Slashdot Mirror

The iPod has forced every other mp3 player maker out of business!

Yeah, all the other makers except for Microsoft, Sony, Creative, SanDisk, iRiver, Archos, Toshiba, and a dozen generic Asian manufacturers...

The iRiver stuff has supported Ogg for a long time. http://www.iriver.com/

HTC's phones are much better.

But they are relatively unknown outside of XDA-dev and Pocket PC circles.

My Blue Angel came out over two years ago, but I can do more with it than with an iPhone:

• Watch movies, play MP3s (all media formats supported with TCPMP)
• Connect and transfer using: Bluetooth, WiFi, IR, GPRS, USB
• Install and play games
• Browse the internet with any number of browsers (e.g. PIE, NetFront, Opera, ...)
• GPS navigation w/ speech (BT GPS receiver required)
• Read and edit Word, PowerPoint, Excel docs
• Print documents to IR-enabled printers
• Use SSH and VPN to securely connect to home or work

HTC phones are the best in the world for tech users. The only reason iPhone gets the hype is because of Apple's brand.

It's the same reason iPod sold so well, even though iRiver's H140 / iHP-40 is superior in many ways.

HTC's phones are much better.

But they are relatively unknown outside of XDA-dev and Pocket PC circles.

My Blue Angel came out over two years ago, but I can do more with it than with an iPhone:

• Watch movies, play MP3s (all media formats supported with TCPMP)
• Connect and transfer using: Bluetooth, WiFi, IR, GPRS, USB
• Install and play games
• Browse the internet with any number of browsers (e.g. PIE, NetFront, Opera, ...)
• GPS navigation w/ speech (BT GPS receiver required)
• Read and edit Word, PowerPoint, Excel docs
• Print documents to IR-enabled printers
• Use SSH and VPN to securely connect to home or work

HTC phones are the best in the world for tech users. The only reason iPhone gets the hype is because of Apple's brand.

It's the same reason iPod sold so well, even though iRiver's H140 / iHP-40 is superior in many ways.

Apple has never competed on price. The basic iPod is still the most expensive MP3 player by about 30%. And for the cost of a 4GB nano, you can get a 20GB HDD based MP3 player. Heck, you can get a 20 GB Archos Jukebox for 100 dollars if you look.

Where Apple shines is form factor. That Archos Jukebox can be amazingly cheap, but it won't fit in your pocket. The iRiver is a powerful, fully featured player, but just try to get it to do anything without taking a course at your technical school. Even the regular iPod is big by many people's standards, leading to the popularity of the Mini and Nano.

And if you haven't held it in your hands, the Nano is damned small. This thing could fit in a wallet. It can fit in the tiny key pocket on most jeans. You don't have to decide between taking your iPod or your PDA (or your iPod or your Compact, etc). Just take 'em both. They'll both fit.

Besides, if you're comparing USB drives, why not compare to the Shuffle? 100 dollars for 1GB of storage, which includes the battery and playback interface out of the box. Not an amazingly low cost solution, but not bad compared to the rest of the stuff in that space.

An MP3 player is more than just flash memory, you know.

Check this out:

http://www.iriveramerica.com/prod/hd/

http://www.iriver.com/html/product/prpa_product.as p?pidx=42

I bought an iRiver IFP 899 purely because it said it supported Ogg Vorbis. However, I'm at a loss to get most of my files to play on it. Apparently, things have to be encoded at a minimum of 96k/s and a max of 224. But even supplying oggenc with those parameters, it still can't play them.
/me shakes fist at iRiver.

Proving that iPod users are either scrupulously honest or more paranoid they'll get sued by RIAA than owners of lesser music players."

What I really want is a portable disk-based audio-player that has a completely normal USB harddisk interface to the computer, and that supports ogg vorbis, musepack, flac, and other common formats. But I guess there's no market for that, people really want to limit their choices to the iTunes I guess, and never have a need for portable harddisks in the same unit...

Howdy joto,

I have an iRiver H340 and love it.

It is a completely normal USB harddisk (40GB).
Supports ogg vorbis, MP3, WMA, ASF and WAV.
Can record direct to MP3 from line-in, internal microphone and also from the built in FM radio.

