Full review
Nearly everything you need to know about the £130 Digital Networks Rio ce2100 can be found in our review of the Rio Carbon Pearl except for this: the ce2100 shouldn't be your next audio player. Sure, it boasts the same stylish design, commendable support for MP3, DRM WMA and Audible files, and stellar battery life. In short, it's a great player, one we'd be glad to introduce to our music collection. So what's the problem? Well, for very little more (indeed, less from some e-tailers), the Carbon gives you twice the storage (5GB) and a voice recorder. Unless for some reason you prefer to carry only a small amount of music, there's absolutely no reason to choose the 2.5GB, recorder-less ce2100.
Design
Even so, we love this player. Barely 15mm thick and weighing just 91g, the shiny black ce2100 oozes cool, especially when the red backlight illuminates the Rio logo and the four-way control pad. That pad manages playback (play/pause, stop, and so on), while a jog dial in the corner controls volume and scrolls you through the ce2100's generally excellent menu system. As with the Carbon, all that's missing is a hold switch. To lock out the player's controls, you have to delve a few steps into the menus. And further proof that this is the Carbon's neglected stepbrother: there's a microphone hole, but no voice-recording capability.
Features
Like the Carbon, the Rio ce2100 plays MP3, WMA and Audible files. While it supports DRM-protected song downloads from services such as BuyMusic and Napster, however, it doesn't yet work with subscription services such as Napster To Go and Yahoo Music Unlimited. According to Digital Networks, a forthcoming firmware update will add subscription support. On the upside, joggers will appreciate the ce2100's built-in stopwatch and audiobook listeners will make use of its simple bookmark feature (which also works with music).
Performance
The ce2100 is smaller overall than the Apple iPod Mini, but it offers almost exactly the same battery life. It lasted just over 20 hours in our test, a huge selling point. What's more, the player can recharge via USB or its AC adaptor. File transfers zipped along the USB 2.0 connection at a respectable 3.2MB per second.
We thoroughly enjoyed listening to music on the Rio ce2100. Our tunes sounded clear and vibrant, without a hint of hiss. Even the stock earbuds, the bane of most MP3 players, sounded good and we didn't immediately lunge for our favourite headphones. Speaking of which, the ce2100 doesn't suffer from the static problem that plagued the first-generation Rio Carbons -- all headphones we plugged in worked just fine.
This is certainly a great MP3 player. But absolutely everything we admire about the Rio ce2100 -- its sexy design, great sound, slick interface, long-lasting battery, and so on -- can also be found in the Rio Carbon Pearl. With twice the storage space for about the same price, that's the model you want.
Edited by Jasmine France
Additional editing by Nick Hide