Customer Reviews

iriver IFP-180T 128 MB Flash MP3 Player

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It's at an amazing price since it's being phased out, yet I would recommend getting it. The sound quality is excellent, particularly the quality of the voice recordings, which are amazing -- far better than on any non-iRiver units. If you want to use it to capture class or meeting notes, you'll be able to strain less and hear more with this unit.

Yes, capacity is limited, but I don't care, since I just need enough variety to get through a workout, and I fill it with songs I love anyway. Will it start to break in 2-3 years as others suggest? Probably, but if so, it's been a great player for $1.50 a month. Come on...after two years, the new players will be so much better that you'll put this in a drawer even if it's still working perfectly!

This is my first MP3 player and I did not know what to expect. All I can say is "AWESOME"! It is very tiny, light weight and has great fidelity. The controls are a little intimidating at first, but are no problem once you go through the instructions a time or two. The earphones are fine, no need to throw these away like on so many other units. The FM works great. I am getting stations from 50-75 miles away. The FM sound quality is outstanding as is the MP3 player. I also found that the memory storage is adequate, at least for me. I can load about 30 songs or about 2 hours of music. That is more than I would care to listen to at one time. Since the software is easy to use, it is a piece of cake to load the new music for variety. I have had a few problems with the software on Windows 98 SE.

Iriver stays on top of their software and are constantly updating. The firmware is updateable so your unit will stay up with any changes or improvements. You also get a one year warranty while many of the MP3 players only get 90 days.

I am more than pleased with this purchase and highly recommend it. It looks great, sounds great and the price is great!

I have owned this mp3 palyer for over a year now and would like to say this - I am happy with it. There are a few problems but if you are willing to overlook those, then it's a great little product.

Pros - Great Sound. Good battery life. Can store approximately 20-23 (128 kbps encoded) mp3 files. Plays .wma and .asf files too. Has built in equilizer settings and you can create your own eq settings as well. Backlit display is good. FM tuner is good and you can record from it. Built-in voice recorder is a great feature. I can record upto 2 hours and the quality is great. You can also convert whatever you record into mp3 files using the iRiver Music Manager. For Windows XP users, you can download a UMS driver for this which will make it appear as another drive on your system and then you can use it like any other USB storage device.

Cons - Do not use this while exercising. A slight shock will open up the battery cover and the battery will slip out. This usually happens over a period of time. There are many features and navigating through all can take some time. The display is very small.

I purchased this player about 2 years ago. It has stood up to all the abuse I have put it through. It has unbelievable sound, and cannot be beat.

A nice buy, considering the price and quality sound. Overall I became a big fan of iRiver players after this and bought a higher memory size. Highly recommend it for budget buyers.
As for Cons the USB cable is a drag. I have a creative Muvo also and it can be plugged straight into the USB jack. Organizing play lists needs to get better.

I've owned this player, the IFP 180t, for 2 years now (READ: Since it came out), and I dunno what the problem is with the other people (Maybe they truly have problems with their players, or maybe they just own IPODS(Try viewing other mp3 player 'reviews' for an idea of how hardcore ipod users are)), but this is the best series to own for flash players, unless you need higher then 512 megs.

Now, read on, I'm not kissing Iriver's ass.

This player, released 2 years ago, has the features that are common today: Drag and drop, fm, voice, joystick etc.

That's just stratching the surface. It has good sound. Maybe not GREAT sound, as the sound is only 90db noise reduction, but for IPOD users, and anyone who uses really crappy mp3 players, it's pretty good. Even for an audiophile like me, I can listen to it for a while without going crazy. But only for a while... Adding a good pair of speakers helps obviously.

This one also comes with a decent pair of earbuds. Not exactly the best pair in the world, not even good, but decent. The sennheiser mx300, makers of... Well, better headphones then earbuds, but they still make pretty good earbuds. And these are decent, you just hafta remember to screw with them, and if you want good sound quality, you can't use alot of bass with these earbuds... They are your normal 'cheap' earphones, as in, they use over exagerated deep bass, which makes it sound bass'y, but when use, makes everything else sound diluted. Bleh.

But when not using deep bass, they are pretty nice sounding headphones. For a cheap pair of headphones for the 180t (Hey, you're getting a flash mp3 player!), I suggest the Sennheiser mx-400's. crystal clear bass (nothing exagerated), high regeuncy range, and a small problem of the mid tones not sounding good, but you don't notice when you are wearing the supplied foam covers for the ear buds.

Anyways...

The 180t is also well made, I've used it alot for the past two years (I have two hard drive players, but I jog alot, so this gets alot of use), and I believe I will use it more, knock on wood.

