look at the iPod. When I first picked one up, I instantly knew that I had just moved into a new world. These things (minis and full-size iPods alike) are industrial design masterpieces. They feel good in your hand, they are solidly built, the backlight and display are beautiful, the wheel control is BRILLIANT, the GUI is transparent and iTunes is a simple pleasure to use. With the aluminum case, I feel like I could stand on this thing and not hurt it. The On-The-Go playlist deserves mention too.

The whole iPod experience is unobtrusive and pleasant. The mini fits seamlessly into your life. I have several gadgets that I carry with me. I wish they were integrated into one well-designed device. Until that happens, I need my pocket gear to be SMALL so that I can actually take it with me and use it. I can't even feel the mini in my front pocket.

I thought about getting a full-sized iPod, but I'm glad I didn't. The trade-off for size is worth it. I think the "for only $50 more" argument is silly. How many damn songs can you listen to on one charge? The mini holds 3 days worth of music! Your battery will drain after about 9 hours. With your firewire or USB 2 cable, you can quickly swap out music while you charge. iTunes is so easy to use, that the swappage is no hassle at all. And I have not found an easier way to rip CDs and organize files than iTunes.

For the record, I don't fit the "Mac Trendoid" stereotype (although I don't know many Mac users who do.) I have a beer gut, poor social skills, and I'm balding. I pretty damn practical and far from stylish. My wardrobe consists of jeans, t-shirts and sneakers and I only replace them once a year, if my wife is lucky. I'm probably one of the Curmudgeons mentioned above. But I do enjoy the finer things in life, and well designed electronics is one of the finer things.

This is also the first Apple pro

I'll bet you anything! Because there are already a number of music players, such as the Rio Karma that play Ogg Vorbis just fine.

Ok, we'll go over it again boys and girls. It's the market, the Mini isn't there to compete with the iPod. The Mini is there to compete against your $200-300 1gig flash player.

Actually, it competes with devices like the Rio Nitrus and the Creative Muvo2. You should at least try to be correct when you're going to be condescending. You didn't think Apple was the only company with access to mini hard drives, did you?


You probably think Firewire is useless too.

It is. (In the context of an ipod.)
USB2.0 is much more ubiquitous, and can already support more speed than the drive in an ipod can handle. Plus, any computer with firewire typically has a USB port. Something like a microphone or an audio input would be much more useful. Nobody else includes firewire for a reason. Apple includes it because it's their pet technology and "firewire" just sounds so l33t.
Technologically it's like hooking up and AGP card to a 386.... it just doesn't make sense.

Replay "Radio", huh? I wonder if the nice folks at DNNA might see this as trademark infringement?

The Rio Karma is 46% bigger than the iPod (78% thicker).

20GB Apple iPod: 6.1 cu in
20GB Rio Karma: 8.91 cu in

20GB Karma: 2.7" X 3.0" X 1.1", 5.5oz
20GB iPod: 4.1 by 2.4 by 0.62 inches, 5.6oz

I have a digital camera that's 1.3" thick, and that's pretty thick for a pants pocket - it's really prominent. 1.1" is probably similarly brickish. YMMV. A jacket pocket would probably be fine, though.

My advice for portable audio gizmo shoppers: make sure you actually see the products in person and that you get to handle it & play with the UI (i.e. not some broken demo model that doesn't turn on) before you buy it... don't just buy one based on a feature matrix. It could have a crappy UI, or be flimsy, or have a crappy screen, or weigh a ton, etc. etc.

I have to say that design wise, it looks like a poor cheap imitation of the iPod. The iPod is expensive and there are better specced mp3 players out there. the rio karma is an excellent example (mp3,ogg, flac) and inclusion of ethernet socket along with all the other usual connectors. Some people claim the software management software is a little ropey, but at least it works with Linux as well and Win32 and OSX.

I would personally prefer something like this than something that is such a failing iPod lookalike Wannabe.

It would be nice if the iPod were a bit cheaper and had Ethernet, Ogg and Flac support to boot. But it aint. I like iPods! They look and feel exquisite, but there are other reasons to buy a product like this and apart from design, function is also pretty important.

As it is im stuck with a crappy CD based MP3 player. When I get a job ill be getting one, although i havent decided to go with the one that looks nice (iPod) or the one that supports those extra file formats and has an ethernet jack(karma).

nick ...

20gb Rio Karma $250
20gb iPod $400

have fun with your Ogg files and your 5 pound portable music player....I mean laptop.

