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Review of iRiver iFP-899
ThJ writes "The iRiver iFP-899 at $179.99 is a portable (8.9 x 3.6 x 2.7 cm), lightweight (75 grams w/battery) solid state music player. With a capacity of 1 GB, it can store ~170 songs at 6 MB each. The iFP-899 features MP3, WMA and OGG support, an FM tuner and a 3-way (line/mic-in, internal mic, FM tuner) MP3 recorder.
After purchasing one for myself and using it for a few days, I thought it would be a good idea to give it a brief review. There are plenty of screenshots. Go ahead and enjoy!" Note: this review has some words of caution for those who'd like it to play Ogg Vorbis files, but forewarned is forearmed.
And after a firmware upgrade, it works really. I'm quite pleased with it. If you're looking for Ogg or FLAC support (the HD unit) check out iAudio.
Stupid is who stupid does.
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
Introduction
The iRiver iIFP-899 at $179.99 is a portable (8.9 x 3.6 x 2.7 cm), lightweight (75 grams w/battery) solid state music player. With a capacity of 1 GB, it can store ~170 songs at 6 MB each. The iFP-899 features MP3, WMA and OGG support, an FM tuner and a 3-way (line/mic-in, internal mic, FM tuner) MP3 recorder.
User interface
The iIFP-899 is controlled with 3 buttons (Stereo, Memory/EQ, Mode) on the back of the player, plus a 4-way joystick to the right of the display. The joystick feels clumsy at first, but you adjust to it given some time. The display is easy to read, and has a bright blue backlight with contrast and time-out adjustments. Overall, the interface is very fast and responsive.
Score: 6 / 6
Player
Playback of MP3, WMA and OGG files is supported for bitrates of 8 to 320 kbps for MP3/WMA, and 96 to 225 kbps for OGG. The player lets you organize your music in directories. These can be browsed hierarchically, and there are several playback modes to accomodate for this. There is also a user-adjustable 5-band graphical equalizer, which is neat. Using the iRiver Music Manager you can rearrange your files, and they will appear in that specific order on the player.
Score: 4 / 6
FM tuner
The tuner uses the earphone cord for reception. This works only moderately well. Only the strongest stations come out static-free, and even those frequently switch to mono because of poor reception. If you want to catch the 9 o'clock news, it works for that, but if you want record the Top of the Pops using the recorder, don't expect high fidelity. On that note, the equalizer doesn't work in the tuner, presumably because its signal chain is purely analog, and bypasses the DSP. Using the iTunes Music Manager, you can set 6 letter names for the stations.
Score: 3.5 / 6
Recorder
The recorder is actually two recorders in the menu, but they behave identically. The only difference between them is the sound source. The internal mic sounds surprisingly good, has a high distortion threshold and saturates gently. There is some degree of hiss from the preamp, so you won't be doing concert recordings with it. The impedance of the line input can be adjusted, meaning it can actually double as an external microphone input. I tested this with a Behringer XM2000S (roughly comparable to a Shure SM58) and it worked fine. The recorder's sample rate and bit rate an be adjusted individually, in mono and stereo for the line input and the FM tuner, and in mono for the internal mic. Convenient!
Score: 3 / 6
Firmware
The iFP-899 can be outfitted with two different firmwares, known as the Manager and the UMS firmwares. The Manager firmware is the default, and lets you transfer and manage files using the included iRiver Music Manager software. The UMS firmware enables support for USB Mass Storage, making the player appear as a disk drive to the operating system, but disabling the manager.
Drawbacks
- OGG support is very limited and glitches regularly. A major drawback for audiophiles. I can only hope iRiver will fix the glitches in a future firmware version.
- UMS and iTunes Music Manager support are mutually exclusive, and UMS seems to be a little slower.
- No support for song alphabetization. This is very unpractical if you're using UMS, and can't manually change the file ordering.
- The equalizer doesn't work on the FM tuner.
- Noisy voice/microphone recording.
Conclusion
My major draw for buying this player was the OGG support. It didn't deliver on that promise, or at least, it hasn't delivered very well on it yet. It's a quality player in every other aspect, though, and fills my need for entertainment while I excersize. It has a rich surplus of volume and could do a decent job at driving larger headphones than my Koss PortaPro's. Compared to other players in the same price class, it sometimes comes short on space.
Overall score: 4 / 6
These days, 8.9 x 3.6 x 2.7cm is really quite big (particuarily 2.7cm thick - that >1") and at $180 for 1 GB, its primary focus (playing MP3s) seems to be rather uncompetitive.
