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Rio Karma 20GB Reviewed
asv108 writes "The Rio Karma has been out on the market for over a month now with very little mainstream press. Slashdot covered the product announcement back in August for one of the first mainstream devices that supports OGG and FLAC playback. I've posted a little review of the 20 GB Rio Karma, which, besides OGG/FLAC/MP3/WMA playback, has a great little dock that syncs the player via ethernet. One little known gem is that this player comes with java-based software that allows users to download the software directly from the player via any browser and sync the Karma with Linux, Mac OS X, and any other OS that Java runs on."
What will we complain about now?
It plays ogg.
It sync via ethernet.
We're going to have to find a new gold standard, and fast!
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Crudely Drawn Games
I bought one a week ago, and I was afraid that was the case. However, I couldn't be more wrong. Holding it in my hand (Im right-handed) feels, well, right. The wheel is reasily accessible to my thumb.
The Karma can be purchased for $290 on amazon.com, with another $20 off with a rebate. That's $270 versus $400.
I bought one last week, and my roomate has the recent 20GB iPod. While I think his iPod is slightly nicer (in design), I don't think it's $130 nicer. But, to each his own.
My review of the Karma : Excellent.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
It's obviously 'designed' for right-handed people. Interestingly, the iPod doesn't appear to favour one hand over the other.
:) Granted, that's the larger majority of the population...
Just a thought. -- and I'm not even left-handed.
You're wrong. AAC is the generic term for the codec of MPEG-4 audio. Apple's iTunes is AAC encoded with drm. An MPEG-4 file is a QuickTime file... did you know that? MPEG-4 video, AAC audio, with the wrapper being QuickTime... of course, things like DivX are MPEG-4 video in AVI.
The truth about Michael
Now, moving on from usability issues and looks, it has some other features that I just couldn't pass up. First, it has an internal mic that can make voice recordings. Secondly, it also has line in and line out ports, that work as optical OR analog. For recording via the input, you can choose to record via an external mic, line in, or optical in. The external mic is a hell of alot hotter than line in, by the way. For all this recording, you can record to wav (optical does 48khz while the rest do 44), or to mp3 that is encoded on the fly, at bitrates ranging from 40kpbs to 320. This sold it for me, as I am an avid show taper (with a pair of clip on mic's and a sony DAT), and this will be fun to play with - I plan to do a double recording sometime to do a comparison of quality between the DAT and iHP-120, but I've already done a test recording at a show and it didnt sound bad at all. My only gripe would have to be that there doesn't appear to be a way to control the level of the line-in, but you CAN adjust the level of the external mic, just not while you are recording. Also, it doesnt show levels so you won't know if it's redlining until you actually listen to it. I'm hoping they might fix this in a firmware update but I'm not very hopeful, although from what my test showed, it might not even be needed.
Anyways, just wanted to chime in, I too think the karma is rather ugly, and the slightly bigger size of the iHP-120 is not a deterrant at all. I guess the only one would be the price - it's around $355 or so, a bit more than the karma but with the extra features, I think it's worth it. It does play OGG's, by the way, and transferring files is painless with USB as the unit shows up as another hard drive connected to your system - you can easily use it as a portable hard drive if you want. There's more reviews around the net if you look, for more indepth information.
> www.newegg.com [...] They are a fairly reputable dealer.
OH MY GOD! A heretic! Someones pass me the noose! Dude, calling The Egg "fairly reputable" amongst geeks is like drinking your gruel with extended pinky on a Viking longboat.
I set up a mirror since the last time /. linked to my site it died within 10mins due to my host provider putting a ridiculous amount of sites on one ancient sparc machine.
I hope I can answer some of these questions. I'm quite happy with my Karma. It may not be as stylish as the iPod (and has a couple moving parts), but it sounds great, cost $130 less, and is good value for my money (though some people have had problems).
Does it work over Samba/FTP/SSH, or is it all via Windows software or some crappy Java applet?
You can use native windows software, or a java applet. The applet isn't crappy, but it isn't as feature-rich as the win32 native app. The win32 app is similar to itunes (though not as nice), and now allows the sending of play lists.
Does it run ethernet at 100BaseT?
Yes
Does it appear as a USB hard drive with a FAT32 filesystem or similar?
Unfortunately, no. It uses a different (perhaps proprietary) format. It does not show up as an external hard drive (anymore), and you must use some sort of software to transfer files. At one point, there were 3rd party drivers that let Windows recognize it as a removable drive, but with their recent software (not firmware) update, they broke the driver support on purpose, due to problems on some drives.
Are there any hacking efforts to put these features in?
Like I said, there was a 3rd party driver to allow windows recognition, but they don't work anymore. There IS talk of rio developing their own driver, but I've yet to read any confirmation.
After spending weeks deciding in the back of my mind, these are the features that sold me on the Karma:
Small size (although I decided the thickness made a huge difference)
Ogg support. This was a big factor in my decision.
Cool dock with ethernet
Nice display, 'analog' level dials were cool
And I found the following to be critical flaws:
Bugs! Too many inconveniences made it feel like it was rushed to market without sufficient QA. Songs would start over around 90 seconds into a track, or skip to another track altogether.
The management software (a java version is available to run on any platform) is crappy. No progress meters, lame compared to itunes or musicmatch or even windows explorer. This is the only way to transfer music or files.
Ethernet doesn't run at full duplex. WTF!?
Nothing esepcially useful about ethernet connectivity like a web server, ftp server, or smb. You might as well just hook it up over usb2 to avoid shitty transfer rates.
The physical controls on the device suck. It's awkward to use with one hand, especially if you wish to look at the screen and not your thumb/fingers. Some buttons are redundant, and it's not especiially clear at first how the scroll wheel will fuck up whatever you're listing to. It has separate volume buttons, but they're not exactly convenient.
It's physical presence is very... present. It's thicker in real life than I wanted to believe. It's also a little heavy. Ipod rules this comparison.
So, I just got an ipod instead. Same price and features, less annoyances, better support/accessories, iTunes isn't too bad. I like the 1394 better than usb2 for recharging it with the data cable. I'm sure there are a few other reasons to go with an ipod. I just figure it's no comparison with the karma, except that current lack of ogg support is kind of weak. I wish apple would pull their head out of their asses on this issue.
Short version. The Karma is crap unless it can get some major annoyances resolved.