iRiver H10: Hands-on review
posted Apr 1st 2005 2:06PM
iRiver's H10 5GB portable audio player has a lot to like, but there are a few flaws that were deal-breakers for us. In the end, we're returning this item, though the positive features may make the issues with this unit worth it for some. Read on for a full review.
Update: Please note, Firmware 2.0 is available now for the H10. However, it was not available when we tested the player! Thanks.
So the first thing we noticed about this player when we opened it up was, unfortunately, a huge orange flyer that
said "STOP! Having trouble? Before you return it... "
This isn't a great confidence builder to have this flyer be the first thing the consumer sees! Tsk tsk. Anywho, once
we got past that we noticed that there weren't a heck of a lot of accessories included with the H10. There are the
obligatory crappy headphones which not only sound crappy but actually look crappy, as well, in this case. Manual,
install CD (which basically just includes Windows Media 10, as the iRiver needs no drivers other than its firmware),
charger, USB cable (attaches to the charger), the player, and a really crappy clear case for the unit. That case... that
case is just nothing to write home about. Whatever material it's made out of gives you the added unpleasantness
of having it feel sort of mysteriously icky in your hand. Here's what's in the box:
Those of you who read our Napster to Go review know
that we had a bit of trouble initially setting up the iRiver to work with the NtG software. We had to reformat the
internal drive completely, and had to hunt down some obscure instructions to help us do so. Before we tried out
Napster, we did successfully transfer a few MP3 files from our library to the player via Windows Media 10, so the H10
did work well there right out of the box. You can also transfer files by dragging and dropping in the filesystem, as
the iRiver is recognized as an external hard drive — we had no trouble with this, either.
The sound quality from the unit was definitely decent under the default EQ settings. But when we changed them to
pretty much anything else, things went horribly awry. We didn't try every last preset but we tried a whole bunch of
them and experienced a ton of distortion with most. On the default, the sound quality was decent on a range of output
devices: the crappy headphones, through a home stereo, in the car, and through some crappy PC speakers — all
good.
Navigating the player interface was easy and intuitive at both the physical and software levels. On the front face
of the unit you've got your standard "back" and "forward" buttons plus a slider, which keeps it simple and works
intuitively to navigate in and out of the menu hierarchies. We liked the slider control better than the slider on the
Creative Zen Micro, but still not as much as the
iPod scroll wheel/click wheel. With Apple's
scroll wheel you can really stop on a dime when you find what you're looking for. With an up and down slider, well...
it's just not as easy, at least for us. It's especially maddening when you just want to select one item up or down from
your current selection position — it's all too easy to overshoot and re-overshoot again on the way back. With practice
or perhaps some tweaking of the sensitivity this might improve, but it's not the same "out of the box" ease of use as
with the iPod.
Play, reverse and fast-forward buttons are broken out onto the right side of the unit, which admittedly took a few
attempts to get used to but quite quickly felt not only easy, but nicely ergonomic whilst held in the hand. One caveat
— you'll have to get used to spreading your fingers on the opposite side of the unit to avoid accidentally hitting the
power button, which lives on the left side of the player. Overall, the size is quite nice — comparable to the iPod mini
without the rounded edges, and a tiny bit longer.
The color screen on the H10 is quite nice. It's easy to see what the heck you're doing in both daylight and darkness — much nicer than a monochrome interface. All the menus were dead easy to find and walk through.
Now we come to the point in our tale where the deal-breakers come out. For one thing, the firmware of the player was
somewhat buggy. Sometimes tracks would just disappear, sometimes they wouldn't play, and occasionally buttons would do
the wrong things, or wouldn't do any things. We also saw duplicate track listings, a lot — though this may have had to
do with how many times Napster to Go crashed on us in the midst of transfers, so dupes may have been downloaded on
reconnects. We didn't use the Windows Media 10 interface nearly as often, but when we did it, too, seemed prone to
hanging during transfers particularly of large numbers of music files. Sometimes there would be an error message about
communication with the player having been lost, other times nothing. Each time a disconnect and restart of WMP or NtG
would solve the problem, but it was definitely annoying.
The firmware for the U.S. version of the player is only at 1.0, so some of these stability issues and quirks may be
fixed by a firmware update. The other issue that may get fixed by a future update is something we just weren't willing
to wait for: you can only play albums and playlists in alphabetical order. The iRiver software will not retain
any intrinsic order of tracks when you transfer them over. If you want to preserve any of the original order, you have
to manually manage this by changing the track names in whatever software you're using to manage the music on the
device. This is something that a) we just would never have time for and b) we should never have to resort to in the
first place! Furthermore, there's no shuffle function, so unless you do manually change the names of your tracks you're
always going to be stuck listening in the same old order. No thanks!
