Rio's iPod mini "Killer" Coming

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014


Quote:

Rio Carbon 5GB Player



The Rio Carbon 5GB is the next generation compact player with power and performance. Rio Carbon 5GB is perfect for the music lover with a few hundred CDs or someone starting out their digital audio collection who wants room to grow. The ultra slim design goes anywhere, and its superb battery life of up to 20 hours continues long after mini-powered players have died.





With it?s built-in voice memo recorder you can quickly capture your thoughts and organize your ideas. And like all Rio players, the Rio Carbon uses simple menus and intuitive controls for easy one-handed operation. In the box with your Carbon is a USB cable for downloading music as well as battery charging from your computer. Also included is an AC power adapter and carrying case.





- 5GB* of memory stores up to 80 hours of MP3 or 160 hours of WMA music (up to 1250 MP3 or 2500 WMA songs)**



Weighs in at 3.6 ounces. Suggested price is $249. Uses Segate 1 inch drive. Actual size is not indicated. I suspect Apple will "answer" by upgrading the drive on the mini to the 6 GB version recently announced by Hitachi. Oh, yes that price. Way too much!



In May, Rio ranked second to Apple in the MP3 player market, holding a 14.6% share compared to Apple's 39.2%, according to the latest figures available from The NPD Group, which tracks sales at retail stores.



http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/sho....asp?model=267

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    Nice, I'm glad to see there's plenty of competition going on, even for the mini. Hopefully Apple will respond with a mini with longer battery life.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacsRGood4U







    Weighs in at 3.6 ounces. Suggested price is $249. Uses Segate 1 inch drive. Actual size is not indicated. I suspect Apple will "answer" by upgrading the drive on the mini to the 6 GB version recently announced by Hitachi. Oh, yes that price. Way too much!



    http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/sho....asp?model=267




    A few *hundred* CD capacity? At what bitrate? Are they CD singles? At 10 (average) songs per CD they are talking about as many as 3000 songs on that device. I have 3300 songs on my iPod and they take up about 14GB (many songs at >128kbps) but still I would have to rip the songs at an extra crappy bitrate to fit what they claim.



    I am happy to see competition but they are using some extra sleazy numbers to compete.
  • Reply 3 of 12
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    The interesting part here is how long it took for any of the competition to actually see that they had to compete with the mini. Endless rows of customers in line for a mini have been ready to be swooped up by the dosens by the company that could deliver the feature Apple couldn´t: Availability.
  • Reply 4 of 12
    macsrgood4umacsrgood4u Posts: 3,007member
    I believe that Rio actually announced a 4 GB drive player just before Apple was to announce the mini (or was it someone else). That product never made it to market, perhaps because at the time only Hitachi had the 1" drives and Apple seems to have first dibs on them. I wonder how Segate will do in terms of getting them made in quantity for September_release.
  • Reply 5 of 12
    Looks much bigger than the mini.



    Its still got a god awful way of traversing menus and such.



    The integration between online store, computer, and device still is not nearly as tight as the iTMS, iTunes, and iPod
  • Reply 6 of 12
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Imergingenious

    Looks much bigger than the mini.



    Its still got a god awful way of traversing menus and such.



    The integration between online store, computer, and device still is not nearly as tight as the iTMS, iTunes, and iPod




    I agree. The iPods really have a nice elegant control to allow navigation and playback. I've yet to see one of these "killers" come close.



    The iPod also is also agnostic as far as which hand it is best suited for. Many of the competitors seem to be designed to be used in a specific hand.
  • Reply 7 of 12
    joeyjoey Posts: 236member
    Actually smaller than the Mini... The menu system is equally as easy to navigate as the Mini... You don't need integration with any application... it's recognized as an external USB drive and builds an internal database based on ID3 tags on the fly.... basically drag and drop your MP3s... without any software... even the Mini needs iTunes.



    I don't understand why everyone is always so quick to bad mouth anything that isn't an iPod. I'm happy with my Mini... but I don't sleep with it... I don't pray to it... I listen to music on it.



    Rio introduced the first Mini type player, the Nitrus which used a 1" 1.5GB Cornice drive. That was out for quite some time before Apple released the Mini.
  • Reply 8 of 12
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:

    I don't understand why everyone is always so quick to bad mouth anything that isn't an iPod. I'm happy with my Mini... but I don't sleep with it... I don't pray to it... I listen to music on it.



    This site is called "Appleinsider" there should be no doubt why you see iPod fans here.



    The Rio unit looks decent. I'm not really vibing on the drag and drop because iTunes integration is precisely what draws people to the iPods(iPod sales didn't skyrocket until iTunes hit).
  • Reply 9 of 12
    badtzbadtz Posts: 949member
    ugly?
  • Reply 10 of 12
    wilcowilco Posts: 985member
    Someone stole my electric razor!
  • Reply 11 of 12
    scottibscottib Posts: 381member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Joey

    Actually smaller than the Mini...



    Carbon: 2.5?W x 3.3?H x 0.6?D = 4.95 in.^3

    Mini: 2"W x 3.6"H x 0.5"D = 3.6 in.^3
  • Reply 12 of 12
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Joey

    I don't understand why everyone is always so quick to bad mouth anything that isn't an iPod. I'm happy with my Mini... but I don't sleep with it... I don't pray to it... I listen to music on it.



    Whaa?



    I don't see anyone "bad mouthing" the Rio. I see people posting what they like about the Rio and what they don't. I don't see anyone "praying" to the Mini, like it's God or anything like that. It's fair to say that Apple's click weel is very hard to top or duplicate and that's the feature competitors seemed focused on.
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