Rio Carbon MP3 player reviews (Page 1 of 3)

14 Oct 2004:

I got mine from mobileplanet.com because I was tired of waiting for it to come in on amazon.com.  I bought this device mainly because it is compatible with audible.com.  I had a lot of trouble getting the books to play and Rio has determined that my Rio is defective so I had to order another one and will send this one back since mobileplanet only had a few left in stock.  I really like it and cant' wait to a nondefective unit.

Review kindly provided by JC.

5 Dec 2004:

Rio Carbon MP3 Player Review:  I have owned 3 MP3 players in the past, and have been patiently waiting for a great compact, high capacity hard drive based MP3 player. As of today, the 3 primary contenders I see are the Apple iPod Mini, the Rio Carbon, and the Creative Zen Micro. I considered all three - they are all extremely compact, have a large amount of storage (4GB to 5GB), are around the same price ($249 at this time) and have their own unique features. In the end, I chose the Rio Carbon, and what follows is my review of it. The overriding factors that caused me to choose it were its larger 5GB hard drive (compared to the iPod Mini's 4GB), its voice recorder (the iPod mini has none, though the Zen Micro does), the user interface (more on this later), and the outstanding battery life (rated by the manufacturer at 20 hours).

The Rio Carbon comes so close to being the perfect compact hard drive MP3 player. There are just a few things that would make it perfect. First, the only major feature it's missing (which is supported by the Creative Zen Micro, but not the iPod Mini) is an FM radio and FM radio recording. If you use headphones with a metal connector base, there can be static because it touches the Rio Carbon's metallic body. Although there are simple work-arounds, such as adding a bit of insulating tape, they should have caught this problem. Other reviewers have reported that it has problems playing lossless WMA files. This is typically not an issue, because hardly anyone uses lossless encoding due to the extreme space overhead. It comes with a nice leather carrying case, however, there should be a flap that opens to let you access its front panel controls. Also, the case doesn't have any way to be attached to a belt or armband. A simple solution take by one individual was to cut holes into the leather case. The hard drive is slightly audible when it is spinning (this is likely the same case for all hard-drive based MP3 players). You won't hear it in most situations, but in a very quiet room, you can, and anyways, if you're listening to music, that will likely drown it out. Fortunately, it doesn't spin up very much, about once every 5 songs for 10 seconds. The microphone is located on the body of the Rio Carbon. And, unfortunately, it picks up the noise of the spinning hard drive when recording, making it almost useless as a voice recorder.

Review kindly provided by: Rio Carbon review at topicpoint.com

8 Dec 2004:

I just bought a Rio Carbon for myself, and so far I find it to be an excellent product. I have had other MP3 devices before, a couple of CD/MP3 players which were fine, but limited (but cheap) storage, and most recently an Archos 20GB FM Jukebox. The Archos is a fine device, but it is kind of bulky, and the battery life is no more than average (6 to 8 hours). I ride a Harley Davidson Roadking, and on long trips I find myself in need of entertainment.

The CD/MP3 player, although the least expensive needs to be carried in a small pack on my hip, along with several CD's filled with MP3's. On the positive side though is that batteries can be bought at any gas stop along the way, and the storage is cheap.  The Archos eliminates the need to carry around a bunch of disks, but the battery is not changeable, and needs to be charged after a relatively short time. It is also kind of bulky and doesn't fit comfortably in any pockets.

The Rio seems to address all the faults of the other devices. 5GB of WMA files seem to be more than enough storage. At this point I have close to 650 files on mine, and am only using about 1.7GB. It is quite small, thin and light, so it will fit in any pocket. It seems to have plenty of audio volume to compensate for road and wind noise while riding. The playback options give you plenty of choices as to how you want tunes played. All the usual suspects are represented, all, artist, album, genere, year, etc. The controls seem pretty simple and straight forward to use.  Its battery is recharged through a USB cable either connected to the 120V plug, or while connected to a PC. And speaking of the battery, if anything close to the 20 hour life between charges is correct, then I can't see any thing that the Rio can't beat the iPod at. It's smaller, lighter, has more capacity, and longer battery life. I also think that it is more stylish, with it's tapered profile, and rounded sides. It's not just a little rectangle. Also unlike the iPod it is not proprietary in it's file type. It will play MP3's, WMA's, and whatever format is used for electronic books. It has a voice recorder, and shows up on a PC as just another hard drive, you can store JPG's, Word and Excel documents, or just about any other file you want to on it.

Since the previous paragraph I have been able to run my carbon until it stopped playing over the course of several days. Battery life is rated at 20hrs under the following conditions. EQ should be OFF, and volume should be set to 15. I just finished my first unscientific test. I got a little over 13hrs with EQ set to Pop, and volume set to 20, so I guess it passes, especially if you consider that it must use a little more juice every it's turned on and off, or any of the controls are used, because the backlight comes on. Mine only ran an average of 2hrs per day before I would turn it off. So all in all the battery life is pretty darn good.

One thing that I am going to do, is buy the extended warranty from where I bought it. The factory warranty is only 90 days. Better safe than sorry.

Review kindly provided by CG

I love my RIO Carbon. I have had it for about 2 months now, and it has worked perfectly. I researched players for about a month before choosing the Carbon. I chose it mainly because of price, storage capacity, and size. I bought mine from J&R Music in NYC for $225. My wife loves it so much that I'm going to buy her one for a present, and the price has dropped to $200. Great deal!

