Incredible
Written: Jan 26 '05
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
|
|
| Portability: |
|
|
| Battery Life: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Great looks and color screen. great sound and equalizer options. Lots of space.
Cons: Takes a few glances in the book to learn everything.
The Bottom Line: Great MP3 player for your entire CD collection. Great quality all around. LOVE IT.
|
|
|
| j_regester's Full Review: iRiver H320 (20 GB) MP3 Player |
My wife bought me this to replace my busted 10 disc CD changer in my car. We thought about replacing it with another changer but they were $250 or so plus installation. Then I decided to check into the new MP3 player craze and I came across this, the Ipod, and the Nomad. I found out I could put my entire library of CD's on any of these and take it in the car with me for the same price as a CD changer if not cheaper. I have well over 100 CD's and they're all on there with 10 gigs left out of the 20 I started with.
I talked to numerous people at Circuit City and Best Buy. Most of them said the Ipod was overrated and was basically just popular because of the trendy name. Some suggested the Nomad, others the IRiver and some still recommended the Ipod. So that basically got me nowhere. The IRiver was definitely the most attractive of the 3 and has a wonderful color screen. After checking online reviews I noticed alot of issues with the quality of the Nomad and the battery life of the Ipod was in question. The only complaints I saw about the IRiver was that the menus and options weren't quite as straightforward. I feel like a pretty quick learner so I decided to chance that over the faulty hard drives and batteries of the others.
When I took it out of the box I was surprised just how simple it was. You could plug it right into your computer with the USB chord and immediately start moving MP3's from their folder to the IRiver, just like it was another folder on the computer. Piece of cake. The menus were really easy to navigate and finding the artist and song were a breeze. The only not-straightforward part was changing the equalizers and changing from MP3's to FM Tuner to Pictures. Once you learn which button to hold to get the right menu to pop up though its simple. The equalizer has many good presets to choose from and you can customize some too.
The headphones are fine for me. They stay in relatively well and have great sound. I use an old tape to CD player converter to transfer the music from the IRiver to my in dash tape player. The battery doesn't seem overly long lasting but we made 4 hour trips over the holidays and it lasted the whole time without the in car charger.
Another thing people have mentioned that they don't like is that you can't make a playlist on the fly. You have to hook up to a computer and create one. I don't have a problem with this since I don't believe in listening to artists that can't make a whole album :) I always listen to whole albums and if there is a song I don't like it can easily be skipped without having to take my eyes off the road. The menus and controls are so straightforward that I can find albums and songs while driving as easily as I could find CD's in my old changer, if not easier since you can see the artist now instead of having to remember which slot you put who.
All in all, the thing has changed my music listening life. Its brought back CDs from the back of my case that I haven't listened to in years. If your looking for an MP3 player to throw all of your CDs on this may very well be just what you need.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 280
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
j_regester
|
|
Reviews written: 9
Trusted by: 1 member
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.