...a RIO Carbon mp3 player that is. Here awhile back I was on Microsoft’s website and I filled out a form to receive a partner pack and that apparently entered me into a drawing for a RIO Carbon mp3 player. Well I won. I was one of 10 people in the entire country that won one. Thank you Microsoft ;)

I had previous experience with an mp3 player some time ago when I bought from Wal-Mart. It was by ilo and was very good. I got it because it had an SD card expansion slot. It had 256mb onboard and I added a 256 SD card to it. So I had a 512mb Mp3 player with voice recorder and it was only $70 (now it’s under $55) a very good deal. I recommend the ilo if you don’t want to pay much but still want a great mp3 player.

But I had it about a week and took it back after I realized I just didn’t need one. I didn’t have opportunities to play that dang thing and it just didn’t get enough use to be worth it.

Recently however I had been borrowing my sister ipod shuffle, that she also won in a contest, so I was starting to get used to the idea of having one especially for the car.

I was excited when I won the RIO because I still just didn’t want to shell out the money yet. Well it came the other day and I must say I am very impressed with it.

The RIO Carbon is small and solidly built. It is much shorter than the ipod nano and only a tiny bit thicker so it’s very much like the ipod nano in size and I would say it’s even smaller and it feels very light. You can see what I mean here.

It sounds great and holds 5gigs of data. I say data because you don’t have to store just songs on it. It’s a true USB storage device. The problem I had with some other mp3 players like the ipod is they were not true storage devices. You are bound to software like iTunes and I didn’t want that.

The RIO came with software but you don’t need it. I just drag and drop the music right on the drive like it’s a normal flash drive and that’s it. I fire up the RIO and the songs are organized by their id3 tags so everything is nice and easy to navigate to any artist, album, genre, song etc.. that I want.

The fact that you can use ANY music organizing software with the RIO and even just simply manage the files yourself manually is VERY VERY nice. I don’t get why Apple locks you in to THEIR software and hardware and then all the Apple fans scream when Microsoft does it.

Speaking of Microsoft the RIO works perfectly with Windows Media player and Playforsure. So if you like that tool the RIO is perfect for you.

It also has a voice recorder and other cool stuff like a stop watch that lets you tag 2 laps and tells you your average time. It also recharges from the USB port which is handy so it charges while you add songs to it. Also right out of the box comes with an AC adapter that you plug the USB cable into and charge it from a socket as well. That is very handy because you only have to carry one cable.

You can also buy a car adapter that your USB cable can plug into and charge it in the car. Once again one cable to carry is very handy.

I would never have bought a RIO because I just don’t use an mp3 player enough to pay $150 - $200 for it but it’s also a 5gig flash USB flash drive. So it’s a very versatile device.

There is a 5gig Seagate hard drive inside. I saw recently where a guy took his RIO apart to get that drive out and he put it in his SLR camera and it worked. That’s a cheap 5gig card for your camera.

There aren’t many cases for it but I did find one place on the entire internet that sells a silicon case and I bought one.

The support from RIO looks great. There was new firmware out and it upgraded easily.

So far I very much recommend the RIO if you plan on spending the money for a good solid MP3 player and you want the freedom to use it how you wish you should look at the RIO Carbon.