I wish it supported FLAC, but alas it does not. However soon the Rockbox open firmware will support this player, bringing FLAC amongst other things with it. Awesome!

Yeah, that's what I meant. And think of this: a pretty nice MP3 CD player can be had for $70. A 4GB iPod nano is $200. I can buy a whole lot more than 4GB worth of blank CDs for $130 ;)

I considered an MP3 CD player, but when I saw this, I fell in love and had to have it. ; )

Check out their new U10 model for some sweet design. It is expensive though.

• It's very small
  
• Receives FM radio
  
• Can record from the built-in mic, the line-in jack, or the FM radio (sheduled too, if you like)
  
• Plays MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, WMA, ASF, OGG
  
• Built-in EQ
  
• Some Linux support
  
• Can be connected as a USB mass storage device (with a firmware upgrade)
  
• Runs for 40 hours on a single AA battery
  
• 4-line backlit LCD

Try here -> http://www.iriver.com/ I have an FP-890 and it works just fine with OGG.

There are numerous other players on the market, which already have fm-radio/ogg/mp3/wma/aac(?) support, and support AA batteries (Which are far better than a non-changeable rechargeable one). And they have greater storage (e.g. 1gb+).

I fail to see how this is news or worth looking at.

"Others who bought this player, also looked at : http://www.iaudio.com/ , http://www.iriver.com/ etc."

I have held off on buying an MP3 player because I can't find one that supports OGG, has a radio in it, and gets good battery life.

You appear to be looking for an iRiver H340. Specs are here: http://www.iriver.com/html/product/prpa_product.as p?pidx=42

Several. iRiver make some. But the Cowon Iaudio x5 is the latest and greatest.

I have an iriver h320 and I completely agree that it is much harder to use, however I would choose it any day over an iPod. While you may not treat your ipod as a fashion accessory I believe a lot of people do. It reminds me of yoyo's when I was little. The soft drinks companies brought out branded yoyo's and we all went insane for them, never did I think when I was getting them 'why don't I get a normal one' because it was about having the same as the next guy. I'm kind of sick seeing people with white earbuds in the street now, and it makes me glad I returned my first ipod and bought my iriver in it's place. It has the functionality I want and was much cheaper than an ipod. Also I would suggest checking out the iriver h10 http://www.iriver.com/html/product/prpa_product.as p?pidx=61 as an example of an incredibly stylish, functional and small mp3 player which is definately 1up from the clunky design of my h320.

FM radio complicates nothing. My iRivier H340 has FM radio, microphone recording, a full color screen, video playback, and USB on the Go which is handy when the camera gets full and I don't have a laptop around. It has a picture viewer, text viewer, and better audio format support than the iPod. It was cheaper, too, and comes without any software requirements beyond USB2/FAT32 support. Toss a linux image on there so I can use it to USB boot and it makes a decent digital swiss army knife. Apple's iPod is hardly the only thing (or the most feature rich) on the market.

While it is true that Clearchannel programming is universally worthless, I live in an area with a couple college stations and an extraordinarily good NPR affiliate (WXXI). Being able to tune them in is a bonus, especially when I'm using the iRivier for more computer-related tasks and haven't got any tunes loaded. Radio also has a lot of applications in other areas that are useful for some people (traffic, wilderness, etc).

I can think of only three features I'd like to see added... better video playback with video-out, record from radio, and Sirius support. Good to see the next model will almost certainly have the latter. Apple can keep their iPods, especially if they remain shortsighted enough to keep thinking of them as file-only devices. (Frankly, Jobs is not that foolish, so I don't think that'll be an issue.)

I can assure you that my tiny antennaless device gets exceptional broadcast clarity from all of the local radio stations. It bookmarks my stations, and the interface is a breeze. I'm also sure this feature cost them all of about 50 cents per unit to include. Radio is so easy it's a goddamn afterthought.

So, for anyone who's looking for an MP3 player with a radio tuner with video playback that's in the same price range as Apple's little toy, check out iRiver and the Mistic River user community for more information. Btw, their peripherals are exceptional, especially the docking stations.

