Customer Reviews

Rio Carbon Pearl 6 GB MP3 Player

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Rio Carbon (regular and pearl) is a great player in a cool design. It's about the size of a small clamshell cellphone. The sound quality is excellent, although you may want to invest in a better set of headphones. In my experience, the battery life is less than the 20 hours advertised, but even at 12-13 hours, it's better than many of its rivals. Note that the "pearl" cover is a little whiter than what you see in the advertisements - more like an eggshell white. The included carry-case is functional, but nothing special. Vaja makes great custom leather cases, but they are expensive. The controls and software are intiutively easy to use.

I received the Rio Carbon Pearl for my birthday in August and I completely love it! As another reviewer said, the setup and software is easy to use and although I hadn't previously had any MP3 player experience, I was quickly able to figure out how to get it up and running and start loading up both my music on CD, music from online downloads, and various podcasts and audiobooks (the latter two are the bulk of the material I have on my device).

I did end up replacing the headphones with an inexpensive pair of bigger, old fashioned outside the ear headphones because the ear buds were not too comfortable. The look and feel of the Rio itself is wonderful--I love its sleek shininess and its tininess (that's tiny, not tinny) and the way it sits in the palm of my hand. It's better protection wise to use the little case that came with it, but the case itself is not very exciting and the Rio is much prettier outside of it.

Its tiny size also makes it a great companion for walking and exercising. I never had or used an iPod so I can't compare the two, but the Rio is a great device for the price and I'm extremely happy with mine!

The Rio Carbon is nice, great with music, and even better is that it doubles as a very portable file storage device.

The biggest qualm I have about it is it's recording quality. I bought it thinking that I could record class lectures, but the quality isn't very good, and I have to be sitting in the very front to get a semi-decent recording.
Also, the batteries only last about 2 hours when recording on a fully-charged battery; although when playing music, I get more than 20 hours of playback time.

At the begining I was very pleased, but after 6 months of not so much use, the poor thing started to freeze on me, it'd take for ever just to load or delete songs, and it was automatically syncing songs I already had in it, so it was doubling my memory usage.
The sound quality is ok. The music manager software if easy to use and the size and weight of this device are very nice, but if you are going to buy it, I recomend to get the extended warranty as I did.
I gave this product 3 stars, because if you are lucky enough to make it work for 1 or 2 years, it's a good player for an affordable price. I like the fact that included a case, and an Ac charger. Most players don't include them, so you'll be spending more money in the long term.

I had this player less than a month and the power button fell off. Rio/DNNA would not replace it saying it was damaged in a way not covered by the warranty. But don't just take it from me, according to the Better Business Bureau as of 01/31/06:

"Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to a pattern of complaints and has failed to correct the underlying reason for the complaints. Our records show that the company has a pattern of complaints concerning Product Quality."

I got it as a birthday gift last year and toted it along with me to all my track meets last year. It got tossed around in my bag, I ran with it, and it constantly was getting knocked around from moving my bag or my teammates moving it for me. I keep it in the case and it doesn't have any scratches and all the buttons are there and still work. My only complaints are that I wish it had an armband cause I don't like putting it on my waist and that if I don't leave it plugged into the wall, the battery will be completely dead after a week. Other than that, I find it much easier than my cd player. The software is easy to use and you don't have to limit yourself to certain types of files, but you have to make the playlist on your computer. I can use my downloaded music from anywhere (haven't tried itunes) and you can rip music from cd's you already have. I definately recommend it if you want more storage than a 4 GB Ipod without paying the high price.

When I saw the Rio Carbon 6 GB player on sale last November, I checked out the professional reviews. They loved it, in fact one magazine said it as the best player released in 2005. Based on that I bought one, loaded it up, mostly with WMA's (over 3,000) plus a few mp3s and WAVs.
I have used it almost every day since. I absolutely love it!
The custom equalizer is a joy to use. I have dropped a number of playlists into the mix (you cannot make them "on the fly") and have used the voice recorder for a couple of phone interviews (a little muddy but acceptable).
The Rio Music Manager software works quite well though it opens up slowly for me due to the large amount of material it has to scan. (I have a HUGE collection of digital music loaded onto my home desktop from my 40+ years collection of records, tapes & CDs).
After I had the player a few weeks, I checked out some of the consumer reviews and read about the fragility of the click-wheel, esp. on the 5 GB models. I keep my Rio in its redesigned and very functional carrying case, have accidentally dropped it several times, fortunately without incident.
Durring the holidays, I decided to check how long it would run at half-volume - mine ran 18 hours and 23 minutes. Not the claimed 20 hours but close enough for a person who gets regular sleep!. It fully re-charged in about 3 hours.
I also read that Rio - who were the original innovaters of digitial music players - has gone out of the mp3 player business. Too bad, this is one darn good player. I misplaced mine about two weeks ago. I wan't sure where I had left it for about 6 hours, and at one point thought it had dropped off my belt during a shopping trip. When I first realized that it was missing, that was as close as I have ever come to tears over an inanimate object since I was a kid!

I wanted a mp3 player so that I could cut down on the number of cds I have in my car. I looked around comparing prices, and came to the conclusion that ipods are overpriced. Why would someone pay more for a 2GB ipod than a 6GB rio?

I've had my Carbon for almost a month now. I'd recomend it to anyone looking for a good mp3 player. I havent used the voice recorder function yet, because I dont have a need to use it. I bought a fm transmitter for my Carbon, and in my car the music quality is as good as a cd. Its really easy to place songs on the Carbon. The software that comes with it lets you copy your cds to your computer and put them on your Carbon.
The battery life is good, but I dont think that its at the 20 hour mark as advertised. I havent had my Carbon go dead, since I keep it charged when not in use.

I would definitely purchase this player again if I was looking for a mp3 player.

I origionally diden't want to go with the flashy ipods and there overpriced ness. Perhaps that was just a bit rash though. I had my rio Carbon for....1 year and a month. and over this time it has taken quite a beating.
Pros. : It has good sound quality and it has a lot of features on it, voice recorder, stop watch.

Cons: It has "frozen" on me however i just needed to hit the reset button or simply wait for the battery to die.
What finelly did it in, was in fact the WHEEL its on the top right exposed...Naturally its the first ting to go... Im still undecided at this point if i should replace with an ipod or not... Really If you reading this that means your probally considering a rio. Dont. Theres a reason its being discontinued.
Im not saying buy an ipod but please dont get a rio. Its just not worth the hassle.

I had it working great until after three months, the mp3 just wouldn't turn on. well it would but it would show the "RIO" welcome screen and then turn off and it would do that again and again and again. I tried charging the stupid thing and it would go berserk. As mentioned in the manual i tried to reinstall the firmware + trying everything else i could think of. No use.
I absoloutely DO NOT recommend this, you should buy any other thing.