Rating: 
Summary: Best High-Capacity HD player on the market! Seriously!
Review: I've been previewing the Karma for a couple of months and thought I'd post my thoughts. Note: I am not an employee of Rio. First off, if you want really good unofficial tech support from other users, be sure to check out these two sites: rioworld.org and riovolution.com. Other users will be able to respond and help with any of your questions. As well, Help Section in desktop software and Karma UG makes it very easy to get the info you need in an easy-to-understand way. ***BATTERY*** 15 hours. ***CAPACITY*** 5000 MP3 128bit songs on 20GB model ***SOUND*** Rio is now owned by Denon Marantz, a high-end audio company. Dound quality is the highest priority and absolutely great. Ogg, FLAC, WMA and MP3 support!!! 30 mW/channel means that you can't turn the player to full volume without splitting your eardrums. 96 dB s/n from headphones, 98 dB s/n through docking station via dual line RCA lines out! Very crisp, clear, warm sound with low distortion and great bass response. The included Sennheiser earbuds are good, but I use my Koss KSC55 headphones. 5-band parametric EQ is customizable, enriching the sound, plus lots of presets. Con: a hip hop preset would be nice. ***DESIGN*** Buttons are easy to press/use, Riostick and Scroll wheel works very nicely. Rubber padding on one side, where player curves in, makes for a nice grip. Screen is big, sharp and clear. . ***KARMA FEATURES*** There's a crossfade. Con: max crossfade is 3 secs, but most people are happy with that. There's a neat VU Meter option. You can append/remove/insert songs to your playlist while music plays. My favourite feature: Re-order your current batch of selections, on-the-fly, as music plays!! Even save it as a new playlist, right on the player! The RioDJ on the player has countless options, allowing sophisticated random play. Menu button is swappable and customizable! You can set it to directly link to artist/track/album/etc menus. This makes getting to your music very fast. Scroll and Riostick can both be used (your choice) to then quickly scroll to your selection. Move through 1000's of songs and find the album or track you want in seconds. I'm not kidding. You can see six songs at once in your playlist and when you scroll the song menus. My iPodhead freak friend admits Karma navigates through music better than iPod and also sounds better than 3rd Gen iPods. If you want to pull up all the track info, one click will bring up all the ID3 tag info. There's a bookmark feature if you want to save your place in an audiobook or playlist. There's also a little stopwatch/lap timer that works well. Main Screen can show count down/up of track/total playlist. Con: nice if you could toggle through all of these options, rather than select one. There's an Autostandby feature that automatically turns the player off after your music playlist/selection of songs ends. Great for using Karma to go to sleep to. Con: No wake up alarm. There's a setting that will automatically re-start from the same song or same place within a song when you power back up. If you're a lefty, you can flip the screen 180 degrees!! Con: I'm a lefty and don't use it, as 90 degrees would have been preferred. ***FIRMWARE/SOFTWARE UPGRADE*** The great thing about Rio is they are constantly releasing upgrades with feature enhancements. Con: Customer Support is a toll line. ***ETHERNET DOCK*** Karma comes with an Ethernet dock that is amazing. The cool thing is that it lights up when you dock Karma, but this dock has meaty features. You can charge your player, transfer music via Ethernet, plug in your usb and it also has dual-line RCA lines out, which I have set up piggy-backed, to go to my computer and stereo! Rio did a nice job with this dock. ***TRANSFERRING FILES*** Transfer music via USB 1.1, Ethernet and USB 2.0, which is very fast (think one song per second). Con: Not a Universal Mass Storage Device, but the included software allows the player to run off a database far more complex than any mass storage tool could handle. You can transfer any type of file through Rio Taxi and you can upload the music from your Karma and save it to your computer, too. Con: Rio Taxi doesn't support hierarchal folders, but that isn't an issue for me. ***DESKTOP SOFTWARE*** Rio Music Manager (RMM) makes transferring music as easy as you can imagine. You can create playlists on your desktop, along with creating them on the player. You can listen to music through RMM and there's a RioDJ on RMM, too, that creates playlists based on presets. You can rip music in WMA, Ogg and FLAC and MP3 with incl. software. **WINDOWS EXPLORER INTEGRATION*** You can add the XP Powertoy and integrate Karma with My Computer and Explorer File Manager, allowing you to drag n' drop from your file manager. RMM allows full music auto-synch each time you connect, or customize many other types of synch profiles. RMM comes with Gracenote CDDB, so all your CD's will have all the info automatically added when you rip your CDs. RMM constantly scans your selected music folder new music to add on the next update. The second you plug in or dock your player, RMM automatically opens and auto-synch immediately starts, if you've chosen that setting, updating your player will all new music. So, it does everything for you. RMM is very solid and isn't crash happy, by the way. ***CONCLUSION*** I'm really happy with this player, minus the cons, listed above. It sounds just wonderful, has tonnes of great audiophile features and I really like the design. If you're an audiophile, this is your player! You won't be disappointed!!
Rating: 
Summary: Cool design, loads of bugs, hopefully all firmware...