The iRiver H10 also has FM radio and recording functions. The disappointing fact to be noted here is that although you
can record voice as well as record directly from the radio without needing any extra equipment, if you want to use the
1/4-inch jack as a line in you'll need to purchase a separate dock for use while recording. This means you're limited
to the (fine, but nothing to write home about) quality of the internal mic for any recording if you don't want to
spring for the dock. That said, the radio tuner was decent and recording quality was certainly adequate for both FM and
voice recording.
Another one of the touted features of the iRiver H10 is its photo storage and display capability, which makes it odd
than in its 34-page manual iRiver says absolutely nothing about how to actually get the photos onto the unit. It turns
out that you can dump the image files (JPG only) anywhere in the file structure of the player and view them using the
Browser, but if you want to take advantage of the built-in slideshow-type navigation features (which aren't that great,
anyway) you have to put the files into a specific spot. You can manage the photos via Windows Media 10, but we just
wanted the simplicity of drag and drop, so we went looking for how to do this in the file system. To find the magical
spot where the photos are supposed to live required a hunt through some message boards. We got some bad advice at
first, to locate the photos inside the Photos folder inside the Media folder. Since the Photos folder didn't exist, we
had to create it and drop our photos in. Turns out it's not the Photos folder after all, it's the Pictures folder the
firmware looks for (which also didn't exist and had to be created). After round two we finally had our photos loaded up
and viewable on the 1.5-inch screen. The quality was not terrible, but again — not about to replace... well, pretty much
anything. Just a nice convenience. Since there's no way to hook the iRiver up to an external monitor or TV, what you
see is all you get.
The final deal breaker for us on this player was the battery life. Though iRiver claims the H10 should have a playtime of about 12 hours, we didn't get anything close to that in two weeks of usage. The most we ever got was about eight hours, with the default backlight settings which leave the screen off most of the time. Following is a summary of the pros and cons of the iRiver H10 as we experienced them.
What's to like about the iRiver H10:
- Interface easy to navigate and use.
- Size is just right.
- Good sound quality on default EQ settings. Deviate from this at your peril.
- Works with Napster to Go... eventually.
- Decent FM tuner, voice recorder and FM recorder.
- Text viewer functionality.
- Easily usable as a portable flash drive, with no need to first install drivers.
- The color screen is slick. It's just nice to look at, and easy to see what's playing in daylight or darkness. Photo viewing is not going to replace your PC anytime soon, but the display quality is decent for a screen this size. For showing shots to the fam, it definitely beats carting around a sack full of photos.
- Most of the menus feature "wrap-around" scrolling, so that when you get to the bottom of a list and keep scrolling, you'll get back to the top — this instead of having to scroll allll the way back up to get there, which is one thing that always annoys us about the iPod interface.
What's not to like about the iRiver H10:
- Only plays album tracks alphabetically. What ridiculous specs committee let that fly?
- Long pauses between tracks. We're not expecting true gapless playback, here, but it just shouldn't take that long to queue a song. It really kills the flow that was already dismembered by the alphabetical playback.
- Firmware is dopey. Sometimes buttons do the wrong things, or won't do any things.
- Accessories are supremely lame. Stock headphones are crap — we usually expect them the sound like crap, but these manage to look like crap, as well.
- EQ presets are mostly not usable. Especially when using any of the bass boosting presets, you'll tend to get distortion.
- Line-in recording only works if you purchase an additional cradle for the unit. Hello?
- USB cable is proprietary and tied in to the AC adapter — you'll have to cart around both to charge the player.
- No way to hook up to an external TV or monitor to display photos.
- 34-page manual tells you almost nothing about using the photo features on the device.
- Battery life not nearly as long as advertised. We got 6-8 hours versus the claimed 12.
CLICK HERE FOR A ROUNDUP OF H1O REVIEWS
There is a new firmware update for the H10 that solves all of your problems.
http://www.iriver.com/html/admin/etc/adet_download_process.asp?fileName=H105GB_v2MTPUpdate.zip&pathFlag=EG_DOWNLOAD_UP_PATH
The review is already out of date, US 2.0 is out. Oh and it fixes the track order problem, and most of the eqs. Just a warning
you can easily get around the alphabetic track listing by naming tracks starting with 01, eg "01 Angel.mp3". There are a multitude of programs that will do this automatically from tag info.
after many visits to misticriver, I never knew that charging this thing can never happen by just carrying the usb cable by itself. did i read that right on the review?
also - the cradle for line in recording doesnt sound great. true, it's one of the geekier functions that will not get used much, but if samsung figured out a way to enable line in recording using only a supplied-for cable, why not iriver?
