Print
Discuss
Send to friend
RSS feedsApple's iPod mini will face another rival on Friday when Rio launches a smaller and more powerful player at the same price.
At 90g and 6.4 x 8.4 x 1.5cm, the new Rio Carbon is significantly smaller than its iPod mini rival. It also has a claimed battery life of 20 hours compared to the iPod's eight, and comes with an extra gigabyte of memory.
The first 500 Rio Carbons sold will come with a specially engraved casing and three months' subscription to Napster, as well as 20 free downloads.
"As the first company with a 5GB player on the market we wanted to offer our customers something they can treasure for a long time," said Dan Torres, vice president of Rio Audio, in a statement.
"We feel that the 5GB capacity will hit a sweet spot with our customers and the initial response from the media and our retailers to the Rio Carbon has been phenomenal."
US pricing is $249, the same as the iPod mini.
The Carbon uses USB 2.0 to download files and can handle music in MP3, WMA and Audible formats. It is compatible with Mac and PC platforms.
See also:
Portable flash players to shake up the market 23 Sep 2004
Vaio Pocket turns up the volume with 40GB memory for music and digital images 16 Sep 2004
IPod challenger can hold 85 hours of video and 9,000 songs 02 Sep 2004
Carbon player boasts longer battery life and more memory than Apple rival 03 Aug 2004
Portable MP3 players are the accessory du jour. Succumb to temptation with our round-up of these tiny objects of desire. 10 Jun 2004All Peripherals
del.icio.us
Digg this
reddit!
