The Rio Player That Could Have Been

Despite the fact that Rio have just pulled out of manufacturing MP3 players, up until the eleventh hour they were preparing a new version of the Carbon player.

Technology website Engadget says that had received top-secret details of the new player, and after Rio’s demise they were able to release the specs: “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” the website says.
“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 says.
Engadget adds that the base model was to be increased to 8GB, and that Rio were entering production of the Carbon C for release by Christmas. Despite not being officially released in Australia, the Rio Carbon was one of SmartHouse’s Top 10 MP3 players, and thought to be one of the strongest challengers to the iPod.