I was in my local Best Buy tonight and noticed they dont have any Karmas out and dont even have a place for it. I asked one of the blue shirt drones if they had any and the conversation went like this:

Me: "You guys got any Rio Karmas?"

Him: "Whats that?"

Me: "A new MP3 player from Rio. Has a 20GB hard drive.. its real small."

Him: "Never heard of it but the iPod is the best thing we sell."

So what gives? This same store had a place for the Karma before they were shipped now nothing?

Bought mine from Best Buy in the San Francisco Bay Area just a couple days ago. Mine was a free-range Karma: they had it hanging on an end cap instead of all locked up with the iPods.

The Colorado Springs Best Buy keeps putting them up on display, then taking them down every few days. Seems to be a fight between keeping them on the shelf, and the security guys concerned over theft due to what they see as poor packaging security wise.

My local Best Buy had them, in a locked case next to the Ipods, but there was no sales tag and they weren't stacked so the front of the package was visible. If I hadn't _really_ been looking I wouldn't have seen them. They had about 8 of them. The guy who helped me find their price said that they were to be in the flyer the following day and that they had just gotten them in (hence the missing sales tag).

-Zeke

I picked mine up from my local best buy 2 days ago. I found mine in a locked case, but then i say they had about 20 of them right near the cash register.

Seems to be a fight between keeping them on the shelf, and the security guys concerned over theft due to what they see as poor packaging security wise.

Did they actually say that? That's quite funny - you need a degree in materials science to get into the things *because* the major retailers pretty much dictate how the packaging should be. We even build in their security tags at the factory.

Rob

Yes, the impregnable plastic did have me cursing. I damn near cut my hand on the package after I hacked it open with scissors! So Rob, someone definitely did a good job making it as difficult as possible to remove the Karma from the 'box'.

-Zeke

Yup had to be careful not to sratch the karma when hacking into the packaging...

Was it that really tough vac-formed plastic which is then heat welded around the edges? For that stuff I use a pair of paramedic's shears and cut just inside the weld. (apparently they can cut a penny in half!)

Gareth

Yes, the impregnable plastic did have me cursing

I had to open up ten of these last week. It turns out to be easiest to cut around the weld using a normal (sharp) pair of scissors - along both sides and the top, but leaving the bottom as a hinge. That was the packaging still serves some purpose for future use.

Rob

I've tried it before and it can cut into the penny. It'd be a lot of effort to actually cut it totally though. (Of course, you should never do this to legal tender as it's a no no... etc... )

is there any truth in the rumour that rios packaging designer is in fact an ex safe designer.

is there any truth in the rumour that rios packaging designer is in fact an ex safe designer

Yeah, it's true. He got fired from designing safes because even the owners couldn't get in.