If you're familiar with the open source mp3 player software called Rockbox, which was originally developed for the old Archos MP3 players, the Rockbox team is porting Rockbox to the iRiver. It's a far better MP3 player OS than any commercial ones I've used.

Whats the big deal..,?

I also dislike the fact that iTunes is such a part of the iPod. You can't put music onto the iPod without using iTunes (well, not unless you either don't want it playable or figure out the iPod's bizarre internal directory structure). I want my player to appear as a hard disk damn it! Having the player appear has a hard disk keeps the geeks happy, and allows dumbed down apps for normal users too. It also turns the player into a portable hard disk as well.

I think 2005 will be a big year for MP3 players. Iriver has got an impressive line of MP3 players with features such as a USB host function (as supported by the H300 series - connect a digital camera or external hard disk to your player!), optical audio out, ability to view text files (great for lyrics, notes, whatever... - maybe even artist information from the MusicMoz project), FM tuner, realtime MP3 encoding, support for standard M3U playlists, better battery and so on.

An iPod might be fine for the person with a bog standard music collection who doesn't mind the lock-in of an all-Apple solution. It's not fine, however, for someone like me who has written his own software to handle his music collection with web-based search, lyrics integration and so on. I've seen the value that can come from a non-locked in solution.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not really anti-Apple. They brought these kind of players to the mass market, but their technology is now lagging behind. Let the battle commence!

The currently available iRiver products don't have recording capability, except for recording FM broadcasts.

I don't think so - the h340 is a beefed-up h1xx, and I think it has the same recording options (except the h1xx's can't do FM recording as the HDD isn't shielded well enough not to screw up the receiver). See the 'view detailed spec' on that page:

Direct Encoding MP3
Voice Recording Yes
Line In Yes
Line Out Yes
Optical In No

Hmm - it may have lost WAV recording and there's an optical in on the h1xx's. Seems like they're going backwards on some features! I'd recommend the h1xx unless you're trying to "rival stuff from the pros", but get a set of powered mics from great squid.

your friends need to get a clue and ignore the "hard drive" recorders.

portable DAT recorder works perfectly, ... quickly extract the audio files off the tape and into uncompressed 44.1 or 48KHZ wav files.

I've got an iRiver h120 with giant squid audio mics recording to 44.1 wav (or straight to mp3, if it doesn't matter) which I can drag and drop straight off to my linux box. I can record for 10 hours on the internal battery (though due to the disk being FAT, it'll only do about 2 hours max in one file!). Until you've heard the results and still aren't impressed, you can shove your linear, bulky DAT. There's also the added bonus of it being a 20GB ogg repository (or any other files that might be handy to have in a cigarette packet size). Your couple of T180 DATs are looking mighty small from over here.

Unless you've tried an iRiver HDD recorder with a proper set of mics, you really don't know what you're talking about. It's going to be down to "is the ADC in your DAT that much better than the iRiver's to outweigh all the pros the iRiver brings to the table?". Without knowing what DAT you've got I can't tell you, but knowing what you get for $450 I'm guessing your flush is well busted.

Have you looked at iRiver's N10?

It's a bit on the pricey side as far as flash players go but it's really small (about the size of my two pinkies put together), lightweight, has 10+ hours playtime with 192Kb songs and it looks great. Plus they have a white version coming out and I hear they plan to offer 1G sizes soon.

I picked up a 512M model over the summer in HK for about $240USD and I've been really happy with it. Wearing around your neck, everyone either instantly recognises it as a mp3 player or think it's some sort of cool looking lighter.

I'm really surprised iRiver wasn't mentioned. I've got the 40GB HP-140 and it's a nice player with FM and the ability to record high quality compressed or uncompressed audio. The interface isn't as nice as the iPod, but with the open source Rockbox firmware being ported to several iRiver models, seems like a pretty serious competitor (especially for the Slashdot crowd).

Iriver ifP-1095 - mp3/ogg player and a digital camera on a usb keychain. Please don't ask why it has a camera. I have absolutely no idea.

I'm an avid digital photographer, and in almost all of the photo boards I hang out on, the opinion of the photo ipod was generally disappointing. How hard would it have been to put a freakin CF card reader in it? How hard would it have been to enable movie playback in at least ONE format?

iRiver has a player -- slightly predating the iPod Photo -- which can function as a USB host for transferring photos.

