I've seen plenty of ipod reviews, so figured why not give people an outlook on the competition. And in part because I am bored, I'll provide you with a semi-complete review of my experience with my iriver.
My Background: I bought it on newegg.com for $305 on thanksgiving night, it arrived 5 days later. Been using it since every single day.
My story:
About a month before thanks giving i made the choice to buy an mp3 player. my cd player (panasonic something) crapped out and CDs are so much of a hassle. They are too big, too pointless, and if you want more than 70 minutes of music, you need to bring more stuff with you. So i made a list of thinks to look at, of course, i asked around, on this forum included. I had no more than $300 to spend
My list:
iRiver H120, iRiver H320, Creative Zen Touch, iPod, Dell DJ, Achros GMINI 400, Achros Jukebox 20GB, and a player by Rio (can't remember name).
So i continued the shopping around (mostly reading reviews, user reviews, looking at prices and comparing tech specs. A week later i eliminated these players from the run because of the given reason:
iPod - lack of features vs other players and still costs more
Dell DJ - didn't like it's looks
Achros Juke - no reason, its a little bulky
iRiver H120 - hard to find, no support, very $
Rio - too ugly / looked hard to navigate
so that pretty much left me with the GMINI 400, H320, and Zen Touch.
shortly after i eliminated the GMINI because, although very nice, a bit out of my price range. It was now down to Zen vs H320, although the Zen does have a superior 24h battery, costs cheaper and has that Creative zing to it, i went with the iriver in favor of a color screen, looks, and voice recorder.
Just before i ordered i joined misticriver.net and learned about the H320US vs H320K/EU versions.
So i ordered my H320US from newegg. 2 weeks after it arrived i upgraded the firmware from 1.02 US to 1.25 K. By doing this, I gave up DRM support, and a clock on the main screen. However, I gained, partial USBOTG (usb on the go) support, ability to play AVI files (so now technicaly its an mp4 player), multi-regional FM tunner (so now i can listen to the radio outside of US), and browser mode (lets you delete/edit files on the fly). Some people on the forums argue that it also made the sound louder. What you had to have at lets say 20 (on a 40 scale) to have it be just that loud, after the upgrade, maybe about 15 for the same volume.
So as I did that, i whipped out one of my DVDs, ripped it in AVI and put it on my iriver. Took it to school the next day to show off and prove to the world there is more to music than an ipod.
My first few days in school with the iriver, it was called the following:
"Black ipod thingy"
"the awesome better than ipod ipod"
"that music thing"
"ipod that can play movies"
"iwhat?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the key features and their use:
OGG support: As a linux user, having my player support OGG is godly. It lets me transfer music back and forth without worrying about drivers and so un.
FM Radio: There are no good radio station in chicago, but the reception is generally good and very useful if you like the radio
Voice Recorder: When I can't focus in class, I'll just record the lecture and listen to it later. It records in .mp3 in either 64 96 or 128kpbs bitrates. There is a built in microphone, but an external mic is an option. Believe it or not, there is no noticable hdd noise interference on the internal mic.
Pic Viewer: In conjunction with USBOTG you can transfer pics from your cam to your iriver without a computer, and then view them. this is useful if you're on a long trip and don't have a laptop to bring with and suddenly run out of room on your digital camera.
AVI Player: You get about 5 hours of use from your iriver using this feature. It is very fun to watch a movie when you're on the road (not driving) and have nothing better to do. The screen is smallish, and the movie plays only at 10fps (for now..rummors have it that it will increase) but you can't really tell the lag that much unless you're looking for it.
16h Battery: In practice, i'd say 13 hours seems fair. I listen to 192k OGG with a custom equilizer effect (for lots of bass). Gives me enough juice to only charge every 3rd day. The manual says its a good idea to replace it after 1000 charges.
Adjustable Equilizer: This baby comes with quite a few presets. There is Jazz, Rock, Pop, SRS WOW, User (fully adjustable) and a few others...useful..very!
Color Screen: This thing has a better resolution and more colors than thee iPod Photo....this screen ROCKS! (its not an OLED...but good enough). And I have only heard of 1 case of a dead pixel so far.
--------------------------------------------------------
Usage:
Unlike the all familiar touchwheel (ipod) and scroll bar (zen) or scrollwheel (dell dj) this thing is old school...BUTTONS. In the center there is a big blue NAVI button, consider it your life line. It is surrounded by 4 buttons:
#) Option when held / option when pressed
1) ON / Play / Pause
2) OFF / Stop
3) Mode Select / Record
4) A-B (shuffle options) / Equilizer Chooser
the navi button takes you to navigation as well as system options.
It is easier in practice than it sounds.
