Healing nicely. Will be back to full power (as far as Ciao is concerned) in a week or so. Will catch...
Healing nicely. Will be back to full power (as far as Ciao is concerned) in a week or so. Will catch up as quick as I can.
Member since:12.07.2005
Reviews:12
Members who trust:1
For the past few years, Apple has worked ferociously on its i-Pod range, bring out more models than you can shake a stick at. This has left then with a near monopoly on the MP3 player market, aided in no small part by their i-Tunes website, which is often lauded as the best music download site on the net, only being compatible with the aforementioned i-Pod. And I am sure that many people have bought an i-Pod on the strength of this alone. But the truth is, that there are more and more websites coming on to the market that will allow the use of more and more brands of MP3 player. This, in itself, should be enough to threaten the position of Apple in this market, were it not for the fact that the i-Pod has become more a fashion accessory than a music machine. This is a difficult situation for any manufacturer to combat, so a new machine needs to be not only as good as the i-Pod, but better. Rio Audio has come up with the Carbon model. And I bought one. When I went to look for an MP3 player, I had three priorities in mind.
Firstly it had to have a decent storage capacity. The Rio Carbon has a 5Gb hard drive,
which is capable of accepting in the region of 2500 songs compressed via WMA (or about 1250 at MP3). This sounds a lot, and in reality it is a lot, but don't go expecting to get that many on the hard drive. In fact, what most of the literature on these machines seems to include in flea-sized print is that these capacity figures are for songs of approximately 4 minutes in length at 128kbps. You can increase the number by having shorter songs, or using a faster recording speed. So if you particularly like classical symphonies, don't expect to be able to get thousands of them on any player. So far, I have downloaded 205 songs onto the Carbon, and have used 796Mb of drive space, so these figures do tend to work out.
Secondly, it had to be easy to carry. One of the main things that put me off the i-Pod was the size and shape. Admittedly it hardly compares to the bulk of the old Sony walkmans of 20 years ago, but you still couldn't put it in you jeans' pocket and sit comfortably on the bus for long periods. I looked at some players which were barely bigger than a pen top, and almost bought one of them, but mostly they failed on my first criteria. The few that didn't seem so small that it would be too easy to drop them and not notice. That left about three real contenders, the nicest of which, by far, was the Rio Carbon. Its size is about 3 inches 'square' and about half and inch deep, which is big enough to notice when you put it in the palm of your hand, but small enough to put in just about any pocket without causing problems. And I say 'square' as an example only. The machine is actually tapered on all sides, which gives it an elegant and sophisticated appearance, something that is woefully lacking in all the other players on the market at the moment.
Finally, my other criteria for buying an MP3 player was easy of use. On this score, most of the players in the shops seem very much the same when it comes to ease of download. All seem to use USB 2.0 connectivity, which gives a really good transfer speed, and the Carbon even allows you to charge the batteries via a USB port. The Rio Carbon comes with the added bonus of having its own music manager software, which is absolutely excellent and so simple to use that even a dullard like me can master it within a few goes. And, of course, the Rio Carbon also accepts downloads via Windows Media Player, although I haven't needed to use this facility, so good is the music manager. The other main reason for using this facility is the synchronisation aspect which allows you to choose all, or some of your music collection to download from you computer and recognises whether you already have the song on the player, preventing duplication. As for the player itself, the buttons are kept to a minimum by multitasking them with the Menu facility. The volume control is a small wheel along the top edge of the machine which also doubles as a scroll wheel when in menu mode. In menu mode, the player allows you to choose what tracks you play based upon artist, album, genre and playlists. Of course, you can also choose to just play all the songs, and it even allows you to randomise this if you so wish. The Carbon's menu also allows you to change the graphic equaliser for a better sound, should you want to, with presets and an equaliser-off setting to help. Not that anyone other than the serious music officianado would complain at the sound that comes from the machine in the first place which is comparable to most small music players. On top of all this, there are options for Bookmarks, voice memoing etc that the real technophiles will find very amusing.
Other things you might want to know about the Carbon are:-
It is Windows and Mac compatible. I use Windows myself and had absolutely no problem installing the software on my computer.
The battery is internal, which could be a problem if you go on extra-long journeys, but with a play-life of around 20 hours, it should be sufficient for a plane flight to Hong Kong, let alone a commute into work in the morning.
The charger for the machine comes in the box and is a little different from the norm. It actually comes as two parts. There is the main charger body, and the prongs to turn it into a plug. And there are three sets of these prong supplied (UK, Europe, US) which I thought was a very thoughtful touch by Rio, considering this is a machine which is made for travel.
You also get a USB-FireWire cable which is used for downloading and charging, and a pouch to put the machine in to prevent knocks and scratches.
PROBLEMS There are two main gripes that I have found with the machine. Firstly, the pouch mentioned above is hopeless. I would much prefer to have a proper carry case for my player, and am in the process of looking for one.
Secondly, as appears the trend nowadays, there are no written instructions in the box. The supplied software CD does have a very comprehensive and easy to understand manual, in PDF format, that you can print out, but would it be asking too much of manufacturers of this type of goods to include at least the basics of how to get started in a paper document.
VERDICT The Rio Carbon 5Gb music player is a versatile, easy to use machine, which mixes good looks with functionality. At around £130 it fits nicely in its own niche, with very few direct contenders at the moment. With the right sort of publicity and recommendation, this machine could very easily make in-roads into the Apple monopoly.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Great player. Large hard disk and small physical size. Great battery life Disadvantages: wider than most. Bad case, and no other third party cases. Back scratches easily.
leoedin 10.07.2005 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Rio Carbon 5 GB
Advantages: Small, slim, compact, 20 hr battery life, 5GB memory, price... the list is endless... Disadvantages: Perhaps not as durable as it could be.
K_a_t_y 04.07.2005 (05.07.2005)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Rio Carbon 5 GB
Advantages: Great player. Large hard disk and small physical size. Great battery life Disadvantages: wider than most. Bad case, and no other third party cases. Back scratches easily.
leoedin 10.07.2005 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Rio Carbon 5 GB
Advantages: Small, light, faily durable, large capacity considering the size and has an intuitive and easy-to-use menu system Disadvantages: Danger of screen damage, small screen
CombiChrist 04.09.2006 (04.09.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
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