Rating: 
Summary: Unreliable, bad service and poor warranty policy
Review: I like the form factor, etc., but it has never worked well and service has been a nightmare. I received the player for Christmas. It stopped working (reporting that most tracks were bad, then simply freezing). After uploading firmware, resetting and reformatting, and then reloading music, it still didn't work. I emailed user support, which bounced me to a customer service phone number, where the representative told me to call technical support. Eventually (after a telephone menu that I had to try twice because it was confusing and read by someone with poor English), I reached someone who confirmed that I had tried all the fixes he could suggest and that my machine was defective. He gave me an RMA and an address. I mailed it back in early February, but did not get a replacement for two months because there were "shortages" (although I saw on Amazon that new ones remained in stock). THe replacement eventually came in a box with a label saying the 90-day warranty continued to run without pause and was not extended during service. That meant that the replacement had no warranty, because the 60 days of waiting had more than run out the warranty. Alas, the replacement had the same problems (bad tracks, freezing).I'm sure I could make enough noise to get another replacement, but life is too short to work through Rio's poor support system and I have no confidence the second replacement will work. I won't consider another Rio product any time soon.
Rating: 
Summary: Tried it - tried another - going back
Review: I bought the Rio Karma because of the Vorbis Ogg playback. I liked it a lot, but then left it on a plane! Got sucked into the iRiver publicity - especially liked the idea of a genuine plug-n-play 40G hard drive, so bought one of those. Now am planning to give it to my brother and buy another Rio Karma. Reasons:
- the major advantage is 'on the fly' playlists which allow you to insert or append any file whilst playing a track or a playlist without closing the playlist - you can even save playlists that you create without needing to be connected to a computer
- finding songs, with alphabetical listing is very quick
- ability to view playlist whilst playing and select next song to be played
- output is loud enough to play my Sony portable speakers without requiring batteries or power
- gapless play and cross-fade possibilities Things that bug me about the Rio Karma:
- have to use the Music Manager to transfer files to and from (ie it is not useable as a drag'n'drop hard drive)
- the synchronisation part of the software simply doesn't work The iRiver is great, sexy, 40G and has more (and they are useful) facilities than, for example, the iPod. However it does not read my ID3 tags properly, is not useful for finding files - long time to scroll, does not crossfade, has hung on several occasions, output is not big enough to use with my portable speakers, cannot show playlists... Depends what you want. with Rio Karma you can actually DJ a party and know whats going on... I love it. Just hope that the 40G 'hard drive' version comes out soon.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Buy What a Rip off
Review: When i first got my rio I loved it, it worked fine for a while I used it all the time and didn't misstreat what so ever, i didnt even take it jogging which i was told i could. Then about 1 month after the warranty when it was sitting on a shelf plugged into some speakers it just stoped working. I couldnt believe it, I mean I had done nothing wrong to it. Then I called the company and was told that it doesnt break it must be my fault. I can not believe that a proudct with a complicated miniturized hard drive would come with only a 90 day warranty. I think the company relizes that this product is easily breakable and give it a cheap warranty and sell it anyway. This sounds like a horrible buissnes practice to me, and I will never, as long as I live buy another one of their products.
Rating: 
Summary: Great little player with a great amount of problems
Review: I really really want to like this unit. I read about it for weeks before my purchase and I knew about the problems people had with it but I guess I was hoping that Id get lucky and the people complaining were just a vocal minority. The list of things I like about the Karma goes on and on. The sound from this unit is great, the supplied ear buds provide amazing quality, its very easy to use, its got tons of really cool features like the blue flashing base, several play list editors, VU display, incredible battery life, support for tons of differnt audio formats etc etc etc Now the bad. The very first time I started the unit up it froze. Not a huge deal just get a pin or something and hit the reset button. After this I also updated the firmware just in case. After the update it only froze once more when I had tried playing a corrupt file that I later found out my PC wouldnt play either.
The screen is very prone to scratching so I got a PDA screen protector and trimmed it to fit the screen. Rio doesnt seem to offer any authorized cases of the unit.
2 weeks after I received the karma the scroll wheel just feel out. Just completely feel out for no apparent reason. It looks as though it was glued onto whatever mechanism it is attached too. The plastic case is very cheaply put together which is a huge shame considering how great the technology is inside. It seems like the case just snaps together and hes a few tiny screws here and there to hold it in one piece. Because of this it comes loose rather quickly. Anyway after this and a few other problems I returned my Karma, it just wasnt not worth it. Id gladly pay a little extra if this thing had durable construction. Metal perhaps, or at least a higher quality plastic. If you decide to get one good luck, its a great piece of techology in a very fagile shell.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Player / Risky Hardware
Review: GOOD:
This is the best player you can get - it's affordable, small, tons of features, cool dock, great battery life, and has some panache of not being an ipod. BAD:
90 day warranty! Tons of hard drive failures. Mine failed at the 110 day mark. I hit it hard, really hard, and it worked again, but I'm now fighting with my credit card company to get money for a repair. If you buy this, you MUST get an extended warranty, or you'll be sorry. Take that as part of your purchase price, and getting an iriver or ipod might make more sense. There's no excuse for a $300 device to have a 90-day warranty and an exceptionally high rate of failure.
