[Review] iRiver H120

[Xtreme $niper]

I was at BestBuy today and I saw that they had it in stock. But in the display case they had all the mp3 players box's sideways so you cant see anything. I mean whats the deal with that? So I ask the guy to take it out for me and hes like "why" and i stare at him blankly. I say "because I want to see it? its placed sideways, no one can know what the hell they are about to buy that way" and hes like "ookaaay fine." and he walks off to get the keys. 5 minutes later, hes still not back... I never got to see the damn thing face to face. Stupid bestbuy, i bet Futureshop has it on display not in a display case. Honestly...

[Mike Brazil]

But the battery of this iRiver H120 isn't replaceble... I live in Brazil, and i guess it would make it thoght to me to change the battery in case ir get bad... What do y'all recommend me? iRiver H120 or Rio Karma?

Rio Karma...

...iRiver H120

[giga Veteran]

iRiver no doubt.

[Xtreme $niper]

lol iriver, honestly.

[Mike Brazil]

lol iriver, honestly.

What about it's earphone? Is it better than the Sennheiser MX300 Earbuds? Or not so good?

[Mike Brazil]

What about it's earphone? Is it better than the Sennheiser MX300 Earbuds? Or not so good?

??????

[cal2002]

Dude, you don't get replies instantly, you can wait. The iRiver phones suck, but i would doubt that the Sennheiser ones are much better. If you are looking for a mid-range set of earphones look into the Sony MDR-EX71's

[giga Veteran]

If you dont like the earphones, just buy a new pair.

[col_sandurz]

dont get he rio karma, I recently bought the iRiver H120 but almost bought the karma instead. the reason you want to avoid the karma is because it breaks really easily and rio has a bad reputation when it comes to customer service. I read many user reviews that said their karma broke within the 6 months and they were stuck with it. try sites like http://wwww.epinions.com and cnet. you can also get a really nice pair of earphones from amazon.com by sony MDR-EX71SL for about 30 USD and free shipping.

[.KICK]

But the battery of this iRiver H120 isn't replaceble... I live in Brazil, and i guess it would make it thoght to me to change the battery in case ir get bad... What do y'all recommend me? iRiver H120 or Rio Karma?

Rio Karma...

http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/images/ri...a_main_prod.jpg

...iRiver H120

http://img15.exs.cx/img15/2973/500-13.jpg

If the battery goes bad in the iRiver, the company replaces it for free :) but it is very rare for that to happen

[benjeeeboy]

The rio is HUGE if you see it in person (like 1" thick)

[propeller]

Do you think the iRiver will support Napster subscription wma once Janus DRM is released? Firmware upgrade perhaps?I am also considering the Zen Touch. Samsung is going to release some new mp3 players with Janus support but I have seen little information about it. The model numbers are YP-920 and YH-820 (mini with color display).

Napster sub. support is the only thing that kept me from getting the Ipod.

[col_sandurz]

the iRiver works like a external hard drive so if you have the actual file on your computer you can transfer it to iRiver. If the file is copy protected I supposed you could just cut and paste it into the iRiver. Also right the iRiver is the best mp3 player but I'm not sure about about the new zen or samsung models.

Also, does anyone know of any third party iRiver H120 cases? The standard one isn't any good.

[esimula]

Also, does anyone know of any third party iRiver H120 cases? The standard one isn't any good.

Here Vaja_cases you have some leather cases for H100-series and H300-series. Iskin.com is also releasing cases for IRiver products in near future. Hope these help.

ES

[AshMan]

It's kind of on the ugly side.

[asdflkjsdrhthfhrhr]

Looks good. WTF that iPod battery life is ****, I could get better time than that using my laptop with the lid down.

[alan8it]

Just got both an IPOD and IRIVER h140 and so far I prefer the Ipod. I have the same amount of music on both (around 10 gigs) and the iriver takes about 30 seconds to turn on! I feel a slight vibration as well...from the hard drive. I don't feel it on the Ipod. Now that I know about Red chair software, I will see what difference using it makes.

[islanq]

:star: :star: :star: :star: :star: review. Good Job man, I'm been thinkin about getting one of these recently and I think this review just did it for me. :D

[ScottieG]

HEY, i was just checking for updates for my i-river, and make sure you have the latest version they released not to long ago 1.60

http://www.iriveramerica.com/support/H100_firmware.aspx

[col_sandurz]

alan neither of the things you say are true for my iriver

also, I heard rockbox is being ported to the iriver, does anyone have any idea when it will be finished?

[ScottieG]

rock whaaa?? what is it... and what does it do?

nm found it http://rockbox.haxx.se/ man this looks cool, i can't wait!

[Lumi]

Well, I just want to mention that I like this 'review' allot, and I've ordered myself a h120.

I hope it ships soon. I will tell you all what I think about it when I'll be using it for a week or so.

:whistle: greetz

[cal2002]

Hope you like it! :D

[k63wilson]

I'm relatively new to the digital music world and I am between the 4G 20GB ipod and the iriver h120, and thinking of going with the h120 but have some concerns and questions that I was really hoping you folks could help answer...

1) When and if iriver ever makes any of the needed updates to the firmware that you guys are talking about, would that mean that the software inside the actual player would be updated, or are the updates just for the PC software that iriver provides?

fyi- Thru my reading of various reviews it seems that these are the most requested/needed updates:

a) ON-THE-FLY PLAYLIST CREATION

b) PROGRESSIVE SPEED WHEN SCROLLING ... WAY TOO SLOW WHEN SCROLLING THROUGH SONGS ON

THE PLAYER

c) A TRUELY RANDOM SHUFFLE ON THE PLAYER THAT PLAYS SONGS ON A PLAYLIST IN A DIFFERENT

ORDER EACH TIME

d) A WAY TO MARK OR RANK TRACKS YOU ARE LISTENING TO AS A FAVORITE IN ORDER TO TELL

THE PLAYER TO PLAY THAT SONG MORE OFTEN IN A SHUFFLE MODE.[/size]

2) If iriver doesn't provide any further firmware updates is there any other website that would create their own updates and offer them? If so, are there any non-iriver websites that do so now or which ones would you expect would have them so I can be on the lookout for them?

3) I'm guessing the answer to this is no.... but, say my friend has an ipod and I have a iriver.... can we swap our songs with eachother? And if so what are the file formats that would let us do this?

4) Which of the major music downloading websites couldn't I use with an iriver h120? ie- what websites use file formats that are not supported by iriver?

5) What is your guys ballpark estimate for the maximum # of songs that can fit on the h120 and the 20 GB ipod?

6) Sounds like you guys have been paying attention to the digital music player industry... any opinions when or if the price of a h120 or a 20G ipod will get below $200... I think just like every other "newish" tech devices, prices will dip eventually, just trying to get a feel on when b/c I'd be willing to wait a year if prices were coming down.

7) Is there a point when iriver will not replace the battery... does the warranty on it expire at some point?

Sorry to be a pain with the 20 questions but you'd be helping me out a lot and I'm sure others as well on this forum. :wacko:

Thank You.

[Xtreme $niper]

Well answering what I can without having an iriver or ipod myself... You can fit the advertised amount (give or take a few) as long as the songs are in that format. You can have mp3 with 128 bitrate, but if you want REALLY good sound go with 192, just to let you know though that takes up more space on your iriver.

As with the ipod swapping, I'm not too familiar, but I think you can as long as its a file format both can understand, like mp3.

iriver will replace your battery for a year. After that (which is when the battery will probably die) they wont replace for free.