iriver H10 20GB Review

[Zolk]

Introduction

Recently I purchased the new 20GB version of the iriver H10 in Trance Red. I previously was the owner of a first-generation Dell Digital Jukebox (DJ). While the device served my needs well, there were a few gripes I?ve had with it which ultimately led me to replacing it one and a half years later.

The original DJ, especially compared to the iPod, was about the size and weight of a brick. (Okay? I?m exaggerating a bit, but you get the point.) While I wouldn?t call the design of it ugly, it wasn?t one of the hippest looking portable players on the market.

However, what really perused me to replace it was the arrival of subscription music services. Unfortunately, Dell decided to only update its new second generation players to support subscription services. Originally, I had purchased music through either Napster or MSN Music for about 99 cents a track. I didn?t originally have much interest in subscription services, but with the recent launch of Yahoo! Music Unlimited which offers unlimited music for only about $7 a month, I decided to try it out. I?ve since downloaded about 1.6GB of music from Yahoo! and have really grown to like the subscription model. Yes, it?s true you never actually own the music, but I?d much rather spend $7 a month for access to a million songs instead of just seven songs.

My new found love of subscription services led me to begin looking for a replacement for the Dell DJ Choosing the irivering the iriver

I originally looked at players from Creative, iriver, and Dell. I considered the second generation Dell DJ as an option because of its low price point. However, one of my goals for finding a new portable player was that it be similar in size and weight to the iPod. While the second generation DJ is slightly lighter and smaller than the original, it?s still a bit on the heavy side. This, coupled with Dell?s increasingly poor product support, led me to eliminate the second generation DJ as a possible purchase.

What kept me away from Creative was also the size/weight issue. Additionally, I was turned off by the monochrome screen and interface, which is essentially the same as the Dell DJ since they manufacture that product.

The new iriver H10 20GB seemed to meet my requirements perfectly. The size and weight is almost identical to the iPod, it sports a color screen, and has a built in radio tuner. I also liked the fact that it?s available in a variety of colors. I choose Trance Red, although the H10 is also available in Lounge Gray, Remix Blue,The iPodtinum.

The iPod

For me, the iPod was always out of the questions because of its lack of support for WMA. I don?t want to be forced to purchase songs from Apple alone and I want my existing WMA music to work.

The iPod is a great product that?s very easy to use. However, I feel?like many others?that it?s simply a trend at this point. With other players offering extra features such as radio tuners and voice recording for the either the same price or even a lower price, it?s clear that most people are not buying iPods for features. The iPod Shuffle is a clear example of this. There are plenty of flash-based alternatives which are a much better value, yet the general public is buying the iPod Shuffle instead because of the iPod ?cool factor?.

I feel that ultimately Windows-based devices will prevail just as Windows-based computers prevailePackagingow on to the H10 20GB?

Packaging

As a designer, I enjoy good product presentation and packaging. After my Dell DJ came packaged in a plain brown box, I was happy to see this is not the case with the H10. The iriver H10 and its accessories come packed in a stylish black box that has a cutout allowing you to see the actual product.

Inside the box you?ll find various documentation, a Windows Media Player 10 installation CD, a USB cable, AC charger, a case with belt clip, earbuds, and the H10 itself.

Installation

Installation and detection of the product is very straightforward. First you should install Windows Media Player 10 if don?t already have it. This is available either from Microsoft?s website or on the included installation CD. Once Windows Media Player 10 is installed, you have everything you need to begin using the H10. When you plug the device into your computer??The Interfaced be detected automatically.

The Interface

The iriver offers a very colorful and graphical interface that?s fairly simple to navigate. Through the main menu you can access Music, FM Radio, Recordings, Photos, Text, Browser, or Settings. Browser lets to view all of the files on the H10 hard drive, while in Settings you can configure sound and EQ settings, recording settings, timers, and other various options.

While the button layout on the H10 is a bit more complex than the iPod, it?s simple to use once you get the hang of it. The front of the device contains the touch pad, a back button, and enter button for navigation. The power button is on the left side, while the right side contains the previous, next, and play/pause buttons. A lock slider is located at the top to prevent unwanted button presses when the H10 is in your pocket or case.

