Hi,
I'm playing around with both an iPod Mini and a Rio Carbon (thanks to Foley's 30 day return policy with no restocking fee and Worst Buy's 30 day return policy with no restocking fee), trying to decide which one I'm gonna keep.
The Mini is great, has a great interface, seamless integration with iTunes, firewire connection, etc., etc. However, it holds less songs, has a much shorter battery life and seems a bit too "fragile." It's also a tad bit heavier than the Carbon and longer as well.
The Carbon has a great form factor, very easy to hold, rubberized edges, holds more songs, has a much longer battery life and looks like it can withstand bumps better than the Mini. However, the interface isn't the best and, though it works with iTunes once you install the iTunes plug-in (provided on CD...you just drag and drop songs from your iTunes library onto the Carbon), playlists are not supported and AAC files are also not supported. Also, it connects via USB 2.0 which my iBook G3 900 (Microcenter deal) does not have. That makes for very slow song transfers. I don't necessarily want to have to buy a new computer just to get 2.0 functionality. As an aside, anyway to convert an iBook's 1.1 port to 2.0? Probably not...what about a USB to Firewire adapter cable?
I set the Rio up last night and let it spend the whole night transfering about 980 songs from my iTunes library (started around 12:15 AM and it was done when I woke up around 5:35 AM). What I noticed is that if I just scroll through all of the songs in the Rio via the main song list, the songs are in the same order as they were in my iTunes library. That is, they are in the same order as the CDs from which they were ripped. However, if I go through the menu to view songs by album, then the songs within that album are *alphabetized,* NOT listed in the order they were on the original CD.
Anybody know what's up with this and if there is a way to change it?
Thanks!
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