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iRiver H320 (Almost) Hits The Market
skyshock21 writes "iRiver appears to now be taking pre-orders for their H320 hard drive MP3 player. This is the one with the color screen that was featured on Slashdot a while back. Although it doesn't support .flac files like the Rio Karma, it does support .ogg, in addition to the usual file formats (mp3, .wmv, .asf, .wav) and sports a nifty color screen. There is also a review posted on CNET."
I for one, don't want a color screen. I want a battery that lasts me a month. I'll deal with a small, effective, elegant monochrome screen.
Just my two bits.
--sig fault--
Hopefully now that this is about done for the US, they will get their act together and concentrate on the firmware updates for the rest of us, instead of ignoring existing customers.
1GB equals 1,000,000,000 bytes, not all memory space available for file storage.
Euhm, so.... how much space DO we have left? Could be anything really.. Damn marketing speak!
Although it doesn't support .flac files like the Rio Karma, it does support .ogg,
That's pretty close to a contradiction since we have both Ogg FLAC and Ogg Vorbis. You meant to say it supports Vorbis? Or is it just plain FLAC files it doesn't support, but Ogg FLAC is fine?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
"Almost hits the market" is like "almost pregnant". Doesn't count. After all, Duke Nukem Forever has been "almost released" for about six years.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
On a separate note, why are they putting off until a later firmware update the ability to view pictures and listen to music at the same time? Shouldn't that have been one of the top priority jobs? Shouldn't they wait until they have that done?
I know the answer's no. Yawn.
and if you buy one of these, don't hold your breath for the "later firmware update". i had an H120 for a while, desperately waiting for 2 promised firmware updates (May and June of 2004). finally sold it in August. my major beef was dropped samples during audio line-in/mic recording. this is a major issue that should have stopped release of the product until it was resolved. no reputable audio manufacturer would release with such a bug. anyway, the device worked fine from a player standpoint, just just be away that FW updates will take forever, and responses from iRiver was all but non-existent.
But I'm not sure why you'd want them on a portable system. Can anyone really tell the difference between an OGG file and a Flac file via headphones while riding in a subway, walking in the street, or driving in your car?!
I consider Flac more appropriate for home entertainment systems.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
doing one thing, and doing it well? How many people seriously want to carry digital photos around wherever they go? I just don't get the color screen. I guess it's for the same people that like having a camera in their cell phone. True, the thing has an FM tuner and can record voice and radio. That's good, but it's also bulky, has a relatively poor interface and is $30 more expensive than an iPod, which /.ers already bash for being too pricey. Here's an idea: instead of giving us more bloat, why don't they just make the ultimate music player. One that will playback ALL major formats, has a good interface, and super long battery life. Although my iPod is great, it fails to meet 2 of these criteria. I guess we'll have to keep waiting. ..
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
I'm curious as to why the reviewer says that it's a bit bulky, the difference between it and the 20gig iPod being about 3/8th's of an inch more in depth, and an extra ounce for the 320.
Not much of a difference that I can see.
I dream in binary.
It looks ugly
What? Modded down because I feel that no one will buy the device because it doesn't look good?
When you sell something like this, isn't look and feel a MAJOR consideration?
I'm not sure you can say it's clearly not the best player, for the simple fact that best player means completely different things to different people. Just to illustrate that, which player is clearly the best?
To trot out the same old pony of ipod arguments, it's the complete package that makes it so appealing. Sure you can find one's that are smaller, cheaper, higher storage, possess more features, have decent design, better battery life, etc etc....but I have yet to see one that puts all of them together as well as an ipod. Apple certainly chose to make sacrifices in its design, but IMHO they chose the (so far) best set of choices.
As for the itunes/ipod lockin (aside from the fact that itunes seems pretty well designed, especially for someone espousing WMP10), ipods do *not* only work with itunes. You can get various third-party apps that sync (j river media center, ephpod, xplay) to it. You are only locked into itunes music store if your other store doesn't allow CD burning, or if you don't count real's whole helix situation.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.