There are 2 ways to navigate:
Option 1: File Tree:
This is the basic of basic, you build your own directories on your computer folder by folder. for instance, this is my configuration that i use:
Root:
..........Music
..........Voice
...........Pictures
...........Movies
..........TEXT (yes, it has a text viewer)
the voice, pictures, movies and text have files just all dumped respectibly in that single folder.
the music folder is a little more complex:
Music:
...........A-F
..........G-L
..........M-Z
.........Singles
(not really my config, but you get the picture. the letter corresponds to the first name fo the artist. the Singles folder contains all the music that maybe i have just 1 or 2 songs by that artist thus cannot justify an artist folder)
inside the artist folder, it is separated by albums (each album gets own folder), and if there are many cds in that 1 album, each cd will get its own folder.
This config makes it simple to navigate because it is all ohh so logical. It also loads (when you boot the system) nearly 20 seconds faster than if you were to use method 2.
Method 2:
This is what the ipod uses, you can browse songs by Genre, Artist, Album or 1 more cat (can't remember right now). works very much like the ipod navigation. the boot time is longer though than with a file tree.
Build quality of the unit:
This thing is solid, i dropped mine numerous times and it is as good as new, there are a few minor scratches on the plastic, but nothing all that terrible, its a tough cookie.
Now to explain the diff between US and EU / K versions:
The US version was crippled to support DRM, thus they took away AVi support and USBOTG. The US version is CHEAPER than the EU/K version but comes with fewer accessories. The EU version comes with a better holster, external mic, battery pack, and dock. the US version comes with a crappy holster, manual, cd and cheap headphones.
To clear up one huge misunderstanding:
It seems most people think you need to use the iRiver software to load music on to this thing. That is simply FALSE. Yes, the iriver software is provided on a cd, and you can use it if you want, and yes, it is not the greatest program int he world either. The H320 / H340 (40gb version..slightly thicker) get recognized and mounted as external hard drives by Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Linux 2.6 (maybe even 2.4), Win2k, WinXP. So unless you're running Win9x, you have no need to use the provided software. And, one nice touch, you can take music OFF this thing just as easily as you put it on....the magic of it all.
Notice on Price; This model was discontinued in favor of the H20 line, and now you can buy it for around $250.
For pics just google img search H320. I dont knwo what else to write about. just ask ?s.
As for the headphones, i bought them for $139 on ebay, not too bad. best i've ever owned actually, and i like them. they are a bit of a chore to put in/out and to clean, but eh....if the sound is good, and you get up to 20dB of passive insulation, why not
My Background: I bought it on newegg.com for $305 on thanksgiving night, it arrived 5 days later. Been using it since every single day.
My story:
About a month before thanks giving i made the choice to buy an mp3 player. my cd player (panasonic something) crapped out and CDs are so much of a hassle. They are too big, too pointless, and if you want more than 70 minutes of music, you need to bring more stuff with you. So i made a list of thinks to look at, of course, i asked around, on this forum included. I had no more than $300 to spend
My list:
iRiver H120, iRiver H320, Creative Zen Touch, iPod, Dell DJ, Achros GMINI 400, Achros Jukebox 20GB, and a player by Rio (can't remember name).
So i continued the shopping around (mostly reading reviews, user reviews, looking at prices and comparing tech specs. A week later i eliminated these players from the run because of the given reason:
iPod - lack of features vs other players and still costs more
Dell DJ - didn't like it's looks
Achros Juke - no reason, its a little bulky
iRiver H120 - hard to find, no support, very $
Rio - too ugly / looked hard to navigate
so that pretty much left me with the GMINI 400, H320, and Zen Touch.
shortly after i eliminated the GMINI because, although very nice, a bit out of my price range. It was now down to Zen vs H320, although the Zen does have a superior 24h battery, costs cheaper and has that Creative zing to it, i went with the iriver in favor of a color screen, looks, and voice recorder.
Just before i ordered i joined misticriver.net and learned about the H320US vs H320K/EU versions.
So i ordered my H320US from newegg. 2 weeks after it arrived i upgraded the firmware from 1.02 US to 1.25 K. By doing this, I gave up DRM support, and a clock on the main screen. However, I gained, partial USBOTG (usb on the go) support, ability to play AVI files (so now technicaly its an mp4 player), multi-regional FM tunner (so now i can listen to the radio outside of US), and browser mode (lets you delete/edit files on the fly). Some people on the forums argue that it also made the sound louder. What you had to have at lets say 20 (on a 40 scale) to have it be just that loud, after the upgrade, maybe about 15 for the same volume.
So as I did that, i whipped out one of my DVDs, ripped it in AVI and put it on my iriver. Took it to school the next day to show off and prove to the world there is more to music than an ipod.
