Customer Reviews

iriver iFP-195T 512 MB MP3 Player

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This player isn't for everyone 1) It is not 20-gig 2) It isn't cheap.

Here are 3 reasons why this player suited my need

1) Battery. Battery last 2 or 3 times the length of HD based players. It is user replaceable. You can find AA anywhere in the world. Rechargeable batteries in most Giga-players will die in 2 or 3 years and most of them can't be replaced.

2) Super light-weight and small: I carry the player in the included armband and hit the trail or track.

3)No motion mechanism : Since I use it for running, no worry about moving parts. All HD will fail eventually. I don't even want to find out how much it would cost to replace a drive in iPOD.

4)FM Radio: I wasn't able to find out anything about 195T's radio feature before I purchase it. Now that I have it, It is good. Pull in better signals than my Sony AM/FM Headphone. Recording feature is a nice bonus. I listen to NPR a lot and it is nice to be able to record something while I run and refer back to it later.

5) Large enough memory: I didn't say large, but it sure is large enough for what I need. I don't know how people can fill up 20gig of space with music. I don't have the time to go through that and don't have the desire to carry my entire CD collection with me everywhere. 512MB is enough music to last me a long time and is enough to carry most audiobooks.

Enough about the good points. Here is what I think 195 can improved upon.

1) Battery door feels flimsy.
2) The knob on the 5 direction key make it hard to remove the player from armband.
3) Limited amount of buttons means that all buttons has many functions assigned to them. You definitely need to spend sometime with instruction manual to figure things out. Luckily, it is very clearly written.

This is a niche player and it also looks great! It serves my needs perfectly.

Pros: Half a gig of memory, FM tuner, FM and voice recording, small size and light weight. It uses a single AA battery and will run for about twice as long as any hard drive player. I'm getting an estimated 12 hours of real world use per battery. Compared to hard drive based units this can't be beat. Since it uses a single AA, you won't have any down time waiting for the unit to charge. The software that comes with this unit is stable, intuitive to use and works as advertised. I use this mostly for audio books recorded at low but adequate bit rates. Usually 24-48 mbps mp3's. Half a gig will hold about 30 hours of audio books. More than enough to take on vacation. Sound quality is as good as my iPod. The controls are not as intuitive as the iPod or Rio500 but if you spend 20 minutes or so with the manual everything will make sense. Navigating through content is a breeze. It's firmware upgradeable to support other formats and add or change features. Battery life is outstanding. Cons: Pricey. Subjectively cheap materials. Metal endcaps and a lanyard ring would have been a nice touch in a product that costs as much as this. I'd guess they used plastic to keep the weight down but I'd gladly sacrifice a quarter ounce for something that has a more 'quality' feel. If you're close to the end of a long audio book and stop the player, it seems to think you're done. It loses the marker and requires you to search for where you left off. Frustrating. A dedicated bookmarking button would have been nice.

Conclusion: this is probably the first go anywhere mp3 player with enough memory and battery life to be truly useful. Battery life far exceeds any hard drive player and doesn't require an electrical outlet. Simply pop in an AA battery and you're good for at least an honest 10-12 hours. Feature packed and mature in design. Hard drive players like the iPod, Karma and Zen are in a different catagory and shouldn't be compared directly with solid state players. If you need gigabytes of storage you'll have to go with a hard drive player. If you're ok with about four hours of high quality music or ~30 hours of high quality audio books, the iFP-195T is probably the best choice at the moment.

I received the iFP-195T for Christmas this year, and I'm am very pleased with the quality and features of this player. This is the first MP3 player I've owned, and have been reluctant to purchase one because of their limited storage capability with high quality MP3 files (128 MB can barely hold 2 albums at 128bit settings). I didn't want an iPod type player due to its size and weight. This player gives me more than enough room to store hours of music at 128 or 160bit quality settings. The features are quite extensive, and I highly recommend that anyone who purchases one of these gets the new firmware upgrade off iRiver's web site, which improves the EQ from a treble/bass option to a 5 band EQ (very nice), and adds other improved features.

The sound quality is amazing for something so small and light weight, the menus are very easy to navigate. One reviewer mentioned that it will not play songs in the order of the album, but this is all dependant on how you name your MP3 files, every album that I have transferred plays in the order that it is suppose to. Transfer rate comes in at about 1MB/sec, give or take a few seconds on a 60 minute album. I did have a little trouble getting my XP machine to recognize the player, but a quick visit to iRiver's website walked me through step by step on how to install it, and now it works flawlessly. I have probably used the player (including playing files and transferring files) about 10 hours, and am still on the first battery, so I'm very pleased with battery life. The headphones are high quality and I do not plan on replacing them anytime soon.

