MP3 players forum: Rio Carbon vs. Creative Zen Micro

Well I would go with the Creative Zen Micro...
But in making your choice u have to decide which options are you more into...

First of all teh Carbon is cheaper so that extra 30bucks might be good for you...also it is easily recognized when you plug it into the usb....simply drag and drop you files...adn also it has a much longer battery life about 18-20(compared to Micro's 11hrs)

The Zen Micro on the other hand comes with an FM radio and not to mention FM recording that is as good as any out there(I listen to alot of radio so I choose the Micro...after selling My Carbon)
also if you are into using Outlook it syncs with Outlook quite well..and it also works really good with Mindows Media Player...I personally think that the Micro looks much better and it looks amazing when all the light are off....The Micro overall "feels" like a more advanced product....


Personally if you want a pick up and go mp3 player...go witht the Carbon...if you want more advanced features and more value go for the Micro....but these are both excellent Mp3 player...that I think are both better than the MINI....

I have tried both and opted for the Micro. And I was a Rio Karma user (LOVED it) so the Carbon was my first choice.

The Carbon cannot match the Micro for sound quality. Period. The Micro sounds almost as good as my Karma and is a match for the iPod, but the Carbon does not. The Carbon's amps will clip and distort at high volume levels and if you have a lot of bass pumped up.

Also, I had the annoying headset static issue caused by the Carbon's metal casing (talk about bad design - no excuse). If your preferred phones or buds have a metal T shaped jack with a flange at the top of the jack, you will have that problem with the Carbon. Most other players surround their jack holes with a bit of plastic in order to avoid that problem.

The Micro looks better and looks to be of higher quality, but that's a very subjective thing.

The Micro now works natively with Windows Media Player for syncing and moving files, and also shows up in Windows (latest firmware - this is a new thing). The Micro works beautifully with the free Real player for file transferring/syncing also.

Neither player features gapless playback of continuous mix albums, which would be a clincher issue for me if either one did (although I don't know if I could live with the Carbon's audio quality). The Karma plays back gapless - long live the Karma!! What an outstanding player that bugger is...ah, thread drift...

Hope this helps anyone looking at both!