The 180t also has a ton of customizable options. Once you figure out where the options menu is, you will be quite surprised. You can make your own equalizer, change graphic settings, change your name, etc etc etc.

And of course, the battery. The battery lasts for 20 hours, of cours this changes depending on if you use variable bit rate or not...

So much for the good, now for the bad about the 180t:

The interface is confusing as hell. It took me a week or two originally to fully understand it, considering their are so many buttons, places you must go, buttons you must hold down, etc. When I tried to use fm, I became 'trapped' and couldn't figure how to 'escape' for about 2 hours...

Then, there is the lovely voice recording, or lack thereof. Recording to voice would be nice, if it had some quality. Alas...

But really, the good qualities of this machines FAR outnumber the bad qualities. This is a great machine for the price. I would definately recommend it. Either this, or the 190/5t, Since those are 256/512 megs...

I recommend these because (IMO) the newer Irivers are not as good as the older ones. But it's all better then the Ipod shuffle, and it's no features, nOT EVEN A LCD SCREEN... don't great me started with that one..

(...). This is a great player for a first-time MP3 player buyer. The software was easy to operate and transfer music, once I realized I needed to push the USB cord into the player a little further than I had it. That cord is kind of touchy. Once it makes a connection you have to leave it alone or it will disconnect. Other than that, I've had no problems what so ever with hardware or software.

The player is very light and is great for exercise. When I run, I just hold it in my hand. When I walk, I put it in my pocket. I would love to have the armband, but I can hardly justify buying the armband for almost as much as I paid for the player. I'd just as soon buy another player for the price. The battery life is also longer than they claim. I've had mine since mid-May and I've only replaced the battery once a couple of weeks ago. It still shows full power from the new battery.

Once again.........a great buy!

I owned one of these units and it work quite well for about 16 months. Then the unit stopped working- as it was out of warranty and I could not get it repaired, I disassembled it (I am an Electrical Engineer). The system stopped working because the on/off switch fell off it's pc board- it was not glued or otherwise anchored in way to the card! The switch components are plastic and even moderate usage will produce fatigue that renders the unit useless in 1-2 years.

I've owned an iRiver ifp series player for over a year. I've been pleased in general with their operation except for the issue that when the unit breaks (which yours may or may not) iRiver has no facilities to repair a unit beyond its warranty period.

On the plus side:
+ Small size
+ Long battery life with single AA battery.
+ No OEM battery that can't be replaced
+ Audio good, and EQ settings very flexible
+ Many changable option features
+ Software can be flash upgraded

On the negative side:
- The software for loading the device is only fair. The unit can supposedly be modified by software to act as an external drive, but I have not tried this.
- The need for an external cable is a hassle, nicer if it could just plug into a USB port without a cable
- FM radio is not very sensitive. Only local stations are heard. The earphone cord is the antenna, so this accounts for the lack of sensitivity. The stereo decoding takes about 10db more signal so only strong signals will be heard in stereo
But, I bought this unit as an MP3 player, so the FM aspect isn't that important.


NOW... FOR THE MAJOR PROBLEM WITH IRIVER.....

I had my unit for a little over a year. One day, while playing music, the unit just quit, and the display went dead. Checking for the obvious problems, like a dead battery, nothing seemed to be wrong with the unit EXCEPT that it wouldn't turn on or do anything.

I sent multiple emails to iRiver and received no reply. I called their 800 number, and was informed that "they do not have a servive center, and make no repairs of the flash players"

I cannot give any higher rating than two stars to a company that charges $150-200 for a product and then expects it to just be thrown away as they don't service their product.

Apparently, if the unit is still in warranty, they can send out a new unit as a replacement, but beyond the warranty period, you're out of luck as iRiver won't touch the unit.

Buy iRiver at your own risk.

I bought this not long ago after did lots of research from the Internet. Actually, I'm looking for MP3 player with rechargable battery(which is iAudio U2 256MB by COWON) but it's still kind of pricey.
From my research, I noticed many people praise the sound quality of iRiver IFP series. You got you hear it yourselves, the sound quality is good(but with the price like this, it's great).
(+) sounds quality.
(+) the size is small but loaded with lots of features.
(+) supports multiple languages such as Chinese(Traditional and Simplified), Japanese, and Korean. I confirmed Chinese and Korean titles display in the LCD while playing the song.

(-) no armband. If there is, it surely beat it's competitors.
(-) not very intuitive. I understand that iRiver puts an effort to minimize number of button, because too many button can be confusing too, right?

Despite of no armband and not very intuitive, I still give full 5 stars because:
- the size is small you can slide it in your pocket therefore armband is not absolute necessary, and
- not very intuitive, but after play it for about 10 minutes it'll be easy.