Apple has been making the headlines with its iPod and iPod Mini portable audio players for a while now. The market is so dominated by Apple that a discussion about MP3 players is bound to end up with Apple leading by a majority of the votes. It's not to say that Apple's iPod is a modest MP3 player, which it's not, but there are far more economically friendly and just as solid players in the market that may actually be better for the significant majority. In order to comply with a more budget-oriented market, Apple introduced a complementary product to the original iPod ?the iPod Mini. The iPod Mini offered 5GB of storage with a more suitable price tag, and those that didn't need the storage space of the regular iPod, this appeared to be the perfect solution. But once again, there could be a better alternative in the market.

We evaluated Rio's Sport Forge MP3 player yesterday, which was based on flash storage technology and designed for the athlete in mind. At only $89.99, it offered great value for 128MB of storage, and for the purpose of design, it was certainly durable that could with stain few drops here and there. Furthermore, Rio completed the package with everything you might want from a kit. All in all, we were impressed by what Rio had to offer in the end.

To further add to the Rio experience, welcome Rio's Carbon, a 5GB hard drive based player that could very well compete against the iPod Mini both economically (cost per GB is lower on the Carbon) and performance wise. The Rio Carbon comes in a few styles, including a special edition "Pearl" Carbon, which is nothing but a model with "Pearl" colored exterior. Although there is no FM tuner in this particular player, we won't necessarily hold that against the Carbon. One of the major reasons is that Rio's Sport Forge was integrated with this feature, but after our initial testing, we were disappointed by it. Therefore, instead of increasing the cost with what could turn out to be a substandard feature, it's better not to implement it initially. Similar to the Forge Sport, the Carbon offers the same package value. With that said, is the audio quality justifiable to compete against the iPod Mini? Read on and find out