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99 of 101 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Good, the OK, and the Bad, August 14, 2005
I purchased the iriver H10 20GB (Blue) about three weeks ago after saving and researching for about 6 months. In summary, I have been very happy with the player and would definitely buy it again.
The Good
The sound quality is very good. The included ear buds are fine (I'm not a fan of ear buds in general), but the source is clean and accurate and you can spend as much or as little on after-market headphones as you like. There is a lot of control over the EQ.
Virtually all of my music is in Variable Bit Rate MP3 format. The H10 supports MP3 and the Microsoft format (WMF). I don't use iTunes (ACC) or Audible so lack of support for those formats is not an issue for me.
The form factor is nice. It's about the same size as a deck of cards and fairly light. It fits in my hand or a pocket easily.
The user interface works well with either one or two hands. The controls are simple, intuitive and make sense. (I recommend you read the short manual or it might take you a while to stumble onto some of the more subtle features.) The thumb slider works well, even with a large list to scroll through-when your thumb hits the end of the slider, the display keeps scrolling. Using the slider to control volume rather than a physical knob or wheel is a good idea.
One of my main reasons for picking the H10 was the FM tuner. I like to listen to National Public Radio and other local stations. The tuner has good reception and it is easy to program stations as presets. I have used the ability to record an FM transmission a few times already.
The color display is bright and clear. The screen layouts make sense and have useful information. I don't have a reason to use the player to display pictures (other than when showing off the player), but it does have this ability.
I had no problems getting Windows XP to recognize the player-it shows up as a USB drive. Data transfer rates have been good for a USB device. I've loaded my entire library several times as I've played with different software besides Windows Media Player. It takes about an hour and a half to transfer 12GB.
Some reviewers have complained that the player locks up when they used Windows to browse the player's hard drive. It does take a while to display the contents of folders on the player, but I haven't had the player or Windows actually lock up.
The battery life has been good. I've taken it on a couple of multi-day trips and haven't run it down completely.
The OK
The player is designed to work with Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 (included on CD with the player). WMP does all of the basic things you want: rip, organize, update ID3 tags, build playlists, sync with the player. Of course it takes Microsoft's typical "software for dummies" approach-it doesn't do any of the things as well as some other programs and you can't change the way it behaves, where it stores your music files, etc. ("Sorry ma'am, but you don't need to know the bit rate we're using to encode your music. Move along now...") But, if you are willing to be assimilated (resistance is futile!), it can manage your music collection and player adequately.
Fortunately, because you can copy the music files directly to the player using Windows, you can use any software you wish. I like to use FreeRIP to create the mp3 files-it works very well, queries freedb so you don't have to type in any information, supports variable bit rate encoding, and is free.
To use the player with a lot of content, having clean ID3 tags is critical. ID3 tags store the information about the music file (artist, album, title, genre, etc.) in the MP3 file. I tried Windows Media Player, but again ended up using a different free program (MP3Tag) that worked better, especially when cleaning up hundred of files at a time.
Some reviewers have complained that the player will not play songs in the order that they were on the album. Remember that the players has only the information in the ID3 tags and the file names to work with. It doesn't seem to use the "Track" tag, but you can get it to play in album order if you include the track number in the file name and play songs in alphabetic order. For example, I name my music files "Artist - Album - Track# - SongTitle.mp3." 99% of the time I have the player on random shuffle.
I'm still looking for a program that can make it easier to sync the player and manage playlists.
I don't expect the software to be an issue for the typical owner-I tend to be very particular.
I suppose the support for text files is useful, if you wanted to keep some reference files on the device. I've read novels on a Palm Pilot, so I'm not opposed to using a small device for reading, but electronic devices have a long way to go to before they can match the performance and convenience of paper for pleasure reading.
Some reviewers have mentioned having to upgrade the firmware and having to remove the battery to reset the player. The H10 20GB does not have a firmware upgrade release yet, and it resets very easily by pressing a small recessed button with a paper clip. I have had to reset the player a couple of times, but it reboots quickly and this hasn't been a big deal.
The Bad
Bad is relative. Nothing I've encountered with the player is truly "bad."
Probably my worst complaint is that there is a brittle-sounding click in the headphones as the player changes songs. I don't really notice it any more, but at first it was annoying.
I like to listen to longer material, audio books and old radio programs, and fast-forwarding to a mid-point to resume listening can take a while, even with the scan rate set to max (6x). A progressive scan (longer you hold it down, the faster it goes) would be more effective and intuitive.
The player comes with a white translucent silicone protective cover. It has a belt clip and is soft and does a good job of protecting the player, even if it is not the most attractive thing I've seen. I've listed it under the Bad category because it also makes it difficult to feel the Prev Track/Play/Next Track buttons through the silicone.
