Solid performer - but look elsewhere
Written: Feb 25 '02 (Updated Sep 04 '06)
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Pros: reliable MP3 player
Cons: poor (but avoidable) included software; hard drive and flash players much better choices.
The Bottom Line: The iRock used to be a great buy. But now there are much better flash memory and hard drive players available. Don't buy an iRock 520 - look elsewhere.
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| cyberry's Full Review: FID Irock 520 (64 MB) MP3 Player |
NOTE THE 2006 UPDATE AT END OF REVIEW -
Let's face it - in the long run the MP3 players of choice will be small jukebox-types holding thousands of songs. Not because any of us REALLY need to carry around that many songs, but because the prices will drop enough that there won't be much of a reason to pick an iRock player over, say, a jukebox (e.g. something like the Apple iPod).
That said - for the here and now, the iRock is a great player! It doesn't have all possible bells and whistles, but it's reliable, it holds enough songs, and it's a breeze to carry.
I have had the player (64 MB internal flash memory) for about eight months (after two bad experiences with Roq-It MP3 players), and use it with a 128 MB SmartMedia card. I paid about $160 for the two items. The player with the card holds about 3 1/2 hours of music saved at 128 kbps. The player plays only MP3s, not WMA or other file formats, but I don't consider that a serious limitation.
OVERVIEW OF FEATURES
The 3 1/2 hours works out to 45 to 50 songs, which is enough for my purposes. The biggest limitation on the enjoyment is that the iRock's "random" mode doesn't seem very random. The manual warns that if you have a small # of tracks, you may get some repeats in random mode. In my experience, even with the player fully loaded, i get more repeats than i would expect. Not a big problem, but something that should be easily fixed. (Unfortunately, the player is not software upgradeable. But given my statements at the beginning - jukeboxes will be the future - this limitation doesn't bother me either.)
Navigation is pretty easy with the jog switch on the right side of the player, and volume buttons below. It takes a bit of getting used to - there were times at the beginning that I hit the jog switch while trying to increase the volume - but one gets the hang of it relatively quickly.
Besides the shuffle, the iRock has an A-B feature (to repeatedly play a section of a song, for example), four equalizer settings (rock, classic, jazz and normal), a "mega bass" feature, and a hold button. The smallish display includes only track number, not song tags - not a problem for me. One odd feature that threw me at first is that, as an example, the 7th track in the flash memory and the 7th track on the memory card would both display as track number 7 in the display - the only difference is that a small image of a memory card is displayed to tell you that the track you're listening to is on the card.
The unit uses 1 AAA battery - the manufacturer promises 8 hours on the 1 battery, and I have been getting that (with alkaline batteries), and maybe a bit more. Don't even bother using a nickel cadmium battery with the iRock. After a rough start, I have been getting good results using a single, freshly-recharged nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) battery.
(From the little experimentation that I have done, the drop-off when using a non-alkaline battery is very sharp. The unit has an indicator as to battery life - three bars with a high strength bar, down to 1 blinking bar then no bar at all for a dying battery. For the non-alkaline batteries, once the 3 bars become 2, there is very, very little playing time left.)
The unit has been very durable. It wouldn't survive being stepped on, but would readily handle being dropped. I think that the jog dial is the only piece protruding from the body of the iRock that might be vulnerable in a fall, but I haven't had any problems.
The unit doesn't come with a case - again, not a problem for me. (I keep it in a shirt or jacket pocket.) The unit does come with a wrist strap. When I first bought the unit, I didn't use the strap at all. These days, though, I find the strap handy in that one has quick and easy access to the iRock's controls. (I also like the occasional stares that I get from people who are surprised that it's big enough to be a music player!)
POOR SOFTWARE, BUT.....
Now the biggest potential flaw - the included software. Installing the software and getting the player set up initially with my Windows ME PC was a pain in the neck! I had repeated crashes and had to download an EARLIER version of the driver for the player in order to get things to work. Then the software itself didn't work well - it would crash as I was trying to transfer songs to the internal flash memory or the SmartMedia card.
I was all set to give the iRock 520 3 1/2 stars (or less), when I discovered on the myirock.com website that, with the installation of an additional driver, one can use either Windows Media Player or MusicMatch Jukebox to transfer files to the iRock. Since I was already using MusicMatch, I downloaded the appropriate driver. Now, transferring files is a breeze, and there are no crashes. The songs are transferred to the player from my computer via a USB cable and port, and the transfer speed is adequate.