Rating:
Summary: I loved them while they lasted.
Review: When I first got my Rio Karma (Christmas 2003) I couldn't believe how cool it was and how much I enjoyed it. The interface is far beyond what a lot of the other products have to offer, and the size (small) and capacity (huge) are amazing. I especially loved how easy its software is to use and I also loved that you could pick from a variety of equalizers based on what kind of music you are listening to. The honeymoon is over. My first one started freezing up a couple of weeks after I got it, but that's easy to fix - just reset it with a paperclip in the little hole in the bottom of it. Little did I know then that it was an omen of things to come. The hard drive died about a month and a half after I got it. I am really gentle & careful with electronics and had installed all of the updates for it - this was not abused equipment. Customer service agreed to take it back and replace it with a new one. After 9 weeks and a few phone calls from me, I finally got one back - a refurbished one with a scratched-up screen. It came with a 30-day warranty, and they would not extend the original 90-day warranty even though they'd had it for most of said time. So, I re-ripped and burned my music onto it - I was so glad to have it back that the chore, while pretty time-consuming, was worth it. Returned was my little companion for long subway rides, walks outside, etc. Last week it started freezing up again. I've had it for about a month, and it died today. I am so annoyed that I am leaving this review to warn anyone interested in this product to heed the criticisms of it. I *never* leave bad reviews for things, but this product is an exception I need to make. The company is truly unapologetic about their product. I left a very cheerful review for the Karma when I first got it because it really is a cool little thing, but in my case, it has turned out to be a huge disappointment. I am glad that I have the store warranty - at least it is still covered under that. You can bet that 1. I will not be sending it back to Rio again, even if their warranty hadn't expired yet and 2. that I will be using the store's flexible policy to get any product for the original purchase amount - and it won't be another Rio. When the first one died I thought that I just ended up with the inevitable dud that happens every now & then. Now that the second one has died, I really believe that it's the product and not just bad luck. I suspect that many of the other glowing reviews might change too after they've had their Karmas for awhile - this many bad reviews can't bode well for it.
Rating:
Summary: if yours hasn't gone up, you're lucky!
Review: i'll keep this short. it's been said here already but i'd like to reiterate, just to drive home what the main problem with this product is.....the warrantee! the only HD player in it's price class w/out a year warrantee. my karma failed on the 89th day of the warrantee. it took 1 month for the replacement to come. the replacement is only as good as the original warrantee. i had my replacement about 10 days before that went up too. now i'm SOL, like so many others. these things are very f***in cool. if the karma was better build, more consistent, it could be the best mp3 player out there. also frustrating is the customer care for rio. rio's customer care, like so many tech companyies now, is in india. nice guys, but hard to understand, and basically just reading off from a manual. these companies are so greedy! why else have customer support in india? to save money! a highly paid worker in india makes less then 10k USD. the stupid 90 day warrantee is so greedy it's just sick. many of these will die after the warrantee, as mine and other's have. just when you're really enjoying the product.....crash.
rio karma isn't going to last long with so many unhappy customers!
Rating:
Summary: Rio Karma is Excellent!!
Review: I see all the bad reviews and I'm frankly shocked. I have had no problems with my unit, which I've owned since January. I also own an IPOD and consider the Karma to be a better more versatile player. It plays more music formats and songs can transfered using Windows or ethernet which allows use with other operating systems. The only suggestion I have is not to exercise with the Karma as it is more fragile than a player like the Ipod. Based on my experience I would highly recommend the Karma.
Rating:
Summary: 90 day warranty!
Review: I am afraid to say that my son's rio karma's hard drive failed 4 months after purchase .Otherwise he really loved it . I wonder how many others have gone the same way . I wish I had taken out an extended warranty
Rating:
Summary: Bad Karma
Review: What a let down. I was really pumped up about the Karma. All the reviews were great.But common knowledge is, if you don't have money to waste dont buy a gadget when it's new to the market and I dont. But knowing this I still dropped more than $300 for the player.I am trying to load my music,and it is getting really hot in the docking station to hot and the little red button never works properly.I can deal with that. So I load my music collection. That was a little time consuming yet it goes pretty well. The dj setting is pretty cool and after a little use you get the hang of the controls.The sound is great at 196 bps.Then at about 8 or 9 hours of listening time it starts clicking and popping then it freezes. I try the reset no help. Contact Rio no help.I have had the unit for a while so I do a little more research. I find out this is a common problem.That goes back to wait a while before buying. I am S.O.L.My warranty is just over 90 day take a hint.I am not a happy camper! Maybe I just got a lemmon.I laugh, Could be Bad Karma. I will buy another player but I do not think it will be a Rio.
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