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Rio Reveals iPod Mini Slayer
Remik writes "Rio has released a limited edition of its new hard drive based player called Carbon. Coming in lighter and denser (3.2oz with 5 GB of storage) than the Ipod Mini with the same price tag $249, twice the battery life, and nearly the same dimensions. Rio has only made 500 players available in the initial offering, so get one while they last. There's more info at cNet, Pocket Lint and Gizmodo. Highlights: Drag and drop file transfer, charging over USB and Janus compliance."
Indeed, this looks AWESOME, but it's lack of the magical iPod Click Wheel will be the singular feature that kills this product. The click wheel really is the best hardware UI, ever.
They missed one thing though. The iPod Mini is pretty, this one looks like someone drop a clump of dough, and stuck a display and some buttons in it. But I guess some people like the look of dough!
"copy" looks like a decent piece of machinery. but how lame is it that they've copied so many design characteristics from the ipod? look at the "commemorative" packagaing, which looks almost exactly like the ipod's packaging. and laser engraving on the chromed rear cover of a music player? wow, innovative.
Yeah, this thing has everything. Except it's really ugly.
Once again, the competition needs to realize Apple's success is not due to its technical dominance but rather its popular dominance. The iPod (mini) is a part of mainstream pop culture. This new device does not look to replace the mini anytime soon.
Once again the competition fails to grasp the fact that you cannot easily scan through over 1000 songs with a nub and your thumb. The iPod will continue to be No. 1 because its interface is that much better than its competitors.
Anyone else notice the glaring typo's in the system requirements (MAC and spave)? Seems a little rushed to me.
Because it's aimed at a different market! The mini is aimed at people who are considering a solid-state player: ie size is even more important to them than masses of storage space. It's also aimed at the more style conscious rather than us geeks: hence the multitude of colours for the mini and the choice of any colour as long as it's white for the ipod.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
While I'd agree with you that the thing is damn ugly, I'd take exception about the issue of Apple's dominance.
The iPod is beautiful and it has a killer interface. Anyone can use it, and it is very intuitive. Each iteration seems to get incrementally more user-friendly and marginally better-looking, too.
This monstrosity that is a so-called "iPod-slayer" looks hideously cumbersome to use.
A bit off-topic, but wasn't Janus a common symbol fo r duplicity and untrustworthiness in past (and post-Roman) times, as he had a face looking both ways (the saying "two-faced")? So isn't naming a DRM product Janus like naming an airline "Icarius"? Sure he had wings and could fly but...OTOH some would argue that being DRM and MS, Janus is an entirely appropriate name...
What's with the month old news? The linked articles were all published August 2nd through 4th.
Astroturf?
Blue skies, Barthy Burgers, girls...
Because people are still waiting weeks for the honor of paying $250 for a mini. If the demand is there, why on earth would Apple choose to lower the price?
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
I registered an account just to post on this topic. For Rio to beat anything at all they'd have to have equal customer service. As it stands they don't. I own a karma. The shitty rio stick broke. I am a real careful guy so I don't know how it happened but the piece of shit broke. Literally broke right off. I don't want to lambaste the mechanical design but the workmanship just seemed shoddy. Then the rio wheel slipped off. All within 2 months of ownning the thing. Fine maybe I got a shitty one whatever I'll RMA it. First thing I noticed customer service is outsourced and is area code 650. Meaning I had to pay to talk to someone who can only handle tier 1 problems. Fine, that's the way it's down now. Sure enough after 3 15 minute phonecalls and two messed up RMA numbers given to me on " accident " I got my RMA number, sent the package in. To an address in Texas. Paid for priorty mail. Fine. Package got lost. Of course. Called Back to 650 customer service. Had it escalated from call center in India to something called legacy support - another third party CS agency. Within the span of one month they had done nothing to return my calls so I began emailing them They intially explained the lack of calls as they had gotten the wrong address and phone number for me; someone in India took my information down incorrectly. They (Rio Customer service) ended up discussing my situation with someone who they thought was my wife. I am not married, and don't even live in the same state as the person they called. They then got the tracking number I e-mailed them wrong 6 times. I wanted to document to them that I emailed it but they got it wrong 6 fucking times. I put in the number in the title the signature, everywhere. They still got it wrong. Mind you they never once called me back. Eventually I cut and pasted it from the USPS website. Magically they then learned that I was in fact telling the truth, but that no one at their texas RMA office could be found to sign for the package so it was never documented as being recieved. Finally I got the matter escalated to a supervisor. At this point it had been one and half months. They not only refused to give me the supervisor's e-mail. They refused to return my phone calls. This lasted two weeks. I finally faxed a copy of every e-mail to their coroporate office, two days later I got a response via e-mail my karma would arrive today. It did. So after nearly two months and 30$ I got it back. Yay. Sorry I just had to rant and wanted to warn peopel about RIO. I'll be making a webpage filled with e-mails and dates and times documenting the veracity of my claim. So it's not that I wish to drum up support here. Please note though that when you buy from a company you buy into their customer service. I own a ibook. I've had amazing customer service from apple. I have had the worst customer service expierence of my life with RIO. That in my opinion is why Rio can't be an Ipod Killer. They don't have the customer service for it.
