Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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364 of 377 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
iRiver H340 vs. Apple iPod Photo, December 2, 2004
First I'd like to say I'm more than impressed by iRiver's latest HD based music player. I researched several products to find which had the most to offer. I wound up purchasing the H340 and have had it for about a month now. Here's what I found vs the iPod (I'm using this as a benchmark product since everyone asks "is it better than an iPod?")
The H340 has the following features:
The H340 supports MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, OGG, WMA, ASF 8Kbps ~ 320 Kbps (OGG: 32Kbps ~ 500Kbps) ID3 V1, ID3 V2 2.0, ID3 V2 3.0
The iPod does not support OGG and some of the new ID formats.
The H340 has a built in multi-region FM tuner with presets (with autoscan), the iPod does not.
The H340 is firmware upgradeable which is very important. If a new format for music comes out or they want to tweak something upgrading the firmware is a cheaper alternative than buying a new device. If you search around the internet, there is a firmware upgrade that will let you play video**. Yes real video. **However, upgrading to a non-US version may void your warranty. I've tried it myself and it works for me. The iPod does not play video, yes that includes the new iPod Photo. There is a hack out there for the iPod where video is crudely played using a 1 picture per second playback but that is not true video!
The H340 functions as a portable hard drive the iPod does not. (That is without the help of additional software the Ipod cannot store files directly like the H340) You can store not only music, photo and video files on the H340 but you can keep your documents and any other files on there as well! And unlike the iPod you do not need software to plug the device into another computer. Plug it into a USB2 port and it will show up as another hard drive!
It has a really high quality voice recorder with built in mic the iPod does not. Also, you can record radio, voice or anything from the line directly to a MP3 files using only the H340, no software or PC needed!
The screen sizes on the iPod Photo and H340 have the size, 2inch color. However, the H340 supports 260k colors vs. IPod Photo's 65.5k colors. The screen on the H340 can be so bright and clear I sometimes need to turn it down to the lowest brightness setting!
As for sound quality, absolutely incredible! The H340 comes with SRS WOW 3D sound technology built in. It also has equalizer presets to chose from or create your own settings.
The unit can be charged in 3 to 4 hrs via USB or the power adapter and battery life is 16 hrs! The iPod Photo takes 4 to 5 hours to charge
The Cons...
The iPod is thinner and a tad lighter, but it's like comparing a pack of cigarettes to a pack of playing cards (iPod). I don't mind the H340 being a little thicker.
The iPod has the brand awareness, so if you're looking for the instant recognition factor, iRiver is not yet there. Form (iPod) vs. Function (H340)!
The slideshow feature on the iPod Photo is better as it shows more thumbnails of photos, but keep in mind this may be fixed on the iRiver via firmware if iRiver chooses to do so.
In summary, the H340 offers FM playback, firmware upgrades, picture playback, video playback** (See note above as it does not ship with this functionality!), voice recorder, MP3 encoder for recording directly to it, color screen capable of 260k colors, incredible sound fidelity, is a portable hard drive with no software needed to use, awesome battery stamina and costs less than the iPod 40gb Photo version. As with anything, do your own search and see if my opinion matches your own.
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69 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic - if you're a geek, November 22, 2004
My wife has an iPod which she takes with her everywhere. I used it several times, and I liked it for what it was: a dedicated mp3 player. However, when the time came for me to get one, I decided to go with the iRiver H340. I bought it about 1 week ago, and have been tinkering with and using it from morning to night ever since. Here's my take on it.
Warning: If you buy an iRiver H340, prepare to don your geek beanie. Here's why:
1. Button commands need to be memorized. It took me all of 20-30 mins to go through the manual and figure things out. There's a directional pad and 5 buttons, but the buttons have multiple functions depending upon whether you push them quickly, hold them down for a while, where in the menu tree you are, etc. I personally found the learning curve relatively easy, but this is no iPod (which practically anyone can use right out of the box). As for me, a 20-30 minute up front time investment is no big deal, and I like having the extra controls (e.g., almost 10 different shuffle and repeat commands).
2. The user interface is NOT elegant (for elegance, see "iPod"). There's a bit of a half-finished, work-in-progress feel to the H340. For instance, you can't view pictures while listening to music. It's strictly either-or. The music search function is in no way as easy to use as iPod's, either. There's a default file tree, which is essentially Windows explorer function. You literally search through folders and filenames (e.g., "beethovens5th.mp3") to get to songs. I still haven't been able to get the artist/album/genre/song search functions to work, so I can't comment.
