Customer Reviews

iriver H10 20 GB MP3 Player/Recorder (Silver)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

Well, I got this MP3 jukebox as a gift, a replacement for my old iRiver, the IHP-120, which in it's time, served me well. I'd used it for over a year, and it was only fitting that I'd be going with iRiver a second time around. That being said, I've had my new one for about a month now, and it's time for that looming review that's been sitting in my head.

First, the good.

The size. It's 20GB, which holds about 6,000 songs...way more than enough.

The sound. The sound is good. Now to sum up what kind of listener I am, I use the iRiver in my car and sometimes in my home connected to computer speakers - almost never do I use the headphones. The sound is clear and clean, no complaints here. Again, I'm using mine in the car and as background music at home, so I'm not as up close and personal as someone using headphones, but I can't imagine it's that big of a difference.

The features are excellent. Unlike the iPod, which makes you pay $50 each for a voice recorder attachment and an FM radio, these features are built right into the H-10. Unlike the older model, this one does not come with a remote control, but the MP3 player remote control has always thoroughly confused me, being that it's corded and is never more than a foot away from the unit. The lack of a remote control meant nothing to me. The new touch scroll works like a charm and the screen is nice and clear. Not only can you listen to music on the H-10, but you can view photos and text as well - a big plus for taking everything you need on the go at the drop of a hat.

The look is sleek and has that 'wow' factor that people look for when buying new technology. I got the silver model which is decidedly cleaner and shinier than the red and blue models which look drab in comparison. The silver makes it stand out. As I mentioned, the screen is crisp and clear and will handle most pictures nicely. Obviously, it's not going to handle those wallpaper pictures to the best of their quality, but the screen functions well for pictures of reasonable size.

As we all know, no product is perfect.

The software. I'm an iTunes guy - always have been. The H-10 makes you use Windows Media Player to import your files - there's no way around it. This wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that I download a lot of my music and the files aren't tagged consistantly. This means I had trouble finding a lot of songs, albums wouldn't play in order, etc. After a great deal of retagging and reloading, things got better, but I couldn't help but miss the simplicity of the older model and it's drag-and-drop capability right into the hard drive.

The case. My old player rarely left it's case. When it did, it was so that I could reset it (it froze a lot, one of the reasons my girlfriend knew I'd love a new iRiver). The H-10 comes with a see through silicon sleeve case, and this would be sufficient, except for the fact that it was like trying to fit a sandwich bag over a rocket ship. The case broke before I could even get it in. This wouldn't be such a big deal, except for the fact that you can't find cases for this bad boy in stores, and iRiver doesn't to my knowledge sell them on their website. I eventually found some cases at another site (MisticAudio) that I'm considering buying. It seems like the lack of support from retail stores hinders the iRiver product line altogether (you can't find anything in stores - chargers, remotes, etc.).

The customer support. iRiver has the WORST customer support I've ever dealt with in my life. I e-mailed them about my old unit once and it took over two weeks to get back to me, in an e-mail which stated nothing that helped out with my problem. I mailed back and 2 months later, I still haven't heard from them. God, I hope nothing ever happens to my H-10, because I'll never deal with the customer support again.

In closing, I love the H-10. Now that I have Windows Media Player working on my side, it's a breeze. I'm very happy with my H-10 and think that anyone looking for the alternative to the overhyped iPod should definitely grab the H-10, which looks cooler and sports more features.

= Jason

I have had my Iriver H120 for almost a year now and I absolutely love the thing. I have friends who own IPods and every one of them has something about my H120 that they wish their IPod would be able to do. Like voice recording. The options on the H120 are really really good. I've recorded concerts (using a external booster mic) and received decent results, better than what you'd expect using a hand-held MP3 player to record a concert.

