Amazing Product
Written: Nov 09 '03
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Pros: battery life, no propriotary software, wired remote, line in/out feature, much much more...
Cons: Almost as expensive as iPod, Leather case, yeah... that's it...
The Bottom Line: If you have the money to spend on a hard drive player, this is a best buy
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| pin0y_b0y's Full Review: iRiver iHP-100 (10 GB) MP3 Player |
When I first decided to look for a hard drive based mp3 player was when my Rio 800 bit the dust and was no longer able to function.
The initial product that I researched was the Apple iPod, which I rejected quickly based on my findings of the bad battery life, and the fact that the battery pack starts to go south after a year or two of use. The Apple iPod was a very tiny player, but there was also criticizm that it did not work very well with windows, and the tech support was crap.
The next one in line after that was the Creative Zen, which had a huge hard drive for the price ($200 for 20 gigs of space), but I also rejected due to the fact that the operating system of the Zen did NOT allow for you to organize your music into your own folders.
Finally it lead me to a bit more expensive, but a better alternative, The iRiver IHP-100. So far, this player has done nothing but impress me.
Accessories and Player:
The player is absolutely beautiful, the first thing I thought when I pulled it out of the package was 'holy cow this thing is tiny' (60(W) X 19(D) X 105(H)mm). Which is just a little bit bigger then the iPod, and wieghs just as much as an iPod. It has a great navigation push button on the front, which at first looks kind of silly, but makes it VERY easy to navigate through all of your songs and folders. It is a very sleek black and silver which feels very durable, and solid. It also comes with a nice Leather case which I always keep it in. I have two small complaints about the leather case, there is no clear plastic cover over the display, and the belt loop is really just a belt loop, and not a clip like I was hoping for. The wired remote that comes with the package is an AMAZING addition to an already great mp3 player. It has a nice little gator clip attached to the back so you can easily attach it to a belt, shirt, backpack strap, ect. This remote allows you to do anything that you can do on the player. The buttons on the sides are push mock rollers. You can push them in to make a selection, and the roll to the sides, but not all the way around. On the remote, there is a battery indicator, Folder Name line, File Name Line, Progress indicator bar, basically anything you could possibly need on a remote. I freakin love the remote.
Navigation:
Navigation for this player is very easy, it reads by filename and ID3 tags. You can choose from two types of navigation: You can search through your music using the standard file system which is very much like navigation through a windows tree, it recoginzes up to 1000 folders and 5000 files, so you can divide music up into different folders and put them on your IHP, and yes, you can put folders within folders, just like in windows. The other way to navigate is using ID3 tags, you can choose from different categories when it come to choosing an mp3 or group of mp3's to play; Artist, Genre, Title. This can be a cool feature, but you have to have all of for ID3 tags whipped into shape! Personally, I don't use it because I find that it is easier to search for music using the stadard file tree.
Transfer:
NO PROPRIOTARY SOFTWARE! Yes, I say again, NO PROPRIOTARY SOFTWARE! This thing operates exactly like a portable hard drive, and you just drag and drop your mp3 collection on to the prortable hard drive. It also makes it very easy when you want to trasfer files from one computer to the next, just plug it in, and transfer. This makes putting music on the player much easier than any other player, and far less of a pain in the neck to deal with all that crappy software that most mp3 players require. The one peice of software that is included in the bundle just installs a driver on the computers so you can make a database file on the player. The speed was acceptable on USB 1.1 (what I use), I was never able to test it on USB 2.0 yet, but I'll update this or something if I figure it out. Anways, it took about an hour to transfer 3 gigs of songs on the the player on USB 1.1 mind you.
Battery:
That battery just lasts and lasts, if you just let the player go without ever changing the song or touching it it WILL go very close to 16 hours, but obviously you are not gonna just let the player play, you are gonna choose songs and move around and stuff like that, so more realisticatlly the battery will last close to 12 or 13 hours on a single charge. According the iriveramerica.com the battery can be charged over 3000 times while only losing 20% of battery life when you start getting close to 3000 charges. So, before the battery gets bad it will have lasted 4 or more years, depending on how much you use the player.
Overall:
I love this player, I loaded all of my albums and mp3s on to this thing and I still have more than 5 gigs worth of space, some people feel like the 10 gigs is not enough space for them, but it is more than enough for me. If the 10 gigs is not enough for you, there is a 20 gig version, the IHP-120 that offers all the same features, plus a 20 gig storage for about $50 more. Sweet player, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
If you have any questions about this player, you can email me kquiaoi@ilstu.edu
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 320.00
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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pin0y_b0y
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