*sigh* ..... seems like every month Slashdot posts the new 'ipod slayer' or 'ipod killer'.
What the slashdot crowd seems to fail to realise is that releasing a device with a bigger hard drive or longer battery life or some other fancy technical specification doesn't make it an 'ipod killer'. The ipod excels in many other areas - design, ease-of-use, reputation etc.
Making it worse, these 'ipod killers' are often a joke. They'll have say one technical aspect thats better than the ipod, but on pretty much everything else will fail (i.e. a bigger hard drive but crappy user interface and too big and ugly design etc). Sony's 'ipod killer' is the worst example - release a device crippled with DRM and requiring transcoding to Sony's dead ATRAC format with the resulting awful sound quality and post on slashdot about it killing the ipod. Which is of course a pity because Sony's engineers - if they weren't handcuffed by their music division - could very likely produce a superior product.
The ipod will of course not remain dominant forever, but it'll take more than a device with just a big hard drive or battery - and with only 500 available - to remove it from the throne.
First off the user interface on Rios products, when combined with the software they employ, is easily as solid as Apple's line-up (more so IMHO in regards to the Karma, but that's just MHO). Regardless, your statement has ZERO merit since you provide no evidence WHY the Apple interface is superior.
That aside, the Carbon blows the iPod mini out of the water. First off the drive it uses is from Seagate and is 1gb larger. If I had to pick two companies I trust in HD tech it would be Seagate and WD, and while Toshiba is also pretty solid HDs aren't their main business.
Next we'll move onto another huge aspect of these players, battery life. The Carbon is cited, and this is a CONSERVATIVE estimate by Rio, at 20 hours. 20 hours! I mean that's TWO days of full use assuming you aren't using it constantly. The iPod mini TOPS OUT (and this is Apple's website here) at 8 hours. I mean is there even a comparison?
In terms of physical appearance I would vote without blinking for the Carbon. Maybe other people like their technology devices to be Muave or Coral Pink or something and look like a lighter, but I generally like sleek looking futuristic products with a bit of an edge. I think the Carbon looks pretty sharp in all ways, though I'd rather have blue in place of red for the keypad coloring. However, cosmetics are entirely personal, so this is kind of off topic.
What else is worth mentioning... WMA support which is, regardless of what Apple maniacs might say, much more useful than proprietary AAC support (face it, the world will use WMA DRM whether you like it or not). I don't purchase music online (so I have no use for WMA support), but its good for some folks.
Voice recorder... mini doesn't have it, Carbon does. Again I don't use it, but its a feature.
Basically the feature set of Rio's products is already LIGHT YEARS ahead of Apple, and it only seems to be growing. To bash the Carbon because it doesn't use a click wheel you like (and I hate) seems ridiculous to me. And the funny thing is that while I have a Karma I would NEVER buy a Carbon OR an iPod mini... I think a 4-5gb player at the price of a 20gb player is for morons.
In short, judge the devices on their merits and try to be at least moderately open-minded here.