Review: I am really keeping my fingers crossed here, hoping that Karma's bugs are all software bugs and will be fixed in the near future.Wasn't sure if all the problems I'm seeing are in the Rio Karma or in my not so new computer. Until I have downloaded their latest "firmware upgrade" today. All you have to do is read the release notes, beware of Rio's questionable choice of phrasing, and understand what their product really worth (today) - The first line in the release note mentions "French, Spanish localization" were added to the product - great! is if someone really cares... after that, a frightening list of real bugs, that are allegedly fixed by this new firmware release (version 1.41, dated January 6, 2004) is this Rio's idea of their customer's priorities, or are they just trying to confuse us with irrelevant information? Now for the bugs (which are NOT fixed, at least not completely, in revision 1.41) - not being plain USB 'mass storage device', the Karma needs to be connected to the PC using Rio's proprietary application software, a.k.a 'Rio Music Manager' or RMM. Now, either the RMM software, the Karma's firmware, the Karma hardware, or any combination of the above, has bugs - since some WMA and MP3 tracks simply fail to transfer to the Karma's hard drive, failures are persistent - if a file does not transfer once, it will NEVER transfer.
I am talking about files that play perfectly with Windows Media Player and WinAmp. Based on three weeks experience, ~98% of tracks were uploaded fine, but, I still have some songs that I simply cannot upload to my brand new Karma. Fix those bugs Rio! (firmware version 1.41 doesn't deliver the promised fixes)
Rating:
Summary: Rio Karma: Great...In theory
Review: The Rio Karma has some great features at a reasonable price point. However some of the features don't work (in my experience) and the firmware is very buggy. The only reason I have kept my Karma is because of the Ogg support. Otherwise I would trash it in a heartbeat. If you use Linux (yes, I know it is not supported) the only way you can communicate with the device is through the ethernet interface (no kernel support yet), and that doesn't work unless you use a x-over cable directly to your machine. Yuk.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!!!
Review: I have a Rio Nitrus but I got the opportunity to play with one of the Karma's when my boss picked one up for himself. Here is a comparison between the two: Size (Physical)
Nitrus: Very small.
Karma: Small. Wider and thicker than the Nitrus (but a little shorter).
Alternatives: Other than the Nitrus, this is smaller than anything else out there, including IPod and Creative's Zen. Size (Hard Drive)
Nitrus: 1.5GB
Karma: 20GB. This makes the physical size to hard drive size ratio much better than the Nitrus and anything else out there.
Alternatives: Some go as high as 60GB. If you need more than 20GB then the Karma is not for you.
Carrying Case
Nitrus: None
Karma: None. Come on, folks!!! I'm disappointed that Rio doesn't even make one we can buy. The Nitrus fits in my jean pockets with no problem. The Karma fit with a little bit of difficulty. I run with my Nitrus all the time and have not had any problems with it. If you are planning on doing physical activities with a large mp3 player than consider the Nitrus first.
Alternatives: Most have a carrying case included. This is my largest gripe about Rio's large capacity mp3 players. Battery Life
Nitrus: 16 hours
Karma: 15 hours. Other than a hiccup on the Nitrus when I first got it, this number has proven to be quite accurate. Both perform for hours on end. I've only ran out of batteries once because I really wanted to see how long it would go.
Alternatives: Creative and Dell last about 14-16 hours. IPod is only 8 hours (yuck). Screen:
Nitrus: Good
Karma: Great!!! The screen is larger than the Nitrus. While the navigation menu is the same as the Nitrus, I do like the larger screen and the ability to scroll through the songs with the scroll button. Unlike the Nitrus, the scroll button is actually useful. My son, who can barely read, handles both menuing systems quite easily while listening to the music he likes (his own little playlist of songs). Alternatives: Karma is better, or just as good, as anything out there except for the IPod. The menus are intuitive and easy to navigate. Volume Buttons:
Nitrus: Flimsy, I'm afraid these will fall off.
Karma: Much better positioned and they feel a lot more stable, as well as the power button. I very much approve of this improvement. File Transfer:
Nitrus and Karma: Very fast. At USB 1.1 (laptop) I get about 1 track per 8 seconds. At USB 2 (desktop) I get that speed down to less than a second. I wish this had a Firewire option so I could have the blazing speeds on my laptop.
Alternatives: Some have Firewire but you can't out-pace the USB 2 speeds. I can't attest on the Ethernet transfers. In the end, I am very happy with both the Nitrus and Karma. For me, the Nitrus wins because of its small size. Because of the blazingly high transfer rates, loading it up with my desires of the day is no problem (yet, anyways) and I haven't even come close to filling it up anyways. The Karma is excellent for storing EVERYTHING and not having to worry too much about unloading and loading music. I still with they had a case with these. The Karma comes highly recommended for those with high capacity appetites.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Player but watch for HD Defects!
