"Rio Karma, RIP good buddy. Next?"

I wonder what is going to replace it.

The Chroma, the Karma hasn't been in production since December (if my sources are reliable). Rio could have done with a shorter life cycle to the next product:

Ie you have 1 Karma and in that time: ipod 2g, 3g, 4g, mini, mini 2g, photo (not counting shuffle as is different product).

Waiting for Chroma certified technical infos and of course user reviews...
Anyway Rockbox project seems more attractive (no commercial interest so longer support very probably)

Good grief, Apple have had 6 bites at the cherry and they still haven't got it right. (Earth to Steve Jobs: there isn't supposed to a pause between the 3rd & 4th movements of Beethoven's 5th).

If you get it right first time (Karma), there's no need for constant new models. And now it is no more. The world has gone mad.

partially agree with you Cliveb,
Partially only since the karma isn't absolutely "white": some reliability issue, no UMS feature, no remote and only 20Gb (too small spécially for lossless)...

I guess there is a "medium way" between changing every 3 months and once a year...

Just my opinion...

In that time though people who had a ipod g1, might have bought a g3 and then a photo, so more money for Apple.

Depends on how you define getting it right. If it's having gapless playback, then yes, they stilll haven't gotten it right. If it's kicking everyones ass in the sales race, then they have gotten it right, or at least right enough for now.

Holy crap - endusers are complaining because a vendor doesn't enforce a hardware-race on the customers? Too long lifecycles? Yes, please! The karma imho was among the best portables. And it managed to do that with a long lifecycle - so what? I agree - its kinda funny that endusers have taken the job of the marketing departments - they now demand consumption of hardware-fastfood themselves - the more the better.

Somebody get me back to my planet - i seem to have landed on the wrong one.

- Lyx

"Holy crap "



The thing is you now have iPods with much more storage space than a Karma, 20GB is looking small (regardless if most peoples audio collection is about 2GB). The killer would be for Rio to release a chroma that is aac (m4a aac + Apple Lossless) compatible.

Well, i agree that maybe an "interim version" - the same as the original karma, just with a bigger hdd - would have made sense. But i disagree with the other arguments you mentioned earlier.

- Lyx

I got a new karma less than a month ago and I love it!! It is hard to believe that it came out about two years ago and is still technically the most advanced player in the market yet! I am not unhappy that they have stopped producing it. If the Chroma ever comes out, I will definitely buy one-not now. Maybe a year or so from now.