My first few days in school with the iriver, it was called the following:
"Black ipod thingy"
"the awesome better than ipod ipod"
"that music thing"
"ipod that can play movies"
"iwhat?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the key features and their use:
OGG support: As a linux user, having my player support OGG is godly. It lets me transfer music back and forth without worrying about drivers and so un.
FM Radio: There are no good radio station in chicago, but the reception is generally good and very useful if you like the radio
Voice Recorder: When I can't focus in class, I'll just record the lecture and listen to it later. It records in .mp3 in either 64 96 or 128kpbs bitrates. There is a built in microphone, but an external mic is an option. Believe it or not, there is no noticable hdd noise interference on the internal mic.
Pic Viewer: In conjunction with USBOTG you can transfer pics from your cam to your iriver without a computer, and then view them. this is useful if you're on a long trip and don't have a laptop to bring with and suddenly run out of room on your digital camera.
AVI Player: You get about 5 hours of use from your iriver using this feature. It is very fun to watch a movie when you're on the road (not driving) and have nothing better to do. The screen is smallish, and the movie plays only at 10fps (for now..rummors have it that it will increase) but you can't really tell the lag that much unless you're looking for it.
16h Battery: In practice, i'd say 13 hours seems fair. I listen to 192k OGG with a custom equilizer effect (for lots of bass). Gives me enough juice to only charge every 3rd day. The manual says its a good idea to replace it after 1000 charges.
Adjustable Equilizer: This baby comes with quite a few presets. There is Jazz, Rock, Pop, SRS WOW, User (fully adjustable) and a few others...useful..very!
Color Screen: This thing has a better resolution and more colors than thee iPod Photo....this screen ROCKS! (its not an OLED...but good enough). And I have only heard of 1 case of a dead pixel so far.
--------------------------------------------------------
Usage:
Unlike the all familiar touchwheel (ipod) and scroll bar (zen) or scrollwheel (dell dj) this thing is old school...BUTTONS. In the center there is a big blue NAVI button, consider it your life line. It is surrounded by 4 buttons:
#) Option when held / option when pressed
1) ON / Play / Pause
2) OFF / Stop
3) Mode Select / Record
4) A-B (shuffle options) / Equilizer Chooser
the navi button takes you to navigation as well as system options.
It is easier in practice than it sounds.
There are 2 ways to navigate:
Option 1: File Tree:
This is the basic of basic, you build your own directories on your computer folder by folder. for instance, this is my configuration that i use:
Root:
..........Music
..........Voice
...........Pictures
...........Movies
..........TEXT (yes, it has a text viewer)
the voice, pictures, movies and text have files just all dumped respectibly in that single folder.
the music folder is a little more complex:
Music:
...........A-F
..........G-L
..........M-Z
.........Singles
(not really my config, but you get the picture. the letter corresponds to the first name fo the artist. the Singles folder contains all the music that maybe i have just 1 or 2 songs by that artist thus cannot justify an artist folder)
inside the artist folder, it is separated by albums (each album gets own folder), and if there are many cds in that 1 album, each cd will get its own folder.
This config makes it simple to navigate because it is all ohh so logical. It also loads (when you boot the system) nearly 20 seconds faster than if you were to use method 2.
Method 2:
This is what the ipod uses, you can browse songs by Genre, Artist, Album or 1 more cat (can't remember right now). works very much like the ipod navigation. the boot time is longer though than with a file tree.
Build quality of the unit:
This thing is solid, i dropped mine numerous times and it is as good as new, there are a few minor scratches on the plastic, but nothing all that terrible, its a tough cookie.
Now to explain the diff between US and EU / K versions:
The US version was crippled to support DRM, thus they took away AVi support and USBOTG. The US version is CHEAPER than the EU/K version but comes with fewer accessories. The EU version comes with a better holster, external mic, battery pack, and dock. the US version comes with a crappy holster, manual, cd and cheap headphones.
To clear up one huge misunderstanding:
It seems most people think you need to use the iRiver software to load music on to this thing. That is simply FALSE. Yes, the iriver software is provided on a cd, and you can use it if you want, and yes, it is not the greatest program int he world either. The H320 / H340 (40gb version..slightly thicker) get recognized and mounted as external hard drives by Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Linux 2.6 (maybe even 2.4), Win2k, WinXP. So unless you're running Win9x, you have no need to use the provided software. And, one nice touch, you can take music OFF this thing just as easily as you put it on....the magic of it all.
Notice on Price; This model was discontinued in favor of the H20 line, and now you can buy it for around $250.
For pics just google img search H320. I dont knwo what else to write about. just ask ?s.
As for the headphones, i bought them for $139 on ebay, not too bad. best i've ever owned actually, and i like them. they are a bit of a chore to put in/out and to clean, but eh....if the sound is good, and you get up to 20dB of passive insulation, why not