This is my first non-CD player music device, so I can't compare it to other MP3 players. It's very small and lightweight, and the battery life is amazing; I estimate about 17-18 hours of playing time per full charge, and it only takes about 1.5 - 2.0 hours to charge when it's on empty. Be aware that I had to adjust some of the default settings to reach this great battery life; honestly though, I would be happy with 10 hours. It really is amazing. I use it on the train while I commute, as I'm walking around the city, and when I workout at the gym. Like I said, it's worked perfectly and I haven't experienced anything that I would consider a problem.

Most of my files are WMA at a minimum of 160kbps and the sound quality is excellent. There is a well documented 'static' problem with headphones that have plugs with a metal base, but the headphones that come with the player are good quality. Just make sure if you buy new ones - they have a plug with a rubber base. I recommend a higher quality product, maybe Sony - that's what I bought.

The display is bright and easy to read. The player is easy to operate with one hand because of the menu button and scroll button layout, but navigating the menus takes some practice, especially since the menu button, the scroll button, and the face buttons sometimes perform the same function. My problem could be caused by my lack of patience too!!

I'm not really a big fan of the included software because it has to 'sync up' with my music library every time it starts, but it's the only way I've found to create play lists - which really aren't a big deal to me. The transfer of files to the player doesn't take long and I haven't had any problems with the process yet. You can also transfer files by using Windows Explorer if you want. I've tried that method too with no problems.

Like other reviewers, I do not like the included carrying case. It's small and high quality, but you can't see the screen or change songs while the player is in the case. Not a huge problem for me, but others might disagree. One nice feature is that you can choose your 'locking' settings. I set it so the volume control will work while the player is 'locked', that way I can still adjust the volume while the player is in the carrying case.

I definitely recommend this product to anyone who will be happy with 5GBs of storage and wants something small and high quality.

Thank you,
Review kindly provided by LM

I love my Rio Carbon. It is small, shiny, fits perfectly in the hand, has excellent software and is simple to use.

It is so nice that I am sure to lose it when my wife returns from Cuba so I am going to have to fork out for another one as a Xmas present.

As another reviewer said, the leather case is fine but stops access to the controls. Personally, I would like to be able to put a chain through a loop and wear it as I don’t usually sport shirts with pockets.

It looks and feels like jewellery so I could wear it as a pendant although I guess I would risk getting mugged.

Even better, it does not look like an iPod Mini. These remind me of blusher cases and who wants to walk around with dental floss between the ears!

Long live the Rio Carbon! A true meeting of beauty and function.

Rio Carbon review kindly provided by KD.

12 Sept 2006:

My son recommended a Rio Carbon to me as he felt his old dad could manage something that simple. We purchased a repaired unit from the States, no problem there. On the occasional use that I gave it, it has been quite good so we decided to but another unit for my wife. This worked for few days and then the thumb wheel started to give problems. This has got worse and we got the same line of corporate crap as W 6th June which was little help. The only difference was that they wanted £75 to look at it not $75. On principle I will not waste my money on a company who has a product that they know to be faulty/vulnerable and who then duck the issue when problems occur. When the units fail I will change to a product that has some reasonable support.

Rio Carbon review kindly provided by H

I got mine 2 months ago and find it very good.  It is very portable and easy on the eye to look at.

I listen to books on it quite a lot and find this very useful if one is tired and not in the humour to read a book.

It can be a bit difficult to figure it out initially but once mastered it it a very handy device.

I find it has tendency to freeze especially at the end of listening to an audio book.  This can be annoying but can be rectified by using the reset feature.

The sound quality is good and it is well worth the money.  It is the first MP3 player I have owned and I have found it very good.

Review kindly provided by GS.

30 March 2006

I have had nothing but trouble with my Rio Carbon....found the headphone jack problem out too late unfortunately...Why did they make a product that gets zapped by the headphones metallic base and fries..?

Often it freezes and stops working for a period then miraculously works again...and now I plugged in the USB lead the other day and the thing has ' Blown Up ' and is totally knackered..!

Review kindly provided by L H
 

I bought the Rio Carbon after reading your website, but when I tried to find some MP3's to download, most of them seem to be in Audible.com's proprietary format, which only play on Audible-ready devices -- iPods and the Creative Muvo. I don't think Audible files play on the Rio Carbon.

The free downloadable books use computerized text-to-speech and are impossible to listen to.

See Rio Carbon - Audible compatibility
Follow up: Eric, thanks for the quick reply. I sent Audible some e-mail and they pointed me to this page: Audible

It looks like they support the Rio Carbon.

The Carbon is a great player, but after reading the user reviews on C-net and Amazon, buyers should consider purchasing a supplemental replacement plan (e.g. $20 1-year replacement insurance on Amazon). There are a significant number of complaints that things breaks on these after the warranty period is over, and you have to pay $99 to Rio to get it repaired or replaced after 30 days.

Also, a Yahoo Launch subscription for $60/year, where you get access to their *entire* song library is a great combination with the Carbon, which is the best MP3 player right now that supports Microsoft's PlayForSure digital rights management.

Review kindly provided by B.

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