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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."
I would not buy this for the same reason i would not buy the iPod from hp
Chicks love apple
fifteen jugglers, five believers
...does it support Ogg Vorbis?
Oh and don't mod me flamebait, I'm serious! Because the Rio Karma DOES support Ogg.
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?
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
This is so strange, just like the Ipod it doesn't have a built-in radio. I can't imagine why, the extra cost and size is minimal, and many people want to hear radio (news) occasionally.
It is strange since all MP3 players from taiwan/japan and european manufacturers have radios (often even the capability to record radio directly). Just Apple and RIO don't. Is it an american peculiarity, is radio so impopular in the US?
That makes two of us. My first one lasted for about six-ish months before kicking the bucket - died the oh-so-common "stuck hard drive" problem, where customer service tells you to smack the unit to get it to work again. Ummm, no. Returned to the retailer under the service plan for a new one. Had the new one about two months before the same thing happened. RMA'ed it back to Digital Networks, got a refurb. Had the refurb less than five days before the exact same problem reared its head. That's Karma #3, and it went back to Digital Networks last week while I await a fourth unit.
I've got most of my music as
Same here. Partly geek-factor, partly because I wanted true stereo and better compression at higher bitrates, yadda yadda yadda. Regardless, I have pretty limited options for a small-form-factor, high-capacity player that suits my needs, so for the time being I'm stuck waiting for another refurb unit. Eventually, I may just re-rip my entire collection and start over with a different codec.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
A scroll wheel is nothing like the clickwheel on the ipod. On the ipod you can scroll through the entire list in a continuous fluid motion. On a scroll wheel you have roll and reposition, roll and reposition, roll and .... well, just try out a scroll wheel vs. an ipod somtime and you'll immediately see the difference.
Is that worth losing a GB and some battery life? I don't know... for me it is, but perhaps not for some. My point is just that the devil is in the details. This is the one thing Apple does really get. Just because they both have some type of "wheel" does not mean they are equivalent.
Cheers.
That's exactly what I did. I had started to encode my CD collection to vorbis, but gave it up after I realized hardware support was going to suck. I ended up encoding the collection in FLAC, then batch encoded all the FLAC files to LAME APS. This gives me the flexibility to use any portable player, in my case it ended up being iPod and iTunes.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Sorry to post twice, but I forgot to mention this before. Here's your study in contrasts.
I bought an original Apple iPod back when they first were introduced. A couple of months ago the hard drive in it died, and rather than pay the $270 Apple wanted to fix it, I decided to spend about another $100 and get a new model. Upgrade and all that.
Well, wouldn't you know it, I got a bad one. It worked fine out of the box for a couple of days, but then it froze up and couldn't be reset.
I called Apple (I ordered my iPod online) and the guy checked my ZIP code and told me to take it to the Apple store at such-n-such address. I did, waited in line for about 20 minutes (during which I surfed the Net on the G5 at the store). I showed the guy behind the counter my iPod, and he said, "Wait just a minute, please." And he disappeared in the back with my iPod.
About a minute later, seriously in almost no time at all, he emerged and said, "Here you go." And he handed me a brand-new, still-in-the-shrinkwrap iPod box.
Me: "Huh?"
The Guy: "Here's your new iPod. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Me: "What's the catch?"
There was no catch. If your iPod breaks and it's under warranty, take it to an Apple store. They will hand you a new one and send you home. No Bangalore call center, no RMA, no waiting 2-3 weeks, none of that. Just "Here's your new iPod. Sorry for the inconvenience."
That was just cool.
I write in my journal