The review fails to mention any sort of side-by-side comparison. Compared to the iPod Shuffle at $150, you get something twice as big, but with a screen and a bunch of extra functionality. Two big factors that, I believe, makes the iPod shuffle sell well:
Size
iRiver: 3.5" x 1.4" x 1.1" (5.39 cu in)
Shuffle: 3.3" x 0.98" x 0.33" (1.07 cu in)
Weight
iRiver: 2.64 ounces
Shuffle: 0.78 ounces
So for the added weight and size, as well as $30, you get a tuner, a screen, a voice recorder, and OGG support.
Disclaimer: I don't own an iPod Shuffle, but it seems fair to compare the product to the hottest new thing out there in the market.
The space unintentionally left unblank.
iaudio (aka cowon) makes a couple of small players that have all the same features as iriver (ogg included).
the iaudio players also function as usb mass storage drives right out of the box, for those who abhor stupid "media player" software and all their crappy DRM restrictions -- copying music (or any other file you want to carry) is literally plug-and-play, drag-n-drop.
iaudio has also just released 2gb flash players (I have one). within a couple of months there should be more and more 2gb players on the market.
It's a review of hardware that claims to play OGG files. Since there are very few such creatures on the market, and I have thousands of OGG files, it's interesting news to me to find that it does not in fact work.
get a zire and a gig of SD ram.
Does that play OGGs?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
the other day, which came with a $20 rebate.
I bought it mainly to play ogg files and not have to carry around a cdplayer along with a small case of cd's.
Here is what I have learned:
1) I have not encountered any ogg glitches. Note: I ripp my cd's using the default ogg bitrates that abcde uses. I have also updated the firmware to the latest version. The sound of the Ogg files sound wonderful on good headphones and not bad on crappy ones. So far I have listened to Thomas Newmon (he wrote the score to American Beauty and A Series of Unfortunate Events both perfect albums to test a stereo's sound quality), Tool, NIN, Tori Amos, Splash Down, Fiona Apple, Neil Gaiman (audio books), Gorillaz, Sarah Mclanchland, Komeda, Juno Reactor, and A Perfect Circle. I list these artists to give an example of the range of sound in voice, melodies, tone, and rhythm in which I have tested Ogg playback.
2) It does play songs in order within the directory the files are stored. So if each file has a number or letter uses this to to dictate order.
3) There is Linux support, indirectly, using ifp_gui file-manager program (see sourceforge). It may not work as well as the Windows/OS X program that it comes with, but it makes it so that one can upgrade firmware and upload, download or delete stored files.
4) Sounds settings, such as 3D sound option works surprisingly well.
5) One neat little feature is that one can tag a segment in a song and have it loop over that section.
6) The radio manager lets one tag RF names to stations and set programmed stations.
7) I live in an area where most radio stations come in fine. Some stations do not come in well, but I assumed it was the cheap headphones I tested it with just acted as a bad antenna.
8) 1GB is rather small, but enough to last many many hours for a trip or workout.
9) fits nicely in a hand, and pocket, if I do not want to use the armband or necklace-type thing it came with for transport.
10) One AA battery will power this baby for ~40 hrs.
11) Random song selection works quiet randomly.
12) supports USB2
13) built in alarm support using either stored music or radio
Wish it had:
1) it would have been nice to have a belt clip for it or for them to at least sell one
2) play list support (but so far I have had not problem with since I like to listen to albums in order or random song selection).
3) able to charge a rechargeable AA battery.
4) come with a external power slot to be able to plug it into a wall-socket
5) for it to to be powered by the USB cord with connected.
6) option to limit how much data is displayed on the screen or at least support a sleep screen when listening, since there is no need for it to display data about a current song when it is not being looked at.
7) larger file storage option or expansion.
And you must upgrade the player to have UMS. I had to borrow a Windows machine from a friend to do that, so be warned.
The OGG support is good but you must stay within the 96kbps to 225 kbps range. Encode your files like this:The player don't have any support for playlists. And it doesn't sort the files in a directory. I name all my songs with a tracknumber first, so if I play the songs in alphabetical order, I get them in the track order on the album. But when you save files on the iRiver, they are stored in inode (!) order, and are not sorted. So to preserve ordering I transfer directories (albums) to the iRiver like this:The transfer speed with UMS is somewhat slow. Also, with the UMS upgrade, the maximum recording rate is 96kbps. But since I don't use the device for recording I don't care.
The battery life is excellent. I use the same battery for weeks! With OGG, the battery life is reduced somewhat but is still very good.
And the most important thing: The sound is very good. Especially if you get a better headset.
)9TSS