RIO CARBON PEARL (6GB)
Rio Carbon Pearl (6GB)
Manufacturer: Rio
Capacity: 5 GB
Weight: 3 oz 
Audio formats: MP3, WMA, WAV
Works with: Napster, eMusic, RealRhapsody, LiveDownloads, BuyMusic, AudioLunchbox, RealPlayer, Musicmatch
Battery life: 20
It haw not hit megafeatures, but the metropolis Carbon Pearl is digit of the prizewinning mini hornlike drive-based contestant for Windows Media users.
The example metropolis Carbon has conventional big approval since its start in August 2004. Despite having a organisation damage where the ingest of whatever third-party headphones created galling noise (this has since been fixed), the Carbon appealed to those who poverty a stylish, compact, and easy-to-use WMA-compatible contestant with superior shelling life. metropolis has swollen its Carbon offerings with 5GB and 6GB Pearl versions, which are pearly-white clones of the original, priced at $200 and $230, respectively. Although it’s absent whatever features institute in another players in its class, much as an FM tuner, the metropolis Carbon Pearl is digit of the prizewinning choices if you poverty a high-capacity contestant in a petite collection that is harmonious with Windows Media-based online penalization stores and subscription services much as Napster To Go. The Carbon information is eventually harmonious with the latter, thanks to a newborn liberated code update.
Design
Thanks in conception to the iPod Mini’s wild popularity in primeval 2004, Digital Networks pulled the block on its fashioned 4GB model, the Nitrus. In retrospect, that was a beatific advise because the juiced-up metropolis Carbon is a farther meliorate product.
The grayness Carbon was the prototypal contestant on the mart to apply Seagate’s 5GB mini hornlike drive; the albescent Pearl is acquirable in both 5GB and 6GB capacities (or most 250 more songs). The smart embody measures 2.5 by 3.3 by 0.6 inches, weighs 3.2 ounces, and is kindred in appearance to the 1.5GB metropolis Nitrus. Its smooth, amygdaliform edges and gradually narrow broadness wager at bag in the hand, and the contestant slips invisibly into nearly whatever pocket.
The lowermost half of the figure has a black, impermeable bounds that serves as a damper protector as substantially as a multipurpose grip, but the rest of the organisation is sheathed gleaming and plastic-coated metal that is imperishable and looks great. The prototypal separate of grayness Carbons had a organisation damage wherein whatever unify of headphones with a antimonial anulus around the humble of its block caused a brief circuit, resulting in galling static. metropolis has since rectified the difficulty in newer Carbon models.
Instead of the red, thumb-joint-wrecking lever institute on the Nitrus, the Carbon’s guidance and playback someone is a four-way aggrandize with a upraised Select mend in the middle. In constituent to this vast improvement, the Carbon features cool, flushed backlighting behindhand the buttons and the logo. On the upper-right corner, you’ll encounter an reinforced selectable travel rotate that controls intensity and acts as a alternative schedule guidance control. Directly beneath the rotate is the Menu button. Meanwhile, the Carbon’s topside features a headphone jack, a USB port, and the noesis button. Note the epilepsy of a stop switch–the duty is inconveniently belowground in the menu.
The test digit key characteristics are the 1.25-inch backlit pass and an desegrated mike fashioned for transcription vocalise memos. Despite its petite size, the sharp, colored LCD shows lots of germane content in a conscious manner. The Carbon’s coverall organisation deserves approval for its simplicity, its petite size, and its identifiable improvements over its Nitrus-based organisation origins.
In constituent to the earbuds, the contestant ships with a "premium" carrying case, a wall-wart noesis musician that connects to the Carbon via an included USB cable, a code disc, and a quick-start guide.
Features
The metropolis Carbon Pearl plays MP3s and WMA (including DRM-protected WMAs), as substantially as Audible files for every of you realistic bookworms. Unlike the large and more complicated metropolis Karma, it does not stop OGG or FLAC. Complete with a mic-level meter, the Carbon is also a accessible vocalise functionary that captures frequence as WAV files finished its decorous microphone. It is also an saint artefact to accumulation and circularize primary accumulation files.
The Carbon’s capableness is its simplicity–it’s the contestant for those who meet poverty to center to music. Part of this capableness is derivative from the clean, grown onscreen interface. The essential schedule includes: Play Music, Bookmarks, Settings, Voice Recorder, Recordings, and Stopwatch (yep, it entireness as one, too). Diving into schedule folders is an in-and-out affair, but the programme transitions are hurried and tidy. Selecting the Play Music collection takes you to a riches of options, including Play All, Album, Artist, Genre, Track, Year, New Music, Playlist, Spoken Word, and Recordings. Menu highlights allow a five-band bespoken EQ, ultimate vocalise recording, and a nifty bookmarking feature that not exclusive takes you directly backwards to the same locate in a strain but also remembers the player’s settings. In fact, you crapper easily marker songs by imperative and retentive the Select mend and choosing digit of figure marker spaces.
There’s lots of change onscreen, with scrolling strain info, a track-position bar, and instance elapsed. It’s category of nice, especially with the soothing backlighting overturned on, then tardily weakening to off. There’s also a View fashion that displays taste rate, codec, papers protection, and size, as substantially as the ever accessible fellow and time. The Carbon modify has a customizable Lock setting, message you crapper information whatever functions–such as volume–to impact modify when the code stop duty is on.
Software and drivers aren’t an issue. metropolis supplies its possess much-improved metropolis Music Manager, but the Carbon is also harmonious with Windows Media Player 10.0 and Apple iTunes, though the latter requires a plug-in. And it entireness with whatever of the penalization services that rely on WMA, much as Napster, MSN Music, Wal-Mart, and others. The Carbon takes plus of the stylish profession to hit a meliorate individual experience. It crapper autosync with Windows Media Player 10.0 and metropolis Music Manager, a multipurpose feature if you hit more than 5GB or 6GB of music. The Carbon information is eventually harmonious with Windows DRM 10.0 (also famous as Janus), which allows the contestant to accumulation and endeavor backwards songs downloaded from subscription services much as Napster To Go and Rhapsody To Go. This greatly enhances the attractiveness of this already dripless player.
The metropolis Carbon isn’t perfect, however–it’s absent individual features institute on large players. There’s no FM tuner, no line-in recording, and no element stop button. The programme has a some quirks too. Most notably, there’s no artefact to create a listing patch on the go, an especially essential feature on high-capacity players much as the Carbon. During testing, we also institute that if you ingest the travel rotate when selecting schedule options, you’ll intend kicked discover of the schedule and backwards into Player mode–a secondary irritation when you’re aquatics the menus.
Performance
One of the metropolis Carbon Pearl’s strongest commerce points is its extraordinary shelling life. At slightly more than 20 hours, it lasts twice as daylong as the Apple iPod Mini. The Carbon Pearl’s lithium-ion shelling is live via USB. Sound calibre also rates up there, with punchy, hiss-free sound. The Carbon could be louder, as we were exclusive healthy to unstable it up using the bespoken EQ. While the included earbuds are termed broad quality, the Carbon deserves to be listened to on large headphones. Owners of the prototypal Carbon separate should meet attain trusty their headphones do not hit the same antimonial anulus around the humble of the plug, which crapper termination in noise (see Design). Yes, there is a low-tech mend for this problem. But reaching from an otherwise lustrous player, it’s a dishonor that metropolis didn’t grownup this before the organisation went into production. Transfer instance over USB 2.0 was a solidified 3.2MB per second.