Well my wife just got her Karma and I thought both of our initial impressions might be interesting.

About Her:
First of all, she understands computer, but she is far from a gadget freak. The Karma is not something she would have bought for herself, but it IS something she’s been talking about nonstop since I first started showing her pictures. She definitely “gets” the concept of hard drive based mp3 players and has complained for the last two years that I boxed up all of my CDs so she can’t find anything she wants.

Her Impressions:
She waited for me to show her how to use it (I was out of town when it arrived). In a normal situation she’d probably have been quite capable of installing the software and loading music, but she has some hesitation with what she perceives as the complexity of the process and preferred to wait for me to show her since I’ve been into it for a while. Had she not had me as a resource, however, I’m sure she’d have made out fine.

The first thing she said to me was how small it was and how great it sounded. She was VERY impressed with the sound quality, so much so that she mentioned it in the same breath as her pleasure at how small (and “cute”) it was. She also really liks the docking station and they way it lights up. She had no problem figuring out how to play and navigate the music that came on the player. And she even liked the case that came with it- yup the same one everyone else hates. I don’t really think she was thinking of it in terms of protection quality though. So before she had any music on it she was already in love with her Karma. It remains to be seen what she thinks of it once she starts using it. So far her only complaint is that she REALLY wants a car dock that she can plug it into and have it just work in the car. I got her an FM modulator, but it clearly doesn’t do the unit justice.

My Impressions:
I think it sounds fantastic (though note that this was through a new set of head phones I also bought my wife for Christmas). The first thing I put on it were some studio tracks we were working on this weekend so my wife could hear how the songs are coming out. I was blown away with how good they sounded, so much that I made everyone listen to the cuts on the Karma so they’d be really impressed!

I really liked the playlist features and thought everything was well laid out, especially for the number of things it will do. I’ve now loaded hundreds of songs pulled directly from my empeg, and my only complaint is that I wish the “tags” from the empeg stuck with the files as the were transferred from it, but I know why this doesn’t happen and it’s not a problem with the Karma (nor really the empeg, though I wish there were a solution). I thought the Karma was very comfortable in my hand and didn’t find it thick at all. Of course, having never messed with an iPod I can’t really compare, but it seemed a nice size and shape to me. I also didn’t get the feeling it was “cheaply made” the way some have asserted.

The only thing things I found lacking were hierarchical playlists (and with this to really use them the way I want I’d also want the “Play X songs from playlist” feature as well) and I’d like to be able to purchase additional docks.

I think I’m going to have to get one eventually. It really is a lot more convenient than the empeg and I think it looks really sharp (not “cute” ).