- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 361 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
-
22 out of 22 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"A player that finally does exactly what I want"
Pros: Drag and drop, the thing is tiny and light, battery power, great price
Cons: No FM Tuner
Summary: These days it seems almost impossible to find a player that doesn't need some kind of special software to load music onto it. Finally, I've got one. You just plug this little guy into your USB port, and it shows up as a drive on your machine. NO DRIVERS REQUIRED! This also means that you can use the player as flash drive for storing data files, with no pesky partitions to create ala the Zen Micro.
Unlike the Zen Micro or the iPod, when you drag and drop music files onto the Carbon, they are recognized as music files and not data. In other words, you can immediately start listening to that music. No iTunes or Windows Media Player 10 or any other program to get your MP3 files to, you know, play on your MP3 player. When you unplug the Carbon after you've copied some songs onto it, it takes a few seconds (about 60 for me when I transfered 2gigs of MP3s) for it to read all the ID3 tags. Then, you're good to go. You can listen to songs by artist, genre, album, etc.
I'm a big fan of just dumping alot of music onto a player then listening to all of them, shuffled. For me, the player is completely perfect. However I know not everyone listens to music in that way, and in that case you will have a problem. The player does not allow you to build playlists on the fly. However if playlists are your thing, the included Rio software does allow you to create playlists.
Size is also an important factor, and the player scores high here. It is thin. I mean, REALLY thin, maybe half an inch or so. It is rounded, streamlined and frankly, it's just amazing that Rio fit as much as they did into this beatiful little package. I also love the small touches- the red backlighting for the small control pad on the front of the unit and the Rio logo at the top, and how the backlit menu slowly goes dim when not in use. Just great quality-of-life touches.
I would've really liked an FM Tuner on this little fella, but it wasn't a deal breaker. Considering the price and the versatility of the player, I can manage without it.
For those of you who are having problems with Rio's customer support, I strongly suggest buying a unit from Best Buy. They have 2 year replacement warranties that let you trade the player in for its full value and allow you to purchase ANY player with that credit, not just the same unit. If my Carbon keeps making me this happy though, I don't see why I would want another player.
Where to buy
Rio Carbon (5GB, Silver):
$199.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Amazon.com Marketplace
|
$199.99 | Yes |
|
%20user%20review%20and%20rating%20-%20CNET%20Reviews&srcUrl=http://reviews.cnet.com/mp3-players/rio-carbon-5gb-silver/4864-6490_7-30984154-2.html){kind=small}