It's also extremely fucking ugly, and I personally wouldn't buy one 'til the platform matures a bit. But just a FYI.

A major point that people forget about using ogg on portable players is that ogg decoding requires more processing power which translates to less battery life per charge. I love ogg for various reasons that due to this reason I stopped using it even though my player supports it.

iRiver H340 is what you are looking for. Unfortunately, the US version does not have USB-on-the-go feature for some reason. As a satisfied owner of H120, there are other features that iPod does not have but that has been discussed in detail before.

No car players? Tapedeck adaptors are quite cheap these days, and most of iRiver's line of portables will quite cheerfully play OGG-Vorbis. It might not be as pretty as an in-dash solution, but it's quite a bit cheaper, and you can take it with you when you step out of the car.

My girlfriend had her birthday yesterday, and I bought her a iRiver iFP895. The more I play with it, the more I want to keep it for myself. By default it uses a proprietary file system you need "iRiver Music Manager" to access, but an optional firmware can turn it into a mass storage device. Both works on Linux (The prop. file system can be mounted using this).

And yes, it plays Ogg.

I disagree to some extent. I received an iRiver H340 yesterday. While I won't get much initial use out of the following features it is good to know they are integrated and I won't need to purchase a seperate device to get them later: FM tuner with recording, dictaphone, image and text-viewer, and support for connecting to cameras and other devices through USB.

The other features I couldn't be without: Playlists, multiple audio-formats (with upgradable firmware which could support more in future, and even video), the awesome equaliser that includes WOW, SRS and TruBass, 16 hours of battery-life, 40GB of disk-space with no restriction on what you can load on it (essentially a portable HDD), and a verbose but simple-to-use tag-browser.

And lets not forget, the interface is damn sexy, and usable with it.

I disagree to some extent. I received an iRiver H340 yesterday. While I won't get much initial use out of the following features it is good to know they are integrated and I won't need to purchase a seperate device to get them later: FM tuner with recording, dictaphone, image and text-viewer, and support for connecting to cameras and other devices through USB.

The other features I couldn't be without: Playlists, multiple audio-formats (with upgradable firmware which could support more in future, and even video), the awesome equaliser that includes WOW, SRS and TruBass, 16 hours of battery-life, 40GB of disk-space with no restriction on what you can load on it (essentially a portable HDD), and a verbose but simple-to-use tag-browser.

And lets not forget, the interface is damn sexy, and usable with it.

I compared both the iHP-120 and the Rio Karma myself before buying the iRiver product, and I am very very happy. Both play oggs, both are 20GB, both have great battery life, but the iRiver has more. First and foremost it uses the USB Mass Storage interface. No need for silly Java software, you just connect it to a USB-enabled computer and can transfer files natively, in Mac, Linux or Windows. That includes non-music files, too, unlike the Karma.

Secondly, no lockup issues. If a hard drive is making grinding noises and slamming it makes it work again, that sounds very much like a head crash to me. Uh. That's bad, by the way. Expect the life of that player to be low. If there really was a head crash, it probably scraped some shavings off the disk. Nevermind the fact that that part of the disk is probably ruined, you've now got little metal shavings whizzing around inside your cleanroom-environment-sealed 4200rpm+ hard disk. A head crash is eventually fatal to the drive in most cases.

Compare this to the worst complaint I've had with the iRiver, which is that the built-in microphone will record some prominent harddrive noise if you fill the in-memory buffer while recording, which makes long recordings useless for anything but personal reference. Which is generally fine. The external mic doesn't have this problem, of course.

Anyway, very happy with my iRiver. Even moreso now. Thanks!

I've got an iriver H-120, and I tried using it as mass storage for a while, but it was just too much trouble to carry the cable around, it takes far too long to turn on, and I'd rather use the battery for listening to music. So, I got myself one of these -ReK

But then, after I bought the device, they merely posted an apology when they failed to release a firmware on their first deadline date. And then, silence. For months. You can go check out their online forums and you'll see that they are positively filled with irate customers screaming for iRiver to get its act together and release the updates it promised, but as far as anyone can tell nobody from iRiver even reads the forums.

