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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.
I'm a bit confused by this. 2 weeks ago I went to my local branch of Richer Sounds and was offered one of these when I asked for an iHP140. The showed me it, I prodded it a bit. So, does this 'taking advance orders' thing apply only to the US release?
#include "disclaimer.h"
Can you radio experts help me out on this one? Why do mp3 players never have an AM tuner? Always FM only, but most talk radio comes in AM, it seems only natural that they would include this. What's the holdup.
FLAC would be nice (and easy to add, since decoding it is all cheap integer ops), but the bitrate of the files is so high that the device would need to keep its hard drive spinning the whole time in order to play them - and that'd kill its battery life.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I personally got an E340 (40GB, same type) a few weeks back, and - being a 2G iPod owner I have a few comments about the good and the bad: The good: Recording features (internal/external mic, line-in), 40GB, file browser, FM radio, connection to USB Mass Storage devices directly, and -line out-. The bad: Here's where the Apple really beats the iRiver - the buttons make scrolling through a big list of songs/artists/albums slow, very limited settings for EQ, no option to play groups such as -all songs by Artist- (The iRiver, although comes with a -rather bad- databasing application, organises songs internally through the filetree), no LCD Remote (which is standard on the H100 series), no on-the-go playlists, and the LCD turns itself off after 20 seconds (can be changed) to save the battery. Having said that, the E300 series is one of the best MP3 players out there, but if you want ease of use and everything to work together I'd recommend the iPod...if you're a feature-hungry music geek (like me) then the E300 series, IMO, is for you. *~Aly~*
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.
When radio first became popular, I believe all stations were AM. When FM technology gained ground and passed AM, the AM market began to decrease. Currently talk radio is the primary reason for using AM, but since a lot of programs are available on AM and FM stations (often the AM will have an FM counterpart) there is a relatively small demand for AM these days. Adding parts/manufacturing expense - thus increasing the cost of the final product - to support AM is seen as a losing proposition (low to negative ROI for the PHBs in the audience).
I like AM. The signals propagate much further than FM, and late at night one can pull in AM stations from hundreds of miles away. However (for me) this is an amusing sidebar: the [lack of] support for AM wouldn't be a dealbreaker in the MP3 player purchase decisionmaking process.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
When are these portable players/recorders going to include a decent (high-quality) microphone input. I mean, as opposed to offering some cheap 'voice-recorder' option. It would be really nice if I could record concerts, and the like, with near-original sound-quality. Until now, this seems only possible with a Sony MiniDisc.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Whoah, sure beats my iPod's 8 hour battery life!
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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.
then I might be interested in any of iRiver's new models.
.REC before copying them into the MP3/ directory on their flash players -- they play fine, but you can also copy them back out if need be).
A warning to everyone: their flash players are decent, but intentionally cripple their UMS firmware to limit MP3 recording to lower bitrate (well below 128kbps/44.1kHz -- I don't have my player here right now).
The regular firmware requires their special iRiver Manager program, which tries to prevent MP3 and WAV files being copied back off the device. (Hint: rename your files to
iRiver has always given a totally lame-ass explanation that UMS functionality somehow prevents high-bitrate encoding. Tell me how the USB interface code has *anything* to do with the audio signal path or the A/D convertors used for recording.
And, as others have said, they promise to ugrade their firmware but it always gets pushed back. Nice players if you like the features they offer at time of purchase -- but don't buy one if you are waiting for one of their 'real soon now' promises.
ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
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.