The touch pad on the H10 is effective, although it?s not as sensitive or easy to use as the circular touch pad on the iPod. A circular pad will always be superior to a vertical pad, as the circular design allows you to continually scroll through songs without having to replaMusicb at the top of the pad every few seconds.

Music

You can copy music to the H10 using Windows Media Player 10 (WMP). When you open WMP, a synchronization wizard will appear asking you how you?d like to copy music to the device. WMP can automatically synchronize new music and specific playlists to the device whenever you connect it, or you can choose to sync manually.

Thanks to support for USB2.0, transferring music should only take a couple seconds or less per song. While I didn?t time my experience, it didn?t take very long to transfer my entire 9GB music library.

Once transferred, you can play music on the device either by Artist, Album, or Genre. Any playlists setup in WMP should alsoFM Radiovice which is a nice change from the Dell DJ.

FM Radio

FM Radio is a useful extra for when you?re either bored of your own music or want to catch up with news or other update-to-date information. My initial testing of the tuner shows it to work rather well with no reception issues on most stations. The H10 also allows you to record radio to MP3 format either Recording setting up a timer to record a specific show.

Recording

In addition to FM recording, you can also perform voice recordings or recordings from another device using the line-in port of the soon-to-be-released cradle for the H10 20GB. I found the voice recording feature to work wellPhotosrsonally I probably won?t use this feature often.

Photos

Thanks to a color screen, the H10 lets you store and display photos. You can transfer photos to the device either through Windows Media Player or Windows Explorer. Unfortunately, I wasn?t impressed by the photo quality once copied to the device. Photos I?ve transferred to the H10 appear to have major JPEG distortion. Although the ability to display photos is nice, don?t expect the same quality as you?d find on a camera?s LCD Textwould also be nice if the H10 allowed you to zoom in on photos.

Text

The iriver H10 also has the ability to display text files on the device. Text files created in Notepad can be copied using Windows Explorer. While text file viewing is a minor feature, I suspect some may find it to be a very useful extra. I plan Accessoriesotes and other various pieces of information on the H10.

Accessories

As mentioned earlier, the H10 comes with all necessary cables, earbuds, and a case with belt clip. The included earbuds offer decent sound quality, although if you?re an audiophile you?ll probably want to go with more high-end headphones. The included case is much different than the plain leather-like case which came with my Dell DJ. It?s made of a semi-transparent flexible silicon material and features cutouts for the screen, touchpad, power button, and cable connections. What I don?t like about the case is that?s its not very easy to insert and remove the H10. However, once inserted the H10 fits very snugly and the case is transparent enough so it doesn?t completely cover the stylish design of the H10.

In addition to the included accessories, you can also get an inline remote and cradle for an extra cost. I opted not to purchase the inline remote at this time, but I may do so in the future. Unfortunately, the cradle was not yet available for purchase at the time of this review althConclusionly be very similar to the cradle for the 5GB/6GB versions of the H10.

Conclusion

Overall, I?m very happy so far with the iriver H10 20GB. The device is very stylish, light weight, and easy to use. However, the product is not without its downfalls. I find the touchpad to be inferior to the iPod?s circular touchpad and the photo experience is disappointing. Other than that, I recommend the H10 20GB to anyone Additional Photos drive based player capable of holding their entire music library.

Additional Photos

Edited September 9, 2005 by Zolk

[IK47]

add some more pics

pretty thorough review. (Y)

[antoxicion]

awesome !

[Porsche Design]

"The Skins Factory was contracted by iriver international to develop their software-based audio appliance - iriver plus."

-is it included in the North American Version?

[Zolk]

"The Skins Factory was contracted by iriver international to develop their software-based audio appliance - iriver plus."

-is it included in the North American Version?

586180536[/snapback]

This utility does not appear to come with North American versions.

Review Update: Additional photos have been added as requested.

[PaulCabby]

Nice review and pictures as well (Y)

I myself have a 5GB version of yours and love it :wub:

[saxondale.]

awww i love it, i want to sell my iRiver H340 for one :(

if you ever want to trade then you know who to ask :cool:

Edited July 10, 2005 by saxondale.

[MiG-]

from looking at the box contents i can say the headphones look like there worth around 50p, not good at all.

[saxondale.]

from looking at the box contents i can say the headphones look like there worth around 50p, not good at all.