This was a real disappointment, because in the past I owned an iRiver CD-based MP3 player and their firmware updates were regular, timely, and added all kinds of valuable features, from extended battery life to extra anti-skip protection, etc. It seems clear that iRiver's focus is now on pumping out new products (such as the H320, the market for which isn't entirely clear) rather than satisfying past customers. A real shame.

Right now, the H-series from iRiver is still missing:

• Gapless playback
• On-the-fly playlists
• A proper shuffle feature (the current one is not particularly random)
• Level indicators for the record function

Don't believe me? http://www.iriver.com/community/notice_view.asp?pa ge=&idx=31&mode=&strque=&field=1 They admit the problems and plan a fix. Never happens. Appology note posted says that they're still working on it, with no date in sight.

Sometime later they post this... http://www.iriver.com/company/news_view.asp?idx=37 3

and there is much rejoicing at such a comprehensive list of both defect fixes and user complaints/suggestions.

And they don't make this date either, with no explanation ("Late July/Early August" != September)

Sometime later, http://www.iriver.com/support/download_view.asp?id x=609&page=2&p_name=&word=&categor y= finally appears. But compare it's feature set with what was promised. A couple of things were fixed, but gapless playback isn't gapless, it just shortens the time between songs. With all the other mp3 players, gapless playback means that one song fades into the next. Shuffle still isn't shuffle.

No, I will not be doing business with iRiver anymore.

Don't believe me? http://www.iriver.com/community/notice_view.asp?pa ge=&idx=31&mode=&strque=&field=1 They admit the problems and plan a fix. Never happens. Appology note posted says that they're still working on it, with no date in sight.

Sometime later they post this... http://www.iriver.com/company/news_view.asp?idx=37 3

and there is much rejoicing at such a comprehensive list of both defect fixes and user complaints/suggestions.

And they don't make this date either, with no explanation ("Late July/Early August" != September)

Sometime later, http://www.iriver.com/support/download_view.asp?id x=609&page=2&p_name=&word=&categor y= finally appears. But compare it's feature set with what was promised. A couple of things were fixed, but gapless playback isn't gapless, it just shortens the time between songs. With all the other mp3 players, gapless playback means that one song fades into the next. Shuffle still isn't shuffle.

No, I will not be doing business with iRiver anymore.

Don't believe me? http://www.iriver.com/community/notice_view.asp?pa ge=&idx=31&mode=&strque=&field=1 They admit the problems and plan a fix. Never happens. Appology note posted says that they're still working on it, with no date in sight.

Sometime later they post this... http://www.iriver.com/company/news_view.asp?idx=37 3

and there is much rejoicing at such a comprehensive list of both defect fixes and user complaints/suggestions.

And they don't make this date either, with no explanation ("Late July/Early August" != September)

Sometime later, http://www.iriver.com/support/download_view.asp?id x=609&page=2&p_name=&word=&categor y= finally appears. But compare it's feature set with what was promised. A couple of things were fixed, but gapless playback isn't gapless, it just shortens the time between songs. With all the other mp3 players, gapless playback means that one song fades into the next. Shuffle still isn't shuffle.

No, I will not be doing business with iRiver anymore.

Thanks for posting this story, even if it jumped the gun a little bit. It prompted me to revisit the iRiver support site and I found that 1.60 firmware had been released, dated Sept. 1st. Look here

Don't get too excited, though. The only new feature that was a regular in user wishlists and which I am going to use regularly is file deletion from the player. "Gapless" is certainly not what I expected (live albums, eg, still hava an awkward pause between songs).

Nothing's been done about improving navigation (with 5100 files in my H140, this is a big issue), which is still the major flaw in my opinion. I'd love to see an open version of the firmware, but for now on this will have to do. When I was researching digital players, I went for the iRiver H140 and despite some shortcomings, I'm not sorry. With 40Gb, standard usb mass storage device interface, recording capabilities, radio tuner, and especially ogg support (a must for me), I think it's the best hardware out there (although I haven't kept up with new players since I bought this).

Someone else in the forum mentioned an open source program to create databases, but that branch seems to be pretty much abandoned. But, oh, the joys of free software! Someone else picked up the project and has released a new version that fixes some of the bugs. Find it at

This new version is already in debian testing, by the way.

