The Rio Carbon C: what could have been
posted Aug 27th 2005 6:20PM
So after the announcement of Rio's demise yesterday we
were finally able to come out with the insider details we weren't legally able to show you before. For a couple weeks
now we've been sitting on a 90-page user manual sent to us from a reliable unnamed high-level Rio employee on the
no-longer-forthcoming Rio Carbon C, what was to be their 2005 flagship device. But man, talk about rubbing salt into
open wounds—the Carbon C was set to outclass pretty much everything out there.
So what was it going to sport? Well, to start it was going to have 20 and 30GB drive models, a high res screen, theme
support, scroll wheel, dock, remote (sigh), USB charging, mass-storage compliancy, line-in/FM recording, PlaysForSure,
picture viewer, and, of course Audible and MP3 support. (FLAC and OGG support were not mentioned in the manual.)
It might also frustrate you to learn that they had plans to bring the regular old Carbon up to 8GB, and that the
Carbon C was so close we could almost taste it. Like, they were seriously entering production about to ship these
things for the holidays—it was freaking done. Ah well, c'est la vie.
[Thanks, Liz]
Guess even the peeps at Rio thought that Duran Duran joke was funny.
Lest we forget...
"scroll wheel"? How would it have worked? Was it to be a mechanical (a la 1st gen iPod) wheel? Is that the thing with raised bumps on the front?
Sounds like a pretty good device. Too bad we'll never see it, I guess.
RIP Rio :(
Mechanical scroll wheel with slight physical stops > crappy touch wheel.
ARGH
someone with money please buy Rio and revive them NOW
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo :(
chroma.ytmnd.com
chromer.ytmnd.com
If it already entered production where will they be dumped? I want one.
Really sad. I was holding off on purchasing a Karma as I knew that something like this was coming soon.
Not soon enough though. Really Rio, you had a good thing going. If you were to tell me that the player was going to have gapless playback as well, I might even shed a tear. {sniff}
Oh no! it was because the ipod was far superior to anything ever invented ever! and it was fairly prices! that's it!
or is it because of the corporate worship?
I will never forgive Apple.
i really hope the iPod crack was a joke, and i hope this doesnt turn into another iPod war, like the 19" laptop deal (wth?)
but, if i heard this was coming out at a reasonable price i might of held off on a purchase of an mp3 player, mechinical scroll wheel would be pretty nice (for those days you feel old school ;)
but wait, why are there little things "menu" "|>" ">" around the wheel a la clickwheel? maybe thats why they didnt go, stevie likes to sue everyone he can
"or is it because of the corporate worship?"
If it was just corporate worship, it seems strange to me that all your silly prostrating before Rio has yet to rouse whatever unholy god is in charge of these things. Hell, The posts on Rio articles alone would have made it number one according to that assumption.
This is just business, folks. If they thought they could have made it inexpensively enough and sold it at a price point where the profit margin could have at least financed future development, they would have. Clearly, they couldn't.
cpsethgt:
Blaming Apple for this is like blaming Tiger Woods if Vijay Singh doesn't win a tournament.
This looks like it could have been great. I'm an iPod user myself, but I don't want to see one ring to rule them all, either. It sucks sucks sucks that Rio is gone, especially in a world where the Oakley Thump gets a budget.
Without Rio, there might not be any consumer MP3 players at all. If they hadn't fought the RIAA back at the beginning of it all, we'd still be using Discmans.
You want to blame someone? Blame D&M Holdings, and SigmaTel. There's your weasels.
what could have been??? ill tell you what it IS----UGLY.
I bet there are some that will become available, like the first couple production ones or something.
Haha, I like the Engadget logo where the female headphone jack should be. :P
[top right image] wow, it has a NI! out jack. Is that a special feature for Monty Python fans? Still, this does not appease us.
"but wait, why are there little things "menu" "|>" ">" around the wheel a la clickwheel? maybe thats why they didnt go, stevie likes to sue everyone he can"
Actually, Rio's had that for a while.
http://www.zosia51.beep.pl/Zdjecia/CD_MP3%20playery/rio/karma/1rio%20karma%20swB4.JPG
http://www.beta.it/beta/bs029801/2099.3/2099lg21.jpg
http://ouziel.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/rio_1.jpg
"Haha, I like the Engadget logo where the female headphone jack should be. :P"
Remote port, you mean? I like it too. Keen eye...
"You want to blame someone? Blame D&M Holdings, and SigmaTel. There's your weasels."
It is indeed D&M's fault Rio is dead. They made their products iPod compatible, but not compatible with their own goddamn product. They never advertised. Ever.
Sigmatel, on the other hand, is doing a good thing. Everybody who worked at Rio that would have been fired were actually moved to Sigmatel, keeping their jobs. They'll be continuing to program, and the Rio interface will live on in products that use Sigmatel chips. That's good, at least.
cpsethgt:
"I will never forgive Apple."
Yes, because we all know that Apple sent a wrecking crew over to tear down Rio's HQ and kick their dogs...
Ugh.
love rio, but what about this was "set to outclass pretty much everything else"? remote shipping with device is nice, but everything else seems par for a dap on the robust side of average. and if this was to be the final design, well, meh, eh? meh.
"... sent to us from a reliable unnamed high-level Rio employee..."
"Thanks, Liz"
Hmm...
score one for the iPod
Whoa Whoa Whoa.... hold on a second. ok, I'll mourn Rio for a moment...... But what the hell else is Engadget sitting on that they aren't publishing! Post everything! Now I'm saddend that I'll have to look elsewhere for the really really inside, leageally questionable scoop. What ever happened to the 1st amemendment?
Andy
So which set of pics is most recent/correct? These, or the ones over at dapreview?
