We can’t see Rio’s booth in this year CES since the pullout of D&M Holdings in MP3 player industry. Nevertheless, DAPreview managed to peek on the unannounced Rio Avalon during an interview with SigmaTel’s Hugo Fiennes, the man behind the Rio Karma, Chroma, Avalon, Cubic, and Opel.

We got a product demonstation of Sigmatel’s reference design for a player that’s just like the Rio Avalon - an 8gb MicroDrive based player which has the same body style as the Rio Carbon but has a color screen and all the features of the Rio Karma. All that and more… video playback, animated backgrounds, album art, semi-transparent menu overlays, etc. Very nice. We also learned details of the Opel - which could have been, which still could be - the ultimate DAP.

{ via DAPreview }