New MP3 player from iRiver, Creative, Rio, etc...
Step 1: check for new firmware.
These guys are always rushing products to market, figuring they can fix "the small stuff" later.
I need to point out one of your complaints about the h10, that it's too hard to use the thumb pad to scroll up one track at a time. Let me point out that the h10 actually does it right. Instead of scrolling with your finger, you can just tap toward the top of the touche pad and it will go one track at a time. Compared to others like the zen micro, this is much easier.
My biggest complaint is that it doesn't show album art via the color screen. It seems like an injustice not to show album art when you build in such a nice screen.
Here's my review:
http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/news/032605_KY_iRiverH10.html
I simply cannot understand why someone other than Apple can't make a decent MP3 Player. You'd think by now someone would make a decent MP3 Player at about half the price of your typical ipod. I'm amazed Apple has been able to stay on top for this long.
"Battery life not nearly as long as advertised. We got 6-8 hours versus the claimed 12."
Does anybody get the advertised battery life out of ANYTHING? The new iPod Mini is advertised at, what, 18 hours? I'm lucky to get about 5 hours out of the thing.
Hope you guys retest it with the new firmware. I'm curious to see which (if any) of the problems go away.
#6: I agree. I don't want to ignite yet another iPod vs. everything else flamewar, but when the competition is so mediocre, no wonder iPod is #1. It doesn't have some gewgaws but it does what is advertised, straight out of the box: rip/buy music, transfer music, play music. Done.
It's about the user experience.
Just another fact about the player tha the review was wrong about, there IS a shuffling function, you just go to the menu setup and change the setting, there's even more options such as repeat, repeat one song, and so on.
Another problem I had with the H10 is that if you try to use it in a jacket, (say, if you're snowboarding) it's nearly impossible to change tracks without accidentally turning the unit off. Apple's Clickwheel makes this a breeze. Also, I found delays of 4 seconds sometimes when hitting next track. Very very annoying.
#7
Zen Micro is at least as good as the iPod Mini.
Try it out and see for yourself.
That's sound a lot like it looks: not so good
"The new iPod Mini is advertised at, what, 18 hours? I'm lucky to get about 5 hours out of the thing."
iPodlounge got what, 25 hours? Whatever the exact number was, they found that in this case, Apple had actually been way conservative with their rating. You're obviously either totally underestimating how much music you listen to (I'm guilty of this myself) or you're using lots of backlight, lots of fast-forwarding and rewinding, using EQ's, etc.
I thought I was getting shafted on the battery life for my regular iPod too, so one day I loaded up one album, put it on repeat, pressed play and let it sit there all day. 12 hours later, I still had about 1/4 battery indicator left, and this thing is rated for 12 hours. So obviously, the way I use the player combined with my perception of how much I use it is coloring my perception of its battery life - but it is working exactly as advertised (in fact, better than advertised).
I wonder if this review included a real battery test or if the battery life comments were just based on similar faulty perceptions.
Sorry, iPodlounge got 26 hours and 20 minutes out of the new iPod mini's battery, just to further clarify that.
It should be noted that this thing does not work on a Mac, unless you happen to have the Korean version - well done iRiver.
apple is the best at these things
A couple of things:
The firmware update wasn't available throughout any of the time we were doing our testing. We're happy for the folks who will benefit from it, though - especially whoever will snag our return at Worst Buy!
The battery test was run three times on three different days, by charging the player fully, then loading up the "all songs" list and letting it play until it stopped. 6-8 hours was all we got. Strangely enough, we still got 6-8 hours when using the player as normally - stopping and starting, selecting albums and playlists, viewing photos, etc.
If anyone here using the iRiver H10 with firmware 2.0 can post up how the update addresses the issues we found with the player, please do. We're curious to know if it solves the EQ issues, in particular.
Best,
Barb
"The battery test was run three times on three different days, by charging the player fully, then loading up the "all songs" list and letting it play until it stopped. 6-8 hours was all we got."
Well then, that really is terrible. Almost inexcusably bad in this day and age. (It might have been acceptable 3 years ago, but not now.)
