Rio Karma 20GB
- Thread starter Aimster
- Start date
because it doesn't have an apple logo on it 
to be serious, i've tried it, the way you hold it is a bit awkward for me, but thats because i have an ipod mini
to be serious, i've tried it, the way you hold it is a bit awkward for me, but thats because i have an ipod mini
Bad:
I've read from quite a few people that they can be quite unreliable and the warranty period is low.
They're a bit chubby
Doesn't have in-line remote
Good:
They're cheap
They sound good.
Comes with lots of extras: dock, etc
Buy decent aftermarket earbuds so you can hear the difference in sound quality.
I've read from quite a few people that they can be quite unreliable and the warranty period is low.
They're a bit chubby
Doesn't have in-line remote
Good:
They're cheap
They sound good.
Comes with lots of extras: dock, etc
Buy decent aftermarket earbuds so you can hear the difference in sound quality.
Originally posted by: chuckywang
Originally posted by: isekii
also it features an ethernet port
Networking
What is that used for?
I think it has the ability to be used as a network storage type drive for music.
So you can have music from any networked computers ?
Scarpozzi
Lifer
- Jun 13, 2000
- 26,391
- 1,780
- 126
Reviews here
I read some of the reviews....it looks like the hard drives would fail. (probably due to people hitting the unit or bumping it during a read) The real problem is that when they tried to replace the unit the warranties are through a 3rd party company that will only replace the hard drive unit once... So you may have a 1-3 year warranty or whatever, but they don't follow through with the contract due to their own stipulations. So if you get one, be sure to buy it from a vendor that has their own warranty program (like best buy or something so you can let them deal with fixing/replacing it)
Other than that, it looks like a good deal. My personal opinion? Stay away from mobile hard drives. Just get a 2GB SD card and a player that is compatible with it... Stick with no moving parts and you're good. I think between power consumption on an HD MP3 player and overall lack of reliability, it's not worth it. I've had to fix about 4 of these things for friends that had no warranty. (2 RCA LYRAs and 2 iPods) They all can have problems due to everything from moisture to heat to cold to just getting bumped or dropped. I'd rather save cash and buy a cheaper, better, non HD system and load it with music as I go.
I read some of the reviews....it looks like the hard drives would fail. (probably due to people hitting the unit or bumping it during a read) The real problem is that when they tried to replace the unit the warranties are through a 3rd party company that will only replace the hard drive unit once... So you may have a 1-3 year warranty or whatever, but they don't follow through with the contract due to their own stipulations. So if you get one, be sure to buy it from a vendor that has their own warranty program (like best buy or something so you can let them deal with fixing/replacing it)
Other than that, it looks like a good deal. My personal opinion? Stay away from mobile hard drives. Just get a 2GB SD card and a player that is compatible with it... Stick with no moving parts and you're good. I think between power consumption on an HD MP3 player and overall lack of reliability, it's not worth it. I've had to fix about 4 of these things for friends that had no warranty. (2 RCA LYRAs and 2 iPods) They all can have problems due to everything from moisture to heat to cold to just getting bumped or dropped. I'd rather save cash and buy a cheaper, better, non HD system and load it with music as I go.
I have a Karma that I've used daily for the past year. It still works perfectly and gets 11 hours which is ~80% of it's original battery life. Ignore the user reviews at CNet, etc, the majority are from iPod fanboys since the Karma was one of the first real competitors for the iPod.
As mentioned, it's a bit thick and not the best to look at, but the sound quality is incredible and the codec support is great. There are larger 1.8" HDDs coming out that will allow you to hack it to larger storage as well.
I wouldn't flinch at $190.
I may get rid of mine soon though...I'm in love with the Samsung YH-999 Portable Media Center. If only it were larger than 20GB (and cheaper)!
As mentioned, it's a bit thick and not the best to look at, but the sound quality is incredible and the codec support is great. There are larger 1.8" HDDs coming out that will allow you to hack it to larger storage as well.
I wouldn't flinch at $190.
I may get rid of mine soon though...I'm in love with the Samsung YH-999 Portable Media Center. If only it were larger than 20GB (and cheaper)!
The karma does have reliability problems. It's not just fanboys. It's a serious problem. Check riovolution.com. When I got mine, I was strongly advised to get an extended warranty. This is because Rio's support is awful awful awful and takes a long time. Furthermore, because Rio is so awful, there's a whole extended dialogue going on in those forums about "hitting" the karma to dislodge a locked hard drive as a last resort before sending it to satan, aka rio support.
Aside from potential hard drive failing, the unit itself occasionally has to be reformatted. Sometimes it will seem like a hard drive problem but is actually just due for a reformat. I haven't reformatted mine for a while, so on some songs it just crashes for no apparent reason. Really frustrating, because it takes some effort to get a paper clip and push the embedded reset button.
The unit also appears to be a dead model. That is, no more firmwares. So you'll never get universal mass storage, for example.
The sound quality is nice, and it plays Ogg and FLAC. The interface is 2nd to the iPod of the ones I have tried (zen, iriver, archos, ipod, karma). For the price, it's a good deal, but definitely try to get an extended warranty.
Aside from potential hard drive failing, the unit itself occasionally has to be reformatted. Sometimes it will seem like a hard drive problem but is actually just due for a reformat. I haven't reformatted mine for a while, so on some songs it just crashes for no apparent reason. Really frustrating, because it takes some effort to get a paper clip and push the embedded reset button.
The unit also appears to be a dead model. That is, no more firmwares. So you'll never get universal mass storage, for example.
The sound quality is nice, and it plays Ogg and FLAC. The interface is 2nd to the iPod of the ones I have tried (zen, iriver, archos, ipod, karma). For the price, it's a good deal, but definitely try to get an extended warranty.
do you still have to use those lame "syncing" programs to get music on it? One thing that I dont like about the programs is the inability to have no control how it movies music over...
I have 3 different naming schemes for my music...
artist>album>song
movie soundtrack/score > song (dont want artists name anywhere here)
etc. can this be done with the rio?
Also I have a mp3 streaming server at work (andromeda) that i want to keep up to date via the sync.... is there some way to tell the program to not auto-sync at home (wont have much music there) and sync at work?
I have 3 different naming schemes for my music...
artist>album>song
movie soundtrack/score > song (dont want artists name anywhere here)
etc. can this be done with the rio?
Also I have a mp3 streaming server at work (andromeda) that i want to keep up to date via the sync.... is there some way to tell the program to not auto-sync at home (wont have much music there) and sync at work?
Well, since it doesn't support universal mass storage, you have to use some software package or another. The rio one is ok... not great but not terrible. The default Ogg file names are just ridiculous. It uses song name.ogg which as you can guess can lead to conflicts.
However, you can also get a third party program for the karma which helps a lot. Riorad I think it's called. Lets you use it in explorer and drag and drop files.
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