Review: Yep I suffered initially a HD Failure from a lemon Karma however when i contacted tech support (it was within a week of my purchase anyhow) they assured me i could replace it and told me to go back to circuit city if i had any troubles with them i was told to give them my case number. Switch was flawless. That aside the Karma works beautifully the included software is awesome though for playing music through it on the computer isnt the greatest (Cant slide the music back and forth within a song or see time remaining etc ont he computer.) It automatically updates to. The ethernet port is great you can plug it into your network and access the Karma as if another computer making it effectively a networked up jukebox anyone can use! :-) The battery life is terrific as is the bright blue LCD screen. The scroll wheel is a nice add on to and button response time is excellent. I have used the Ipod and Nomad Zen NX also neither of them compare in terms of transfer speed, stability, size, or battery life. Highly recommend but get a third party warranty incase of an HD Failure!
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible
Review: I've never written a review before, but I felt the need with this product. Everyone who says this product breaks down is correct. I've had mine for 4 months and now the hard drive is shot. It wasn't abused or mishandled it just flat out broke. Before that it was a great mp3 player, the software was easy to use and I had no complaints. Now it was just a huge waste of money.
Rating:
Summary: RIO GETS IT RIGHT!!!
Review: I have been purchasing mp3 players since they first came out. From the first Nomads and Archos HD players, to the latest 1.5 gb mini jukeboxes. Alot of them have some good features (Nomad), great design (Ipod), compact size (Rio Nitrus), however none seem to have put it all together until now. The Pros - Nice compact design, fits comfortably in one hand with user friendly controls. Fantastic firmware. Unlike the Rio Nitrus, It is very easy to locate quickly any of the thousands of songs on its 20 gb hard drive. You can create Playlists from the unit itself. You can use the RIO DJ funtion to make a quick list of your favorite songs. It would take up too much space to list the rest of the functionality, but it all works very well. The battery life is a major plus. I am sure the Ipod would last 8 hours if you let it run and never touch it. However the Karma has lasted me at least 15 hours, and that is with me making playlists and playing with the settings. The sound is top notch and the ear buds they include are better than most. The Cons - I can't really list any, but have read that some people have had problems with the Karma crashing or not funtioning properly. I can't comment on that because mine has worked fine for about a month. I am more satisfied with the Karma than any other mp3 player and can recomend it strongly.
Rating:
Summary: Crashed twice
Review: I received a Rio Karma for Xmas. I had it less then a week and the unit crashed. Hard drive failure. I call Tech support and after some time on the line they replaced it. I had my second player for 3 months and was using it only in the dock hook to my stereo and the hard drive crashed again. Hard Drive Failure again. I called Tech support and they said they were going to ship me another unit. I got the e-mail tracked it and was looking forward to it arriving BUT they shipped it to the wrong address. I called and they confirmed that they shipped it to the wrong address and said another one would be shipping, this was a week ago. I called today and it still has not shipped as yet. If you are looking to buy a Karma you may wish to bid on mine on e-bay because when the replacement arrives that is where it will be and I will put the funds towards an I-pod.
Rating:
Summary: Really an awesome player. Rio did a great job
Review: My first impression was that it looked good and was very small. It's not the thinnest player ever made but it's still small enough to shove in your front pocket. The buttons are placed nicely to accomodate a right handed person. It seems that a left handed person would not feel as comftorable with it. There is the Rio stick (red) on the front which can be used for moving and selecting through menus as well as song controling (play, pause, stop etc). The scroll wheel on the top right can navigate through menus like the stick but cannot be used for song controlling. This give the user options as to the use of the player, which way is most comftorable to them. I wont go into all the features and settings but i will say a little about how the interface works. There are two "modes" Play mode and menu mode. Play mode is where you can use the song controls and menu mode is where you select songs to play, make playlists, etc. To switch between modes, you simply hit a button. Moving into menu mode from play mode does not stop the playback of your songs. The cradle that you set it in to recharge and connect to the computer is optional. You can plug the cables directly into the player if you wanted to. The cradle is simply a nice place to set it and a way to access a network. The player is an amazing product, although, there are some minor things i do not like. The biggest thing is in order to control the playback of your song, you must be in play mode. If you are in any menu other than the main menu screen (a sub-menu?) you must hit the menu button multiple times to return to play mode. This is annoying if you want to quickly change songs or pause playback for a second. The rio compared to the ipod? The ipod is known to be the best player on the market. I agree with this, it is made extremely well. The biggest reason that many people don't get ipods is their price. The 20 gb version of the ipod is $600. The Rio Karma is far less than this. Also, many people dislike Apple and the ugly white colors of about every one of their products. The rio is Smaller height wise but thicker and a bit wider. It has many similar features. One of the big things the Karma does not have that the ipod does is games. I do not own an ipod, i have only used my friends. From my experiences, it is the best player out there, but for its cost, you get the least bang for your buck. I just went over some of the things about the player that i though would want to have in order to make a decision of the vast number of mp3 players out there. The bottom line is that the Rio Karma is an awesome player that gives you a lot of bang for your buck.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect MP3 Player
Review: Try as I might, I cant think of anything wrong with this player. Well, maybe it's not quite as cool looking as the ipod mini, but with 5x the space, better everything else, and less $, who would want one of those? Also, the battery really does last for a minimum of 16 hours.
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