Engadget... I like you guys, I really do, but you need to stop worshipping the almighty iPod and actually give something else a fair review. As mentioned, nothing gets the advertised battery life. Also as mentioned, you can scroll up by just one track, and besides, were you guys really able to stop wherever you wanted on an iPod when first you used one? Everyone I know who owns one says it took them a few days to get used to it.
Do you guys actually like the stock iPod earbuds? They're total crap... Apple even ADMITS on their website that they exist to make a fashion statement - "and those signature white earbud headphones tell the world you love to listen in style."
I'm not sure if the reviewer is dumb or what, but the player does have a shuffle feature.
Who really gives a f-ck if the preset EQ settings suck? No one uses those.
You do make some good complaints, like glitches in the firmware (which have been fixed) and lack of instructions (don't you guys claim to hate those, anyway?), and overall, I wouldn't buy this player... I'd buy a Zen or a Carbon.
I'm not trying to dis you guys, I love the site, but sometimes it seems like Stevie Jobs has you in his back pocket.
There's something wrong when your first experience with a product is a warning label which screams:
"80% of our customers who have purchased this product have returned it due to a horrible ownership experience. Please, if you decide to return this piece of crap as well, at least give us a call so we can attempt to convince you otherwise."
Another lame review from someone obviously in love with their iPod...
I have also seen a multitude of advertising for the iPod and accessories on this blog... coincident??
Apple sucks, blah blah blah
You guys dissed an ipod competitor, you must suck Steve Job's dick, wah wah wah
Tomas:
The iPod advertising are dynamically generated by the contents of the page. Engadget does not control the advertisements. So it's not a "coincident", and it's not a coincidence either.
For an IT consultant, you're pretty ignorant. Can you kindly share the name of your employer, so I can advise everyone I know to stay away from it? Thanks.
My comments obviously hit home pretty hard.
Did not intend for them to be directed personally at the author, but more to illustrate mine, and probably many others frustration with reviewers giving the iPod all the breaks...
As far as the advertising comment... yeah my bad, I was wrong on that one.
I guess I should be grateful in a way that there's still so many companies that don't get what consumer experience is about as I work in product development. I guess as long as there's people who demand a lower price point no matter what these things are going to keep coming out.
Making the software better, debugging it more, improving the packaging, writing and printing documentation and the like are all things that cost money in development and would ultimately drive up the retail price of the product. Since iRiver's strategy is "more is more" on this product they had to cut corners somewhere to meet their price point.
I do think Apple's making a mistake by gutting the accessories out of the iPod's package. It reduces the "luxury" factor that people have proven more than willing to pay for.
"Did not intend for them to be directed personally at the author, but more to illustrate mine, and probably many others frustration with reviewers giving the iPod all the breaks..."
Maybe because the iPod is by far the market leader? If a site *didn't* acknowledge that fact, it'd be pretty irresponsible. When one company has 92% market share and another comes in trying to compete, it is pretty obvious what they need to do and any reviewer that fails to mention that is not doing their job.
Whether you personally like it or not, any mp3 player is going to be compared to the iPod. Deal with it. At least until you can convince a sizable number of that 92% of the market to buy a different player.
"As mentioned, nothing gets the advertised battery life."
"As mentioned", you are completely, 100% wrong. Read this: http://www.ipodlounge.com/reviews_more.php?id=6524_0_6_0_C
Specifically, read the section devoted to battery life.
Are you saying they just made that up? Are you saying I just made it up when I said my "big" iPod gets better than 12 hours (its rated battery life)? So you're calling me a liar, I guess? Or are you just guilty of selectively reading what you want to read because you want to remain as anti-iPod as you obviously are, and don't want to see anybody say it actually works the way it's supposed to?
The iPod Mini is rated at 18 hours and actually gets 26 hours. The big iPod is rated at 12 and gets at least that (I could have kept going with my test, but I wanted to go to bed).
You really want to keep going with your "nothing gets its advertised battery life" argument?
Maybe some players - like the iRiver - don't. The iPod does. (At least the current models.)
If I didn't own a player and was reading a review, I would sure want to know that.
I do not see this as a lame review- or a review from someone who is in love with their iPod.
The review is fair- and the product was sub-par.
A product shouldn't arrive out of the box broken. Whether that's an iPod or an iRiver.
Instead fallaciously attacking the review or the author, try raising your standards on what is acceptable with a product.
I got the H10 as part of the Napster to Go Promotion, and initially was dissapointed in the software on the device. My clock was always wrong, the EQ was horrible, and the playlist was only alphabetical.