Plus the internal mic is great for class and most situations where you'd need to record quickly. Also, I've had two units die on me (not such a great thing, really) but the amazing thing is that both times, Iriver simply sent me a new unit without any hassle or such. I just emailed them with what happened, a couple of days later I get a response, then an hour later I get an RMA approval and instructions, then two days later I receive the new unit even before I've sent off the defective unit. I can't complain about that!

I definately recommend this product. The sound quality is exceptional - however, I do recommend purchasing new headphones and IT doesn't have all of the accessories that an Ipod has..so that is something to consider.

But if faced with the choice, I'd choose Iriver again.

Enjoy.

Purchased silver version of this product a couple of weeks back, and straight off - I will say this is a wonderful product.

Sound quality is breathtaking - better than any MP3 player I have tried. I don't like ear bud headphones like the type that come with the player, but plug in good quality phones and the sound is phenomenal, and it sounds totally amazing if you connect it to a good audio system. The 'click' that some talk about when changing between certain songs is real, and a little annoying, though not overly detremental to the listening experience. EQ works well, but the player sounds so good, I just leave it at normal.

Synchronizing file using Windows Media Player 10 (WMP) works well, and while you can access the player as a USB drive and drag files over, the functionality is limited. I can see for some the limitation of having to use WMP would be a big deal, basically limits you to Win XP (and probably 2000 with SP4 though I haven't tried).

The display is just wonderful, screen is very crisp with great color depth, though honestly for something this size do you really need more colors than most PC graphics adapters can handle? Interface is very easy to use and the touch pad scroll control works great, you can hold your finger at the ends and it will continue scrolling automatically. It is annoying you can't delete files unless connected to a PC.

FM tuner works great, and neat you can record broadcasts to MP3. AM tuner would have been a nice addition! Voice recording works well, I recorded a meeting at work and it's very clear, though the range of the built in microphone is a bit limited for serious use and is no substitute for a true dedicated voice recorder - nice it records directly to MP3 format though.

I haven't really tried the photo viewer - just don't see the point in viewing photo's on a little screen smaller than the one on my digital camera!

This player sometimes does take some time to shutdown, for some bizarre reason (what does it really need to write to the HD if you are just been playing MP3's?) - other times it will shut straight down. It is also very slow if you disconnect USB, it literally has to reboot so you can operate the player controls again. Seems this machine could use just a little more processing power at times - it's sometimes very slow when manually jumping backwards or forwards between songs in a playlist (can take 2 to 4 seconds at times). I can deal with these issues, but they can can be an irritation at times.

Another annoyance - battery is fixed internal, so you can't switch to a spare if you run it down and are not somewhere you can connect to a 110V socket and recharge! Plus, even though it is an LI-Polymer battery which theoretically does not develop a memory even if you don't do full charge/discharge cycles, as an electronics engineer I know all electro-chemical devices do wear out - so we will see. Probably iRiver figure in a couple years you will buy a new player anyway - which for most users is honestly realistic, but would be nice to have the option of changing the battery.

In conclusion - if you want a great MP3 player, that works well, looks cool, sounds amazing, and you can deal with the fact it really only works with Windows Media Player 10, buy this. It is a little more expensive than an equivelant IPod, but the interface is better and it has more features (if you even care about them!). Honestly, but this just for the sound quality - it is worth it in my opinion, a few annoyances aside.

So I've only had this H10 for about 1 month, but so far I am very impressed. The sound quality is fantastic, even with the cheep earbuds that they send you. Downloading the music is excessively easy. When I got the H10 all that I had to do was install WMP v10, plug in my H10, and in less than 1 hour all of my music was synchronized onto my player.

The radio feature, which is the main reason I bought this over an ipod, is okay. The reception is decent, as long as you arent in some big building like a gym, unfortunately. That being said, it works great when I am walking around outside, and gets all but 1 of the stations I like.

I havent tried many of the other features, except I'd like to say that the picture quality on the image viewer is rather good. Also, I'm impressed that I can upload entire text files onto it and read them.