CONCLUSION
So, in the end, I give it 4 stars (but check out my 2005 and 2006 updates below). The iRock 520 loses a half-star because the small jukeboxes are the future, and loses another half-star because of the rough installation process, the poor quality of the included software, and the inadequate random mode. But in the universe of under-4-hours MP3 players, I don't think you will find anything more reliable or full-featured for the price. I considered very, very seriously spending another couple of hundred dollars to get a jukebox player (after the bad Roq-it experiences), but, since the jukeboxes seemed overpriced and had various problems of their own, decided to go with the iRock. I'm glad I did. A great buy!
A note on my "real world" use of the player. I have a couple of thousand MP3 files on my computer. Yet, I don't feel confined by the 45-50 song limit of the iRock 520/128 MB SmartMedia card combo. This is because I usually listen to songs in random (shuffle) mode and am mostly looking for an enjoyable and randomized group of songs to listen to during subway commutes or long walks. What I have been doing is that every week or so I use the MusicMatch software to remove the 5-10 songs I have tired of, and add a similar number of songs from my music library. This system has been working very well for me.
However, if I was more into listening to full albums from artists, I think I might find the iRock 520 less satisfactory, since it holds at most 3 or 4 albums. In that case, I probably would have spent the extra $ on a jukebox player.
(Obligatory addendum - the included "bud-type" earphones are not great, but not a reason to avoid the iRock. Most or all of the players in this category have weak to middling headphones. If you have really sensitive ears, buy an iRock and spend a bit more to get headphones that meet your needs.)
Further updates - I have used the iRock to hold three or four albums' worth of music at a time, and that has worked fine. Even though the jukebox players are dropping in prices (and the iPod is real cool-looking), I am not yet willing to ditch the iRock for a jukebox player. Maybe when the jukeboxes drop in price to $150 or so, I will take another look.
January 2005 update - the market has changed drastically since my original review, partially due to the popularity of the iPods and other hard drive players. As you probably already know, the hard drive players have a much broader function than the iRock - since they can hold hundreds of songs, they are more useful for moving your music around your house and beyond, and since they are hard drives, they can often be used to backup essential files off of your computer.
In addition, Apple recently announced a $99 music player that uses flash memory, and there are many other flash memory players on the market. These players don't have the capacity of the typical hard drive player, but they are generally far more capable than the iRock.
In this new environment, the iRock's 40-50 track limit is going to feel confining to just about any user. Though flash memory players are still popular, it's safe to say that the "jukebox future" is now here. As a result, though the iRock's feature set was fine for its time, I am dropping its rating here to 2 stars (my original rating was 4 stars).
(As for myself, these days I listen to music on a Dell hard drive player, and am quite happy with it. (Some day I might even write an Epinions review on it.) I never use the iRock any more, and don't look back. And no, I still don't need to carry around all those songs - my Dell has about 3000 songs on it, and is only two-thirds full. Still, I am happy to have all those songs readily available, and the Dell, like any hard drive player, is much more solidly constructed than the iRock.)
September 2006 update - as I thought about whether to update this review, I searched online and found, much to my amazement, that the iRock 520 is still for sale (used, if not new). In the interest of encouraging buyers to look elsewhere, a brief (and probably final) update to my original review.
There's simply no reason to buy an iRock now, even for $30. The hard drive players survive and thrive, and expand into playing videos. Meanwhile, the flash players seem to be holding their own - lower capacity and fewer bells and whistles, but much smaller form factor, making them great for exercising and a breeze to carry around.
There's no room for the iRock in this environment. It's more fragile than a run-of-the-mill flash player, and its capacity pales next to even the lowest-end hard drive player. Sure you might save $20 or so - but you would be much happier with a flash player with significantly higher capacity, and probably better included earphones to boot. Or, like me, you might spring for a hard drive player - my Dell player is still going, and has given me much more pleasure than the iRock ever did, or could.
The iRock was okay in its day, but that day is long, long gone. Look elsewhere.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 99
Recommended for: Beginners - Easy Enough for Tech Newbies
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Epinions.com ID:
cyberry
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Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
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