If you use it in "Browser" mode, the tracks were in order, which was an okay work around. The clock was never right, but that didnt bother me too much because I wear a watch. I had to keep the EQ on normal because the popping was bad, but I have a high quality pair of earbuds. All of it was hacks and self-rationalizations, but... it was a "free" gift.
I read Mistic River forums daily waiting for the 2.0 firmware to come out. I had read that the European models had already adressed these bugs, and that the US models were due. Since the US models have their special DRM software included, they cant use the same firmware as the international ones.
When the 2.0 firmware came out, I upgraded as soon as I could get a download, and all of my problems with the device dissapeared. Yes, sometimes the licences from the NTG content dont work, but I think that is as much a Napster/MS issue as it is IRiver.
For a "free" player, I love it. If I had bought it with version 1.0 firmware, I would of returned it. Now that I have upgraded to 2.0 firmware, I can compare it to the iPod mini, and I like it better. Color screen, size, FM, photos - there are a lot of features that nudge it ahead.
Battery life - I easily get 8-9 hours of it daily. Things that I have found to affect/shorten battery life are using the EQ, SRS Wow settings, and playing DRM protected files. If you play a straight 128 MP3 file all day at a moderate/low volume w/ the backlight used sparingly you should get 8 hours minimum. Especially if you condition your battery.
Is it an iPod killer? Probably not, but it's the closest anyone has come yet. And, it has a color screen, for the same price.
You "engadget has a hard on for iPod" haters need to chill out. You also need to accept the fact the iPod has been out for YEARS and NOBODY has been able to come out with a product that does the job of being a music player better with:
-ease of use
-form factor
-price point
-software integration
-marketing
-New features that don't cause bloat to prior iteration of the product.
Chill out.
My godness. you guys are too much asking to korean copy products.
These things like iRiver can be built with only assembly technology.
Besides, now it seems like they are selling products imcomplete, saying
"don't be surprised". The only thing good is cheaper, as always.
oh yes, the all might ipod, finally shaping up after, what is it now... 4 editions later???
iRiver almost got it beat on the first edition, and with one firmware update passed it by a mile!
Oh, hold on, wait, you can actually replace the battery???
its funny about the "STOP CONTACT SUPPORT FIRST" leaflet, ive
contacted them before to see if this and another device appeared as an external
hard disk in the "My Computer" window, (because their website is terrible for
anything other than arty pictures, and i hate using media software for file
transfers) and after 2 days i got a badly structured reply offering me
appologies that my iriver didnt work, and maybe a firmware upgrade would do! I dont even have an iriver yet and theyre sorry about me considering buying one!
To be apple free im waiting on psp to come out here. maybe not as long
battery life, or memory, but i can play games. Which the iriver seems to lack too.
Did any of you even READ the article? He wasn't asking for a SHUFFLE feature. He mentioned that the iRiver H10 could only play music in ALPHABETICAL ORDER. What happens if you want to listen to a whole album? You can't. What about everything from a certain artist? You can't. Apphabetical order plays things by track name. A lot of CDs can't be enjoyed fully if played in the wrong order, or if in shuffle mode. Shuffle mode has its place but is terrible if you're trying to go to sleep then hear heavy metal mixed with classical music mixed with pop mixed with jazz. Hopeless.
You don't even seem to care that the software included is RUBBISH! iTunes WORKS. I've tried using MusicMatch, WinAmp and Windows Media Player to transfer music to various non-iPod MP3 players and regularly have problems with file transfers. Even Windows Explorer has problems, the fact that you can select 1000 songs in Windows, hit 'copy' and 'paste' and it will forget to copy 8 or 12 of them is a problem with Windows, but it is a big problem nontheless. The fact that iTunes automatically selects 4 gig worth of your music at random if you have a Mini, 20 Gig if you have a 20, etc etc is also something people probably don't even realise if they've never used an iPod. Try doing that with WinAmp or MusicMatch. 'You cannot add these songs because there is not enough space on the player - Please remove songs manually before adding more' - STUPID STUPID STUPID. Also, iTunes automatically keeps track of your music ratings and the number of times you've played a music file, and updates it back to the computer so you can keep track of what you've listened to for future reference. You can change ratings to music while playing it on the iPod. Handy if you're trying to make a 'master' playlist of your favourite music, but have a bad memory for song names. If you hear it and think 'WOW I didn't know I even had this song but it is cool' give it five stars and the computer will record the change next time you syncronise.