Basically, this is the first MP3 player I've owned, and I love it. It's an amazing piece of technology, small, lightweight, and loads of memory. If you're looking for a portable MP3 player, I would highly recommend this model. If you would like to know more, please feel free to email me at rattlhed@hotmail.com

This is an intelligently designed MP3 player. The addition of FM radio (and even recording FM to MP3) makes small device even more remarkable. It holds about 17 hours of music and runs on one AA battery which lasts for hours. While it cannot compete with jukeboxes (such as the iPod) in terms of storage, it's storage space is big enough to get the job done with an overall package size which is much smaller and lighter than the Jukeboxes. As noted by someone else, some of the switches/doors feel a little cheap/plastic - but it seems to be holding up fine and the light as a feather weight is appreciated.

I've had this for about 6 months and its still working great. I'm definately happy with my purchase.

Pros:
Very small: not much bigger than the AA battery it houses.
Decent memory: about 4 CDs fit on it at a time
Good sound quality: the headphones that come with it are good and the device puts out good quality base and high end
Power: Uses 1 AA and it lasts a long time
Features: FM, record voice or FM, lots of settings for equalizer and play modes (repeat, shuffle, repeat folder, shuffle all etc), power saving featuers and more...

Cons:
Cant upgrade the memory
No AM radio
Its difficult to put the tracks in order (to mimic an album)

I saw some reviews saying that the parts were low quality, and while it does feel a little flimsy, mine has not broken or shown any signs of problems. I've dropped it plenty of times and it works good as new. Pay $15 for an extended warrenty if you're worried about it.

(Nearly) Flawless. Features, battery life, size... everything is great! Menu navigation is the same as other iRiver products, so if you're familiar with their format, you'll be fine - otherwise you will experience a slight learning curve.

The feel of the unit is much nicer than other mp3 players (i.e. Nike PSA), as I shopped extensively before buying.

For gym use, the armband is good and solid, though I can't compare it to other models for comfort.

As with almost all manufacturer-supplied earbuds - go out and buy a pair that you like. iRiver's sound fantastic, but I did not find them comfortable.

iRiver's music managing software is solid, but has a bug or two with XP, and it is not yet compatible with Windows Media Player (if you're even interested). Just make sure to have the 195T plugged into your usb before starting the program!

The bottom line: if you want the best, buy this model.

I have a 256 iiver and had a 512 iriver mp3 player. The 256 unit has been reliable. I liked it so much that I bought a 512 unit. I have had to return it twice because it works great for a while, then it simply won't turn on. Dead, Dead, Dead and no resurection. It may be a problem particular to this unit. I hope they get it fixed because they have a good, easy to use product with a lot of good features. I too, like others, question the quality. Amazon.com has been outstanding in handling my return issus. Kudos to them.

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 own four MP3 players but the iFP-195T is exactly what I had been waiting for. I had seriously been contemplating an iPod before I purchased the iRiver but the concern about the iPod's non-replaceable battery and it's average life of 2-3 years caused me to back off. I primarily bought the 195T because of the 512MB memory capacity and it's ultra tiny size. Despite the reviews that I had read about the previous iFP models, the FM stereo on this model works great. Sure, there are a lot of MP3 players out there to meet a variety of needs, but I doubt that any of them have sound quality better than the 195T. It packs a wallop! I wasn't familiar with the iRiver navigation system, so it took a little getting used to but has an impressive number of menu functions. I find the tiny size of the 195T also means that it has a tiny sized menu, so a good light source and reading glasses helps me compensate for this. I run Windows XP and the managing software has been working fine. Did I say that I had no regrets? Well, perhaps one. I bought the 195T when it first hit the market and paid about $... more for it than if I had waited a few months and bought it from Amazon.com. Oh well, such is life!

My main interest in this product was for recording classroom lectures. It is being sold primarily as an MP3 player, but it's absolutely tops for recording such audio. The huge 512MB capacity gives you more than enough space to record as much as you could possibly need, which can then be easily transferred to your PC/Laptop via the USB cable, then even burned to a CD if you wish. Like others, I purchased a different set of earphones for my personal comfort, but the ones that are included do sound quite good. I also added a stick-on belt clip notch, like the ones that are sold for cell phones, which I stuck onto the supplied carrying case. The carrying case is also very nice for solving the aforementioned problems with the battery cover, as it can't possibly open or get knocked around while the case is being used. The bottom line is that this is a very cool gadget, and with the extra cost over other inferior devices.