The suppored formats of the flash-based iFP-700 series include all important audio formats like MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, OGG and yes the dreaded WMA.

Capacities range from 125MB (the iFP-780) to 1GB. The iFP series can also record from its built-in FM tuner or mike, which makes it a handy tool for reporters (though IANAL and don't know if digital recordings are admissible in court).

The iFP is also "well-supported" by the opensource movement with a SourceForge page devoted to a hardware-specific driver . Support for the use of the iFP as a generic USB Mass Storage device is also available.

The suppored formats of the flash-based iFP-700 series include all important audio formats like MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, OGG and yes the dreaded WMA.

Capacities range from 125MB (the iFP-780) to 1GB. The iFP series can also record from its built-in FM tuner or mike, which makes it a handy tool for reporters (though IANAL and don't know if digital recordings are admissible in court).

The iFP is also "well-supported" by the opensource movement with a SourceForge page devoted to a hardware-specific driver . Support for the use of the iFP as a generic USB Mass Storage device is also available.

The iRiver H300 Series is also worth a look.
20 Gigs: http://www.iriver.com/product/info.asp?p_name=H320
40 Gigs: http://www.iriver.com/product/info.asp?p_name=H340

It has a colour screen (so it certainly isn't the first mp3 player with a colour screen) and it also serves as a USB host, allowing people to transfer photos from digital cameras onto the iRiver on the fly. It can view still pictures, and has similar music playing capabilities as the original iriver H100 series (I believe). Still no AAC though. Buuut it does maintain a 16 hour battery life from what I read.

Maybe someone will come out with a firmware hack to allow playing movies on it? That would be awesome.

- shazow

The iRiver H300 Series is also worth a look.
20 Gigs: http://www.iriver.com/product/info.asp?p_name=H320
40 Gigs: http://www.iriver.com/product/info.asp?p_name=H340

It has a colour screen (so it certainly isn't the first mp3 player with a colour screen) and it also serves as a USB host, allowing people to transfer photos from digital cameras onto the iRiver on the fly. It can view still pictures, and has similar music playing capabilities as the original iriver H100 series (I believe). Still no AAC though. Buuut it does maintain a 16 hour battery life from what I read.

Maybe someone will come out with a firmware hack to allow playing movies on it? That would be awesome.

- shazow

> I also quite like OGG, except for the fact it is not as widely supported

OGG's support is plenty wide enough for me. It works fine in the H140 I carry every day, and it'll work fine in the H340 that I have on order :) It's a real pity the iPod is Just Plain Lame.

> I also quite like OGG, except for the fact it is not as widely supported

OGG's support is plenty wide enough for me. It works fine in the H140 I carry every day, and it'll work fine in the H340 that I have on order :) It's a real pity the iPod is Just Plain Lame.

Obviously it doesn't play ogg :)

Rio Karma, iRiver, and Neuros all play Ogg well. I would definitely qualify my Rio Karma as a worthy iPod competitor; I won't post a review here because there's enough out there on the Internet.

Because HP is soon to be selling iPods, you really need to let them know how much you love the 140, so they won't stop making them.

Uhm, HP doesn't make the iHP 140, iRiver does.

Check iRiver's players: I bought this one, that was much more cheaper than the equivalent iPod, it's as small as it, has double battery capacity, radio, OGG support, direct recording from optical line/in micro, etc. etc., firmware upgradeable and a company that LISTENS to customers requests.

Have a good choice!

Check iRiver's players: I bought this one, that was much more cheaper than the equivalent iPod, it's as small as it, has double battery capacity, radio, OGG support, direct recording from optical line/in micro, etc. etc., firmware upgradeable and a company that LISTENS to customers requests.

Have a good choice!

Yeah, you're talking about firmware. So hpw many applications have you bought that came with ongoing, free software updates, despite the fact that I'm told such a thing is possible?

Well, iRiver's been fantastic in that department. After seeing that owners of the legacy iHP-100 and some other models got ogg support *after* those models were no longer in the stores, it was clear they don't leave their existing customers in the lurch. That was just another reason for me to buy from them.

-chris