The Carbon Age lasted twenty minutes
I finally ceased my dithering over whether or not to get an MP3 player and coughed up money to Overstock.com for a refurbished Rio Carbon, since the CNet reviews were good and the price was right - I'd done some comparison shopping at WalMart and Best Buy, and the Carbon was definitely the best deal. It arrived last night along with the box sets of Cardcaptor Sakura ("shojo enough for a woman, but I like it too!" - Steven den Beste) and Firefly, and after carefully reading the insert, I plugged the Carbon in for its first charge.
Now, the insert said you could listen to the preloaded music while the player was charging, and since I don't care for earbuds I used the Koss headphones from my laptop. This may have been a mistake. Early production Carbons have a static problem with metal-tipped headphones, and there was a little of that when I plugged in the phones. There was little more when I moved the player and joggled the headphone jack slightly, and after about twenty minutes there was another brief splatter of static and then silence. The Carbon didn't respond to power cycling or punching the rest button; it was completely dead.
Fortunately Overstock was cool about exchanging it for a new one. I won't have it in time for this trip home, but next time I'll be more careful about the headphones.
Now, the insert said you could listen to the preloaded music while the player was charging, and since I don't care for earbuds I used the Koss headphones from my laptop. This may have been a mistake. Early production Carbons have a static problem with metal-tipped headphones, and there was a little of that when I plugged in the phones. There was little more when I moved the player and joggled the headphone jack slightly, and after about twenty minutes there was another brief splatter of static and then silence. The Carbon didn't respond to power cycling or punching the rest button; it was completely dead.
Fortunately Overstock was cool about exchanging it for a new one. I won't have it in time for this trip home, but next time I'll be more careful about the headphones.