Customer Reviews

iriver Clix Rhapsody 4 GB Digital Music and Video Player (Black)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Player that has it all. This player does more that most any other. MP3, WMA music files I can drag and drop AND use Windows Media player AND use Rhapsody for subscription music (Napster subscription service works too, but doesn't have Rhapsody's awesome channels, which are like having a personal DJ) Just about any other music service out there will work, and you can still rip and copy your own files.

But wait, I'm just getting started. This thing plays videos on it's beautiful QVGA screen. If you think you can't stand a tiny screen, you haven't seen the Clix's OLED display. It's crisp, bright and easy on the eyes. Some of these small screens show pixels and ghost images, not so with the Clix2. I can watch for hours and not mind at all.

Okay, I'm not even close to done yet. We also have Audible capabilities. Audible is a great audiobook service that gets all the latest audiobooks and makes them available for download, these transfer over to the Clix2 in a snap and provide hours and hours of enjoyment for everyone who likes books but has trouble finding the time to read.

Want more? Sure! The built in FM radio is easy to use and picks up more stations than any of my portable players, it has something like 20 presets and will set them all in no time.

What's the catch? you must be thinking. Don't ask me, I'm still looking for one. Good volume output with buds or full size headphones, great equalizer presets, a manual EQ and SRS WOW magic stuff that makes headphones and speakers sound like they cost a bundle of cash.

Oh, wait! You want more? Really? OK, Clix delivers. You can look at pictures, browse through or see an automatic slide show (while listening to your tunes, of course) and if you got some time to kill, it comes with 4 great flash games you can play. If you look around you can find more on the web.

So, I must say that I'm really pleased with the HUGE array of features, the sound quality and overall operation of this player. It has NO equals in it's category.

I must say, the Clix Rhapsody is awesome! I did tons of research before buying this player. My husband has a Creative Zen 30GB player and it is too big, and I find it difficult to operate when I use it every blue moon. I wanted something small for when I run, and wanted the flash games so my kids could use it on the airplane. The iriver Clix is so easy to operate, and the sound is awesome.

In addition, if you are wondering, I believe this is 2nd generation player. I couldn't find it mentioned in Amazon's detail except for "(1clix4b)" written in the description. I had assumed this was a 1st generation with that description, but after visiting the iriver website I think the 1st generation was much thicker. This confusion almost prevented me from buying the player, but I am so glad I did. Hope this helps!

First off, let me just admit that I'm an MP3 player addict and I usually get the big hard drive ones. So for comparison purposes, I've put this up against an iPod Touch, an iPod Video 5.5, and my Archos 605. The main thing that drove me to buy a Clix was the glowing CNet review and numerous comments about the superb audio quality of the iRiver players and the Clix in particular.

After a lot of fiddling with audio settings, I finally see why the clix 2 gets such rave reviews for audio quality. However, straight out of the box it doesn't sound very good at all, you will need to spend some quality time with your clix to get good sound.

As is my wont, I like to list out the things I love followed by the things I don't love so much:

1) This thing is real nice to look at, its sleek and thin, clean design.
2) Perfectly sized for a pants pocket, which is a first for me!
3) Beautiful screen for the price.
4) Innovative D-Click interface with lots of dedicated buttons for volume, power, hold and even a special programmable button.
5) Easy to operate blind with only a little bit of practice so you don't necessarily have to take it out and look at it to see what you're doing.
6) Very customizable in so many ways.
7) After setting to MTP mode I was immediately able to download my music and playlists, as well as album art and song ratings using Media Monkey; this was as easy as the iTunes/iPod setup which is a minor miracle. I'm very impressed, given the problems I've had doing same with my Archos 605.
8) Built in mini-USB port, might sound like a minor thing but none of my other players has it.
9) Special button: one button can be assigned to a special function which is nice (I set mine to do Play/Pause).
10) Lots of other features which I don't use and other reviewers have described in detail.
11) Flash theming: you can download all sorts of flash background themes and fonts and really customize the look of the player.
12) If you are patient, you can really get some great sound out of this thing by fiddling with the Wow and SRS and other EQ settings.

Things that I'm not loving so much:
1) Fits so well in my jeans pocket, but every time I bend over it starts fast forwarding. I have to put it on hold every time I put it in my pocket. Basically, the down side of the D-Click interface is that it is easily activated by random bumps and jostles so I pretty much have to put it on hold all the time. I also find this can be hard on battery life as my case will keep the screen alive when fully closed. This has become a real problem to me, unfortunately my noreve case isn't helping matters at all.
2) After the joys of touch screen interfaces, I find it a little tedious to not have any sort of sliding/touchy interface for doing things like scrolling through long lists of songs.
3) Hard to find accessories: welcome to life outside the Apple happy place, I have yet to find a store that actually will sell me an accessory for the Clix. Looks like I will be ordering everything online! So for now I have to carry it in my pocket whether I like it or not; fortunately that works pretty well!
4) Battery life is a bit disappointing, I end up putting it on the charger whenever I'm not using it!
5) Although the screen is beautiful, its very hard to read in full sunlight.. unlike my iPods.
6) I can't get this thing to work with Rhapsody ToGo to save my life, in spite of going around with Real and iRiver tech support it still doesn't work for me; I have heard it works for others though.
7) Tech support, where is it? I put in a ticket and never got any response at all so it appears to be non-existent. Makes Archos tech support look stellar by comparison!