I haven't had to call iriver for support yet, but have no illusions about the quality of live support that will be available. Unfortunately, no one provides good customer support. Best we can hope for is a device that is made well enough that the need for support is rare. So far, the H10 20GB seems to fall into this category.
Because the player is designed to be a copy of your master library, there's no obvious way to delete files (even ones you've recorded using the player's FM tuner) using the player's interface. You have to connect it to your computer for this.
There's also no obvious way to figure out how much disk space is left on the player, either from the player or from Windows. As a work-around, I add up the size of the various media directory trees on my computer to estimate how much space is left.
I'm hoping both of these are addressed by firmware upgrades.
Oh.. and I wish I had gotten red.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
OK, but I'd probably buy something else, December 23, 2005
I've had this player for about three months now so I can safely write a review.
First the good: I got this primarily to use with Rhapsody To Go (there was a $100 rebate if you purchased this player and got a subscription), after a few initial hiccups everything worked fine. The unit has frozen up on me several times but I just let the battery go dead or reboot attached via USB to my computer and everything works again. The FM radio feature is nice to have and works fine as well.
Now the ugly: There are some features in here that are simply unnecessary, such as the picture viewer (who wants to look at pictures in a 1.5 x 1.5 inch screen?), the text reader (see previous comment), and the digital recorder. AM radio and or Satellite radio capability would be better than any of this stuff. It's also annoying that there is no way to play one song by itself - that is, if you browse your way to a particular song, it automatically plays the next song on the album or playlist it is a part of. Many times you just want to hear one song, so it is really annoying that they didn't think of this. Finally, you cannot hook up to a computer via a standard USB cable but rather only through their proprietary cable, same for hooking up to a power source. Ergo, if your cord is lost or busted your are up the creek without a paddle unless you order another one. What worries me is the prospect of iRiver going out of business and then I will be unable to order a new cord and will be stuck with a $200 purchase that does me absolutely no good.
All said, it's not a bad player but if I had to do it over again I probably would have purchased something else.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow, speechless, July 5, 2005
I recently bought and returned the YH925GS. Not only did it not have an FM tuner (didn't care that much), but adding, modifying, and deleting files was becoming a BIG pain.
The MP3 player is pretty slim, even though it's not the slimmest one you can buy, it's light so if you like jogging with it or excersising you'll barely notice it. Like all 20 GB MP3 players, you can store 5,000 songs (approx. 400 CDs). The controls look strange at first, but actually, all you need to control is the touchpad. There are also arrows for them most easy navigation. You'll notice that it's easier to use than most MP3 players on the market today. The battery life is 16 hours. Some of today's players have more than 20 hours, but I guess 16 is okay.
The player also comes with a 1.8" LCD screen, and more colors than a computer so your photos will look of professional quality. On this player, something that most if not all players can't do, is view .txt files. This is a really cool feature. You can store lyrics or essays in Notepad, then transfer them into the player. This is a VERY cool feature that I will be using more often.
The sound is really good. It doesn't have WOW features that most MP3 players have, but it has a very decent equalizer. The sound isn't distored at all, and I'm suprised about this.
The player also comes with recordings and FM tuning. THe microphone can pick up voice pretty far, and the FM tuner is quite good too. There are also 20-preset stations for your tuner. And listen to this one, you can rip off of the radio. How cool is that? Say your listen to the radio, and you hear this hot new track that is so good, you can just press record, and you can listen to it whenever you want. It's not that other players don't do this, it's that this is the 1 of 2 players that has the fantasic combination of 20 GB, Radio, and Recording. (the iAudio X5 is the other player that has this...I didn't buy it because it doesn't allow you to change track settings, WTF?)
It's also PlaysForSure compatible, but to use WMP 10, you have to download the drivers from the iRiver website. Unless you have a lot of music on WMP, I would just stick to the drag-n-drop. It's not just drag-n-drop (e.g. My Computer, iRiver) or WMP 10 that's compatable. RealPlayer is compatable, and Napster is too (but I think Napster sucks). To put photos on your MP3 player, you can use the manual drag-n-drop. As a matter of fact, the My Computer>iRiver method is probably the best. I have no reason why you would want/need WMP 10 or Real to manage music. Though, I guess to have further options, you would need it. But otherwise, it's VERY easy to add tracks since you can drag-n-drop. But remember, if you can't get Windows to understand the H10, you'll need to go to iRiver's website and download the new drivers. I wish they would give you the drivers beforehand, because some people with computers may not have internet.
Overall, if you want the great combination of 20 GB, WMA and MP3, Recording, Drag-N-Drop (no hassle with WMP or Real), and FM radio, you just HAVE to have the H10.
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