3. Weight/size. The H340 is about the same length and width as an iPod, but it's perhaps twice as thick and somewhat heavier too.
Not that we got the bad stuff out of the way, and scared off the iPodders, let's get to the stuff I like.
1. Fantastic array of functions. The voice recorder uses the external mic built into the H340 to give you stunning recordings. There's more recording options and settings than you can shake a stick it (although I have seen some reviewers rue the lack of some advanced functions - but it's not like I'd know what they were in the first place). The Photo Viewer is crude but handy. There are some file size restrictions you have to observe. Also, unless the pictures fall into a narrow range of dimensions, the picture will not fill up more than 50-60% off the LCD screen. It almost makes you wish for a zoom function. Still, I like it just fine (again, not iPod level, but good enough). And the LCD screen is gorgeous, with high resolution, contrast and brightness. It's perfectly readable in daylight. The Text Viewer is nice, but is limited only to .txt files. I don't plan on using it a lot, but it's nice to have. I'm sure iRiver will come out with additional functions in future firmware releases. The Browser function allows you to use the H340 as a storage drive.
2. Plug 'n Play. You just plug'n'play this puppy into any computer. No CDs or drivers to mess with. It goes right into the USB port of any computer and Windows will automatically recognize it. BIG PLUS in my book. And loading music into the unit is as simple as copying and pasting or dragging 'n dropping files from the computer right into the unit. The H340 just appears as another drive on your desktop, folks. This was critical to me, because I plan to use the H340 as much more than a mere mp3 player; i.e., I'm a lawyer, so I will be using this to record witness oral statements, take digital pictures and plug my Nikon camera right into the H340 to download the pics and view them (USB on the go rules!). Note, you have to install and use 3d party software in order to extract music files from the iPod.
3. Great hardware. Fantastic sound (beats the iPod by a MILE, came with Sennheiser earbuds too!). The LCD screen is gorgeous, as I mentioned above. The hard drive storage is more than most people will ever need, whether 20 or 40 gigabytes. The hard drive runs nice and quiet too. The battery life isn't the 16 hours advertised, I've been getting around 9-10, but I figure the battery just needs to be broken in. It still beats the iPod by a mile.
Ok, I gotta go, but I hope this helps people. If I have time, maybe I'll come back and expand on this review.
IN SHORT, I love this unit. It's perfect for me and does everything I need. People who are just looking for an mp3 player only should consider iPod. If you want power, awesome sound quality, battery life, large array of functions, and are willing to put up with some minor inconveniences, then get this.
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119 of 127 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Product With A Few Correctible Issues, November 7, 2004
The H340 is the newest 40 gigabyte digital music player from iRiver, long a leader in MP3 type players. The unit is well built and does what it's supposed to do. It has very high sound quality and is fairly easy to use once you get over the initial short learning curve. Besides playing music files the system also allows you to store digital pictures and ebooks. The color display seems to be of good quality. File management is easy as the H340 hooks into your computer with a standard USB cable and allows you to create, move, and rename folders just like you would do on your internal hard drive. Moving music files is just a matter of dragging them into the folders. Setting up a play list is a snap using www.winamp.com which iRiver recommends.
The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is that there are a few areas for improvement. The first is that the supplied ear buds are just average. I replaced them with Sennheiser PX100 headphones (approx $40) which I have found to be some of the best sounding headphones on the market for portable music players. Another issue is the supplied case. Although it is of good quality you have to unsnap and remove the H340 from the case every time you want to access the controls. Hopefully iRiver or someone will come up with a case with a front access flap that fastens with velcro or something. Also the manual really isn't very good but it isn't too hard to figure the player out. Another issue I have is that it takes about 2 minutes for the H340 to load the 12 gigabytes of music that I have on it but once I got used to that it's not really a bother.
As far as a few other things, right now you can't look at pictures and listen to music at the same time although the unit's firmware is upgradeable so hopefully iRiver will add that in the future. Another issue is that the version of the H340 that has been on sale in Europe for several months allows you to download pictures directly from a digital camera into the H340 but the newer USA version requires that you download your pictures to a computer and then to the H340. I'm not sure why this is unless iRiver had some problems with the direct connect.
Overall this is a good unit somewhat ahead of the Apple IPod (At least as of today, things change quickly). If you are looking for a good portable digital player I would recommend the iRiver H340 or the H320 which is the same unit in a 20GB version for about $100 less.
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