If you purcahse this player, make certain to charge it immediately after you get it. Also, never run the battery down to empty, this appears to have caused problems for others.

I can't attest to this products durability, since I've only had it for one month. Just don't drop it, step on it, sit on it, or pour liquids on it and it seems not to break.

Overall, my satisfaction level is very high. I can definitely recommend this product.

I have no complaints with the iRiver h10, except for the fact that sometimes it forgets that I've charged it. But Amazon sent me the case for the 5/6 GB version, the 20 GB version is larger and therefore won't fit in the same case. So now I have to buy it out of my own pocket, cause they have expressed no interest in sending me a new one. The thing about forgetting it was charged: every once in a while, it'll charge overnight, and when I try to play it, it'll still be dead.

I got the iRiver h10 about three weeks ago. Overall, I'm loving it.

The controls look really weird at first, and are a bit clunky to get used to. But after a few minutes of playing with it, they're astonishingly intuitive. I tried using the controls with my left and right hands; no difficulties there.

The screen looks great. This would mean more to me personally if I needed to see anything on there, but it's nice to know that I have that option and is probably a pro for a lot of people. Sound quality is very, very good. I used the earbuds the player comes with for a while, and while not astonishing, they're good. There are something like 30 preset EQs. I think that's kind of excessive, but whatever.

It comes with a somewhat thick rubbery skin that has a belt clip attached to it; I put that on right away. Some people have complained about control issues with it on, but I haven't had any.

Now for the few drawbacks:

1. The h10 likes to freeze. It's not a problem when that happens, you just have to stick a paperclip in to the reset hole and it's good as new, but it's rather irritating sometimes. This was more of a problem in the beginning, but then again I may have been doing something really stupid with it. This is only my second mp3 player; my first was a 512mb flash player (from iRiver) that was completely different.

2. Organizing. It says the player will only recognize tracks put on it using Windows Media Player. I encountered some difficulties with this. First of all, WMP wanted to sync _all_ my files to the player, which made some problems. Second, you can't do anything to the files except play them unless you're connected to a computer. I'm going to see if the iRiver Music Manager program will work; that program is very nice and intuitive. Drag and drop, rename files without a problem, organize easily. If it does, I would strongly recommend downloading it off of iRiver's website.

3. Can't delete tracks off the player unless you're connected. I sort of addressed that above but it is rather annoying.

So the iRiver h10 20 GB mp3 player gets 85/100. The only real cons are the software.

Ive owned the 20gig version for over a month now and have decided it was a good buy. The color screen rocks, the interface after a slight learning curve is intuitive and overall easy. It comes with a rubber case that offers good protection and its pocket sized. The FM receiver gets pretty good reception ( No Am ) and the headphones do pretty well as far as Im concerned (sound wise). The battery life has been good and Im overall quite happy with it and would buy it again over the competition (as of 10/05).
The only disadvantages are as follows, lack of a factory armband for those of us who dont want to have this thing on our waist or in our pocket, the fact you must use Windows Media player which isnt all bad, you get used to it and all but still wish you didnt have to go through it to use the player, although this is still far better than I-tunes as far as I can tell.
No real regrets, I would buy it again. I got the Platinum color which is nice and use it at work. You can even download raidio programs like sports shows or talk shows and then listen to them later if you want. Pretty cool overall and seems well built.

First it doesn't work with Win2000. You need Media Player 10.

Then there is no support, their customer service is ZERO,
never return my email and their phone line is ALWAYS busy

It does work with Windows XP, but transfering one album takes
about 50 minutes, that's right, not a typo, 50 minutes! Don't
know why, it states as USB2.0, I guess it works in USB1.1 only.

You cannot create folders directly on the unit, you have to create folders in your local PC and then copy/paste

The 5/6GB version's battery is external, but the 20GB battery
is built-in, you cannot use backup battery, you cannot change
the battery yourself, given their customer service is so
terrible, I don't know what you are going to do should you need
to replace the battery