Tom: Both. The version shown at DAPReview was the scrapped Chroma. This was the revise they were discussing, making this the most recent. At least, this is what I've gathered.
I'd love to see that manual...
#23: Its called a non-disclosure agreement. Now that the company's bascially gone, the agreement doesn't apply.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement
To clarify a few things:
The Carbon C was actually a whole line of players. The one shown here is the 30GB one, but there were plans for 6 gig and 8 gig ones with similar features, but in regular Carbon cases. These wouldn't have remotes or line in or a dock or anything like that. There wasn't a 20 gig model planned, but there was a 40 gig model planned that would have had even more features.
Yes, it did FLAC and ogg. Yes, it's a mechanical scroll wheel with slight physical stops on the way, and the wheel clicks in each direction. Plus, there's a button in the center. So it's kind of like a cross between the mechanical wheel on gen. 1 ipods, and the click wheel on current ipods. Also, it was targeting 30 hour battery life.
It wasn't actually entering production yet, but it was pretty close.
We didn't sign a non-disclosure agreement -- actually, our inside source for this info simply asked us to wait until now to publish this. We normally don't do that, but our source was concerned that they'd be easily identified if we didn't wait, and it didn't seem like it was worth screwing them over. Ok?
maybe it needed a better screen and design...
In my opinion, colour screens are a step backward. Who really needs/wants to look at a tiny picture of the album cover or a tiny, pixelated movie?! Bleh.
I guess it would've been nice to have a good Linux player though. Maybe someone will buy the plans from them?
I'm so depressed by this. For so long I've been waiting for another player with a scroll wheel that isn't an ipod. Now it looks like it's never gonna happpen :(
The line-in is nice..
Yeah, I have to say that I've been waiting for the next big Rio product for several years now. Who should I look to for a stylized portable 40+ gig FLAC player now?
Don'y worry, SigmaTel now owns all the rights and IP to that product above, along with the Chroma, Rio Central/Receiver/Car/Karma and many other products. Along with the engineering team out of Cambridge that built these devices. So sure, while Rio is dead, the technology will hopefully resurface somewhere.
While the Carbon C is interesting, the SDIO slot in the Chroma had my attention more.
DAPREVIEW.com has real-life pics of a similar RIO concept which was known as the Chroma...
It looks really slick
The market is far too crowded at this point. Probably a maximum of 2 or 3 players can hope to be successful. This is going to take design, marketing adroitness and luck. I don't see anyone with the right combination at this time.
We will see several other failures in the next two months. CEOs are going to pull the plug on what they see as losing battles. The holiday season is just too expensive this time around.
I'll pay $500 for a device that:
1) has excellent sound quality
2) is small and light (ie no thicker or heavier than an iPod Mini)
3) supports gapless MP3 playback
4) has a built-in USB2 charge/data male connector
5) has a built-in LAN connector (w/out needing a dock)
6) has 8GB or more
7) has well-placed controls, including a scroll wheel
8) shows up as a mass storage device (w/out drivers)
9) allows for playlist management on-the-fly
11) built-in bluetooth and software that allows it to double as a remote for your computer (like Airclick) as well as being able to transfer files
12) built-in wifi
13) java-based platform independent manager and player that works through LAN, USB, BT, and wifi
14) built-in webserver
15) replaceable battery
The Karma had a lot of those things but after using it for several months, I sold it because of its weight and thick form-factor.
#2.
My Nitrus plus most other models already have a scroll wheel. It's exactly like the one on your mouse.
does this mean there are a bunch of these sitting in a warehouse somewhere? If they were already produced but not yet distributed. Eh? That'd be amazing if it would be possible to get some.... maybe?
No, they weren't in production yet. Really close, though :)
Very sad news indeed. I much prefer the advantages of the Karma to the iPod. This would have been my next DAP and I hope that it gets incarnated in some form. Perhaps if we make enough noise SigmaTel will hear us.
I'm happy to beat on SigmaTel to let them know we're out here. I doubt they'll listen though.
I never would have guessed my Karma was going to have to last me as long as it will now that I can't get decent FLAC support on a 20+Gig DAP.
Very unhappy. I wonder if the brainiac that thought he could save a few dollars by buying inferior hard drives for the Karma ever realized he was torching the company (eventually) in the process...
I bought a Carbon for my son at Xmas. Considered the iPod mini but the Carbon was smaller and much cooler looking. In April I was back in the market and ended up buying 2 iPods - a 6gb mini and a 40gb photo. What changed was realizing the importance of on-the-fly playlist creation (Carbon can't do that unless they added it in the Plays-for-sure firmware) and the advantage of a docking port. If you want to use a Carbon as anything other than a player that sits in your pocket, it's not convenient. By including a docking port in the iPod that can power, control, and get audio output, Apple directly addressed a huge need for integrating the player with cars and boom boxes and effectively created this ecosystem around iPod. This Rio model still appears to lack such a capability. Rio should have recognized that to compete with iPod they had to create the most important accessories in order to have a competitive offering for the consumer. Rio didn't do that. I wish they had but my wishes don't count for much.
Without the unnecessary recording stuff this device is similar to the Archos Gmini XS 202. The Archos sports 20 GB, connects like a USB Harddrive AND PlaysForSure. And in Germany it runs at 190 Euro at Amazon.de.
i want to cry
Why does everyone think this is ugly? I would've been first in line to buy one. I've been looking for a good-looking iPod replacement for years to upgrade from my Rio flash-based player (which has since left production). Really, to me, the iPod is just an over-priced white box. I could've designed that. Think about it. A 4 GB Mini costs the same as a 5 GB Rio Carbon, and the Carbon comes with a voice recorder. Personally, I think the iPod is the Microsoft of portable audio. They think they're king, and market-share wise they are, but are there better players, that look good, perform well, and are cheaper, too.