586191911[/snapback]

and when have you even seen a company offer decent headphones? these headphones are better than the iPod ones by a mile, but dont expect the headphones you get with your mp3 player to be decent

[+StevoFC MVC]

wow...i want one

[McLaren_F1]

Nice Review

[gdodson]

Nice review. I have the 5gb version in red too and I love it. A couple of things to add: The US version uses MTP and WMP10 to sync the music, while the international version uses UMS and iRiver Plus. The included earphones are Sennheiser MX400.

[S.MULLA]

fantastic review. lovely peice of kit. my 20gb is getting old now - just waiting till 20gb h10 is available in the UK.

[C. Gomez]

Great review, but from my use of the player, I found that sometimes the UI just wasn't all that responsive. But still a good device.

[oscyaki]

The touch pad on the H10 is effective, although it?s not as sensitive or easy to use as the circular touch pad on the iPod. A circular pad will always be superior to a vertical pad, as the circular design allows you to continually scroll through songs without having to replace your thumb at the top of the pad every few seconds.

It's much easier than the iPod's:laugh:h:

You just place your finger either at the top or bottom and apply pressure. You don't have to keep gliding your finger along;);)

Cheers.

[nekrosoft13]

i was about to buy H10, but i actually got the ipod photo.

ipod is much quicker to responce, with h10 song changing was a slow.

itunes is a major pain in the ass, but i'm using Anapod which is great. I use Anapod with Audiograbber (LAME encoder)

and ipod has better color screen, i did a side by side comparison of ipod, h10 and f20 (from toshiba)

toshiba had the best screen, but some other huge issues

[saxondale.]

i was about to buy H10, but i actually got the ipod photo.

ipod is much quicker to responce, with h10 song changing was a slow.

itunes is a major pain in the ass, but i'm using Anapod which is great. I use Anapod with Audiograbber (LAME encoder)

and ipod has better color screen, i did a side by side comparison of ipod, h10 and f20 (from toshiba)

toshiba had the best screen, but some other huge issues

586195390[/snapback]

how can that me true, because technically the ipod photo has 65k colour, and the iriver has 262k or something like that, so the iriver can handle a variety of colour much better, thats why you see on your ipod photo, that everypart is one colour, and hardly see any gradients, where as the iRiver you do, because it can handle that

[nekrosoft13]

yes, i wasn't taking about the pictures, i haven't tried it, i meant the menu, i used the wrong wording

[saxondale.]

yes, i wasn't taking about the pictures, i haven't tried it, i meant the menu, i used the wrong wording

586195436[/snapback]

yes im talking about both, you will see on the iPod Photo (hope im correct) that each part of the menu has a solid colour, like the backround, top toolbar, scroll, its one colour, where as the iRiver there are gradients throughout the menu

[Slimy]

thanks for the review :D

[nekrosoft13]

yes it is solid color, but i still think it looks better, h10 menu is a bit weird, and skiping songs is very slow.

i was all for the h10, i was about to buy one, but after close inspection i decided not to

[saxondale.]

yes it is solid color, but i still think it looks better, h10 menu is a bit weird, and skiping songs is very slow.

i was all for the h10, i was about to buy one, but after close inspection i decided not to

586195585[/snapback]

yer i guess if you want you music straight away, faster navigation (some could question) then the iPod is cool, but im a person who goes for sound quality, features, build quality, so the iRiver gets my vote

[nekrosoft13]

about build quality i would give it to ipod.

especially after seeing the store model of h10, that had the play button halfway sticking out, little more and it will either fall out or stop working

and sound quality is the same for both, kenwood mp3 player has better sound, its the first player with build in digital amplifier

[saxondale.]

about build quality i would give it to ipod.

especially after seeing the store model of h10, that had the play button halfway sticking out, little more and it will either fall out or stop working

and sound quality is the same for both

586195794[/snapback]

build quality, erm i mean like the parts use, like the quality of the battery, hdd etc and for sound the iRiver is better, fact.

[nekrosoft13]

build quality, erm i mean like the parts use, like the quality of the battery, hdd etc and for sound the iRiver is better, fact.

586195802[/snapback]

so what is the hdd made of gold? or battery made of titanium? :rofl:

sound quality is the same :whistle: