Rating: 
Summary: Karma Police
Review: Had the Rio Karma for a total of 3 weeks before the hardrive crashed. I think I got the corked wine of the case. Ever since I started it up, it always made a piercing processor type noise, which Rio could not help me out with. Thank gawd it decided to give up the ghost before my warranty was out.At first, I was really impressed with the entire package. The Rio Music Manager Software is easy to navigate and use. I love the fact that is support Ogg Vorbis format. Easy to install, and a great way to manage your music from your desktop and move those changes over to the player. The hardware is also very slick. I see several complaints about the Rio's size. I have to say, it is little fatter than the iPOd, but it is much stockier -- like a high school wrestler. It is much easier to hold and feels much more sturdy than the iPod. The docking station is very cool -- glows blue like something from Mork-and-Mindy. Although disappointed in hardrive failure, I have to say that my experience has not soured my outlook on this product. I'm excited to get my replacement. Although Rio's Tech Support was not an entirely encouraging customer experience, they are replacing the product for me in the terms of the warranty. Although, a 90 day warranty on a delicate and expensive piece of electronics is not ideal. I'm looking for an extended warranty for this product. Hurry home Rio Karma, we miss you dearly.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing player
Review: I got the Karma for Christmas and couldn't be happier. It holds all my music, has wonderful sound, a great interface, and intuitive controls. I haven't experienced any problems with it in the month I've had it, and I hope to hang onto it for a long long time.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent product
Review: I must disagree with the people saying there is a high failure rate. This just ain't so. Most people are happy with their Karma... Also, the battery life does provide 15 hours, but if you're using Ogg files instead of MP3 files then it'll be about 10.
Rating: 
Summary: Repeated Problems
Review: I bought the Rio Karma for my son for Christmas. We were very impressed with how easy it was to set up and use. It was a clear winner with my son. He was the envy of all his friends. Plus, we were very happy that he could now put all his CD's on one device that he could easily carry in his pocket, rather than dragging around 100+ CD's as he had been doing. Unfortunately, my son's first Rio Karma developed problems the first week. It frequently hung or crashed. This was easily fixed using the reset feature. It's not easy to find since it's literally a pinhole on the underside of the unit. Inserting the point of a safety pin into the pinhole will reset the unit by causing it to reboot. The second problem was more serious. One of the volume control buttons stopped working. You could turn the volume down but not up. Because of this, the volume soon ended up at the lowest level and was not able to be turned up. Fortunately, we had purchased an extended warranty. Therefore, we returned the Rio to the store and received another one. The second one worked perfectly for about four weeks before it developed the same problem with the volume. We returned it as well today, and are now on our third Rio in less than two months. Since we have an extended warranty that guarantees replacement, we will continue returning defective Rio's for as long as it takes to get one that works. I can't for the most part disagree with all the glowing reviews of the Rio. I would have given it 4 or 5 stars myself if we hadn't repeatedly encountered problems that rendered it inoperative. We looked at other MP3 players and have yet to see something else that would beat the features in the Rio Karma. I would never buy one without an extended warranty, though. No matter how great this gadget is, it's of little use if you can't get one that works properly.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, not great
Review: PRO: Menu & Functionality are great
PRO: Sound quality is great.
PRO: Size & Capacity are good
PRO: USB 2.0 transfer times are great CON: Battery life claim of 15 hours is false, I've been getting 8-10 hours at best, not to mention you can't replace the battery yourself. CON: Software is terrible, very barebones. CON: Screen scratches easily, in a few months I will not be able to see a thing (carrying case would be nice) - and I have been very careful with it! CON: No carrying case or accessories available CON: Not really 20GB as advertised (Rio says 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes). Rio Karma software says 18.5GB (2^10 = 1024, not 1000)
Rating:
Summary: Best for mp3 enthusiasts.
Review: Had an archos jukebox recorder (modified to a 30gb harddrive) for about a year which i constantly updated with the alternative rockbox OS (www.rockbox.haxx.se). Rockbox made the experience much more enjoyable than the original archos firmware would. But, as the hardware began to wane in quality, i decided it was time to update to a new player. For Christmas I recieved the Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 40gb. I enjoyed it's luxorious space for all my music, but abhorred its horrible transfer software and lackluster firmware... So, i returned it and recieved this little baby. My only qualms are that it doesn't fit all of my music and that it does not support drag and drop. Other than that I love the thing to death for reasons already expressed in other reviews (form factor, price, intuitive and quick firmware, sound quality). I believe i will be enjoying this thing for quite awhile!
Rating:
Summary: Bad Karma
Review: I bought two of these for family members and gave them as Christmas gifts. One is already going back to Rio for an exchange. The hard drive died. There seems to be a unreasonably large number of people having this experience. Go to riovolution.com and you will see.
I like the unit. I like its features. When it works it works well. The problem in my eyes is that they have a fairly significant failure rate and the warranty is only for 90 days. If you buy my advice is that you buy an extended warranty, otherwise stay away from this player. I am sorry to give such a rating on what otherwise is a nice machine.
Rating:
Summary: Good Product, but didn't work for me
Review: I did a lot of research and this looked like the right hd player for me, but it wouldn't work with my usb 2 ports. The Karma would freeze Windows XP as soon as it was connected to the computer. Windows must have had trouble recognizing it. It did work on my friend's computer, so I really can't blame the product. Amazon has a good return policy. So -1 star for the hassle.
Rating:
Summary: Reviews
Review: I'll never understand why people feel the need to bash products that they don't own and have never used. This seems to be most commonly from Apple product owners after a product similar to one of their immaculately conceived products is released. I understand God him/her self must have been directly involved in releasing any product from Apple. I'm prepared to be struck down by lightning for daring to worship any false non-Apple products. I'll start of with the fact the the Rio that makes the Karma (and the Nitrus, Chiba, Fuse, etc) is NOT the old Rio/Sonic Blue responsible for the Rio Riot. It's now a totally different company. So making any comparison to how crummy the old company was is basically irrelevant. Feel free to stop by Riovolution.com and check out the forums there. You'll see people asking questions and getting plenty of help from other members as well as a handful of actual DNNA/Rio employees (including engineers)... see if you get that kind of support for your iPod. Every real review has put the audio quality of the Karma above the iPod. I should point out... that this is not just the case with the Karma... but quite a few other MP3 players as well. The iPod is not known for having outstanding audio quality. The Karma will run for about 15 hours (in reality) on a single charge. The iPod... 8 (if you're lucky)... of course it used to be higher... but in true Apple manner... form is more important than function... so they gave up some battery space to make the device slightly thinner... go figure. And to top things off... the 20GB iPod is about $120 more than the $20GB iPod. That's not because it's better (although an excellent marketing tool)... it's because Apple has always ripped off it's devoted customers. Those customers feel they need to justify why their products are so much better. The Karma doesn't play games, it doesn't have firewire, it doesn't have a to-do list, it won't play Apples proprietary music files... but neither will most other MP3 players out there. I'd prefer (and Rio does this) that programmers and engineers spend the time to make the best digital audio player they can. The Karma will play OGG Vorbis & FLAC files... the free (and generally considered superior) CODEC (Can the iPod play OGG? No!) I have nothing against the iPod. It is and has been an excellent player. But, it's way overpriced and, like any product, can only be on top for so long.
Rating: 
Summary: Not an IPod!
Review: It's a toy, not to be taken serious. Have you ever had dealings with this company? They are hardly Apple! Buy a Tivo, not Replay (this company). Buy a IPod, not this fake.
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