-rt
I'd like to see THIS digital music player:
Inexpensive and reliable 60+ GB notebook hard drive.
More battery capacity, in an inexpensive, standard, replaceable battery format.
Larger display, for my 40 something eyes.
Standard hard drive file storage, so I can mount it and drag & drop files. Works with any OS, no special music download software needed, can serve as a portable data backup or transfer device.
Support for all popular audio codecs, including MP3, Ogg, etc.
No digital rights management crap. I rip my CDs and copy them to the player. Period. I don't need the RIAA in my business every time I want to copy my CD to my portable player.
Hotswap cradle to charge the player, copy tunes and connect to external powered speakers, just like my my Karma 20.
A good built in FM transmitter so an FM car radio can be used.
Admittedly, most people want a "smaller is better" MP3 player, not the less expensive 2X sized device I'd like to have, but I think there's a market for it. I have no use for a 5 GB player that stores 1/3 of my CD collection. I can see a use for tiny 256 MB players for people who want a couple of albums while they run, bike, commute, etc. But I'm spoiled by carrying my entire music collection. I frequently have a chance meeting with someone and play an obscure song for them, and the odds it'd be in a 256 MB device are slim. Besides, I never know what I want to hear ahead of time.
Bonus! Here's a free music download link from Tempus that I saw on /. Good stuff, reminiscent of Dave Mathews:
http://www.tempusband.com/mp3.html
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
It seems to be that millions of people "beyond apple fan-boys" already have, considering the ipod is by far the most popular portable mp3 player in the world. This is despite the fact that there are alternatives with more capacity and battery life than ipods. The interface is the distinguishing feature.
Would you buy a car that you had to steer with two buttons rather than a wheel? If not, why not?
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
The UI is fine, but the learning curve on my Nomad is only marginally longer than that of the iPod and I personally prefer the placement of the controls on the sides.
If ANY of the other already existing MP3 players had received the kind of marketing push the iPod got, they could have easily become the "gold standard." Instead, the other companies, either because of a lack of funding or an in-house decision to marginalize their own products as being niche, didn't take the risk.
"I'll take increased functionality or cheaper price over looks any day of the week."
Good for you. However, most people decide based upon more subjective criteria.
The Carbon will not kill the iPod mini - it's too ugly and the specs of iPod mini clears the "good enough" criterion without problem. I also understand that it doesn't have the sexy clickwheel thingy.
Gadgets for Joe Average is about an experience in addition to techincal specs. The Carbon doesn't seem to have what it takes.
Stop the brainwash
"Would you buy a car that you had to steer with two buttons rather than a wheel? If not, why not?"
This is fallacious reasoning. Would you buy a keyboard that had a wheel instead of buttons? You are drawing an analogy to a completely unrelated situation.
I agree with the other respondent - the differentiating factor is above all else marketing, something that Apple is very good at. It does have a cool design, but so do Rio products and a number of others that are around the place.
Read Pynchon.
The Rio Carbon "iPod Mini Slayer" has been available in black for over a year now; it was actually released months before the iPod mini albiet at 1.5GB.
It was one of the first "mini" players to offer everything the iPod offered and more ... in a small thin case to boot. With no iPod Mini in sight the player actually had no competition. So why didn't it sell?
Marketing. The early adopters had already bought their players so the only market left was the masses. The masses are easily influenced by style. Stylish ads, stylish interface, stylish software, stylish player.
Reviews of the black Rio Nitrus were luke-warm at best. Most people agreed that the player itself was stylish, but the interface was clunky, the software was garbage, and there were no stylish ads to say otherwise.
Lets face it, every player plays MP3 ... The masses don't really care whether or not the player has OGG support or lossless audio support. So when all things are equal the style factor kicks in.
This new Rio Carbon is a true testament to the success of Apples approach to marketing style. They have duplicated it right down to the box.
Unfortunately by doing so there is really no good reason for the masses to jump onboard. When mom or dad is buying an MP3 player for Christmas and they have to choose between the $249 5GB Rio Carbon or the $249 4GB iPod Mini which box do you think they will reach for?