You mean my Rio Karma? You're off a bit on the weight, though; it's 5.5 ounces, i.e. 0.1 ounces less than an iPod with the same disk capacity. That and its list price is about $50 less. Oh, and it can connect via Ethernet, has standard RCA jacks in its docking station so it's connected to my stereo system whenever it's recharging, and has a Java-based connection software so it can talk to any operating system with Java support.

Best portable *Compressed music file* player I have seen is easily the Rio Karma. Features include

* Platform independant Software
* Ethernet Socket (in addition to usual connectors)
* Smaller footprint than iPod
* Supports non DRM file formats including ogg, and flac.

Only minor gripe is that it doesnt look as nice as the iPod. (Although there is nothing inherently ulgy with the way it looks)

Rio Karma

technically speaking its a better player.

Sonicblue went under, but its ReplayTV holdings were bought by DNNA. ReplayTV is still alive and well.

The Karma sounds like a great product -- especially with Ogg & Flac support, but it still doesn't appear to support Mac. If it did, it'd be a very easy decision for me :-/.

Rio Cali Look at what it says above the product picture. Funny how it neglected to mention the feature was on its poor user interface and value.

iRiver's 512 meg solid state device, is probably about 1.95 cubic inches (I halved the volume of the rectangular prism, 3.9 cubic inches, formed by the dimensions, since it's closer to a triangular prism), or 68% smaller than the iPod.

The Rio Nitrus which is probably closest in terms of capacity, is 4.32 cubic inches, or 29% smaller than the iPod.

Surprisingly, the Rio Chiba, they're flash based 256 meg product is larger at 5.18 cubic inches, or only 15% smaller than an iPod.

Creative's got a player that's pretty comprable at 4 gigs but it's $300 and 5.4 cubic inches, or only 11% smaller than the iPod.

I could go on and on, but the point is that you're not going to get much smaller than the iPod mini for the capacity, nor the pricepoint . . . whether the extra $50 for 11 gigs is worth it is going to depend upon how you use it. Like I said earlier, for me docking and changing my playlists wouldn't be a big deal, and with 4 gigs, I imagine this wouldn't be necessary more than weekly (even at 256 kB/s, you'd have over 4 days of music). So for me, what someone else may consider a marginally smaller size, is something that I'd be much more likely to use, rather than leave on my desk because it doesn't fit in my pocket well.

As others have said, it's a matter of what you value (physical size vs. capacity), but the mini would meet my usage patterns much better than a standard iPod (which I feel is too big to add to my pockets)

iRiver's 512 meg solid state device, is probably about 1.95 cubic inches (I halved the volume of the rectangular prism, 3.9 cubic inches, formed by the dimensions, since it's closer to a triangular prism), or 68% smaller than the iPod.

The Rio Nitrus which is probably closest in terms of capacity, is 4.32 cubic inches, or 29% smaller than the iPod.

Surprisingly, the Rio Chiba, they're flash based 256 meg product is larger at 5.18 cubic inches, or only 15% smaller than an iPod.

Creative's got a player that's pretty comprable at 4 gigs but it's $300 and 5.4 cubic inches, or only 11% smaller than the iPod.

I could go on and on, but the point is that you're not going to get much smaller than the iPod mini for the capacity, nor the pricepoint . . . whether the extra $50 for 11 gigs is worth it is going to depend upon how you use it. Like I said earlier, for me docking and changing my playlists wouldn't be a big deal, and with 4 gigs, I imagine this wouldn't be necessary more than weekly (even at 256 kB/s, you'd have over 4 days of music). So for me, what someone else may consider a marginally smaller size, is something that I'd be much more likely to use, rather than leave on my desk because it doesn't fit in my pocket well.

As others have said, it's a matter of what you value (physical size vs. capacity), but the mini would meet my usage patterns much better than a standard iPod (which I feel is too big to add to my pockets)

I got to admit, the Karma looks like a nice player. Its got a crossfader too. I still cannot understand why Apple does not put a crossfader into the iPod. Thats my most requested feature.

The dimensions may be a problem for some, its a bit thicker than an iPod so may not be as comfortable to carry, but I haven't seen one in person yet so not sure.
Karma: 2.7" x 3.0" x 1.1" 5.5oz
iPod: 4.1" x 2.4" x .62" 5.6oz

How does 1.5 gigs equal the 4 GB you claim?

Now, more than ever, my sig applies.

MSRP for the karma is, according to the manufacturer's home page, $349.99. If you got it for $199.99, you got a deal. Hurray for you, but that doesn't change the MSRP.

Quote from the Rio Cali website:

"As featured in the Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld 2004"

And btw, *I* think that the Nitrus looks like ass, nyah! :-p

"As featured in the Steve Jobs Keynote at Macworld 2004"