So, in summary, this is the best pocket player I've ever found, the sound is crisp and clean, the interface is innovative and fun. I think its a great little MP3 player for the price but I don't think it holds up to the higher priced iPod Touch overall... not surprising since it is a hundred dollars cheaper!

Update after 1 month of ownership: well I have to say this little player has really grown on me. After fiddling with settings I now find that the sound is as good as advertised (still lacking some power though!), it is addictive, all my other players don't seem quite as crisp and clear anymore. I've updated my pros and cons accordingly. Normally this would be good enough reason to bump the rating to 5 stars, however I've discovered a few more things I'm not so happy with so I'm leaving it at 4. Hoping the next version (Clix+ ??) will resolve some of these problems!

2nd gen clix. best player i have used (ipod video, nano, zen v plus, zen micro, sandisk sansa). themes are customizable/downloadable. plays flash games. great user interface although it takes sometime to get used to. such a great player. plays video, pics, music sq is very good, display is great. hard to find accessories, but the player is so small any aftermarket case should be fine. this player is better than the ipod nano, creative zen vplus( which i also own. My opinion, best flash mp3 player on the market.

To the best of my knowledge, there are only two mp3 players on the market that actually advertise to be compatible with Rhapsody. Those two players are the Sansa Rhapsody and the iriver clix Rhapsody. Since I have a Rhapsody account, these players attracted my attention. I started out with the Sansa and after a year, I was disappointed with random shut downs, the player locking up, and in the end, the player not even turning on.

So my next natural progression was the clix Rhapsody from iriver. After reading many reviews, I finally bit the bullet, and purchased the clix. The price is obviously much higher then the 4GB Sansa, but hey you get a pretty sweet player.

Here are the pros:
-Player style is a huge plus, easy to navigate with the "screen buttons"
-The screen is amazing. Still kind of small, but still good enough to play some music videos
-Volume is insane at 20 and it reaches 40!
-Adjustable EQ is much better than Sansa's
-Flash games are fun for those boring times, but they cut the battery
-Player boot up is about 10x faster than the Sansa's

Here are the cons:
-The battery definitely doesn't last for 24 hours of continuous playback. The most I've gotten was 8-9 hours.
-When using Rhapsody to update player, it seriously takes 10 minutes to load my player's music. This could be a rhapsody software problem, but it's really annoying.
-There are random "skips" in audio playback like it's playing from a CD. There is no pattern to the annoyances, they just happen.
-Audio playback stops when you start playing flash games.

Due to the cons, which can be very nerve racking, I gave this player a 4 out of 5 rating. I would have liked to give this player a 5, but the "skips" really tick me off when I'm trying to rock out...

This was my third Iriver player and they are all still working like new. My first was a 128 MB unit that was about the size and shape of 1/2 a cigar. You could wear it around your neck or on your arm. Next I bought a 20 MB hard drive based unit that holds about 5500 titles and uses just over 9 MB. I record usin WMA at the 64k setting. The I just couldn't resist the features of the Clix! It has it all. The older units had FM and voice recording plus record from FM. But this has all of that plus great pictures, videos, and even games. The color and screen are magnificent. And the ergonomics work for me. What a great idea it was to make the 4 edges of the screen navigation buttons. It has been said the volume buttons are not intuitive but depending on the screen orientation they may or may not seem right to you. So whta more would I like? Two things come to mind. First I wish there was a shuffle mode for viewing pictures. If there is I haven't found it. Second, I wish there was a way to jump directly from "A" to "B" to "C" and so forth when scolling through song titles. The scrolling is fast but should't there be a way to perhaps double click to the next alphbet lett of tune names? Still I rate it 5 stars because, I love it!

The latest firmware isn't working well with Rhapsody V.4.0. The issues all relate to Rhapsody's Digital Rights Management (DRM). The Rhapsody player updates the subscription tracks but the player doesn't recognize the update. There is no good fix for the issue. This has been a big dissapontment.

This was slimmer than I thought it would be and the control interface was interesting and worked for me. I like that you click the 4 sides of the display to navigate the menus. The clarity of the screen was very good and videos were clear to view, but just not to watch movies on. The sound was the main thing that hooked me. It is louder that the iPod and I have the original 1st Gen 20GB iPod.

A++++

the buttons are really easy to use and has a good amount of memory, so far i havent had any problems with it, the screen doesnt really attract too many finger prints and marks, i really dont have any complaints about the product

Great item, plays what you want, good quality. To the reviewer below, are you are aware that the official site offers a firmware package alternative? You can get that, depending on the one you download, either turn the non-Rhapsody version into the Rhapsody, OR, the Rhapsody into the Non-Rhapsody version.

http://iriverinc.com/support/ultra/Clix2change.aspx

Easy instructions so that you can buy this version and just turn it back into a non-Rhapsody one.