For years people Windows users have been sucking up to Bill Gates. Get used to sucking up to Steve Jobs if you want a good MP3 player.
iPod doesn't have a radio? Radio is all talk and advertising these days. If it was any good we wouldn't need MP3 players. BTW some moron mentioned you can't change the iPod battery. GET A LIFE. Do a Google search. You can buy them for US$29 and install them yourself, if you have a brain. Oh wait a minute, you don't. You'd better buy something with a removable battery then.
I also got the H10 from the NTG promo, and it was less than satisfying at first. I experienced the same "hangs", file duplicates /disapperance, Napster "dumps" while trying to sync music, and I had to format it completely 1 time. However, the 2.0 firmware upgrade is a night/day difference. (change list here: http://www.iriveramerica.com/support/hd/H10_firmware.aspx )
The EQ sound ( I tend to use the Bass boost setting due to my crappy headphones and working out in a gym with a lot of background noise) before the upgrade was horrible, with heavy distortion anyplace above about 19 on the volume control. Now, with the firmware upgrade, it sounds great at 27+.
Also, the tracks change MUCH faster between songs, both with regular non-DRM'd mp3's as well as the NTG stuff.
And finally, maybe you got a bad unit, but mine charges just fine with the USB cable alone (no AC adaptor) on both my laptop and my work PC.
Anyway, I think the H10, after the 2.0 firmware upgrade, is an excellent player, and you should give it a second look.
David - our unit came with a USB cable that was not a complete cable - the non-USB end plugged in to a junction on the AC adapter/iRiver connector cable. To hook up both the player and a USB port simultaneously, we needed both pieces.
Regards,
Barb
"lordpercy.com?? Common"
No, he's obviously not common, he's a lord. Sheesh!
Oh come one iRiver lovers, they're admitting out of the box that this is junk with the inclusion of that massive STOP poster. Why argue with the manufacturer!
Where is the 10GB or the 20GB available?
Pricing?
Umm..I'm not sure why it hasn't been noticed but you can create playlists in windows media and listen to them on the H10 in my playlists (and this is all with firmware 1.0). I'm suprised that the reviewers did not see this or the fact that you can tap the scroll bar to move up or down one item at a time. I don't think the reviewers are being pro-apple but they certainly didn't do their job with this interview.
BTW: whats wrong with the manufacturers case? Feeling slimy to the touch is a matter of opinion (and it doesn't do so to me) that good reviewers need to be aware of. The silicone fits the player well and it still allows you to use all the functions and ports. The real test of any case is how often you remove it to use the player and how well it protects against dings and scratches and from those two accounts it does well. Of course it would have been nice if it came with a an armband or handstrap.
one thing most of the ppl defending the ipod seem to be forgetting about is the crappy sound quality that ALL apple mp3 players have..iriver, creative, etc....beat apple in terms of sound quality hands down...and mp3 players are for listening to after all...
I just wanted to say that i loaded the drivers on my pc, and it caused my system to crash to the stage where it kept rebooting before opening windows. I couldnt even boot in safe mode. I think it was a conflict in an Active X controller, as there was a message when installing the drivers about my Active X alrady installed not haveing a standard UI file that the iriver requires. Any ideas?
I own both a normal 15 GB Apple iPod that I got a little over a year ago, and an iRiver H10, which I picked up just three and a half weeks ago.
So far, I have been very satisfied with the iPod. However, the iRiver has been far more enjoyable...
"dave" went on a huge and albeit somewhat insulting rant about how great the iPod is and said this:
"For years people Windows users have been sucking up to Bill Gates. Get used to sucking up to Steve Jobs if you want a good MP3 player.
iPod doesn't have a radio? Radio is all talk and advertising these days. If it was any good we wouldn't need MP3 players. BTW some moron mentioned you can't change the iPod battery. GET A LIFE. Do a Google search. You can buy them for US$29 and install them yourself, if you have a brain. Oh wait a minute, you don't. You'd better buy something with a removable battery then."
Frankly, I dissaggree with Dave. I use Windows XP and to be honest it is nice to have a Mp3 player built for my PC. One feature that I really like about the H10 is the ease of battery replacement. When my iPod's battery dies, in 1 to 2 years, I have to either try and dissemble and replace the battery myself, or send it into Apple and pay 100 bucks. Both of which are things I am not looking forward to. But, when my H10's battery dies (Or if I just feel like getting an extra battery for times when I can't recharge the current and run out of juice.), I just slide my current battery off, and replace it with another (They are about 40 bucks per replacement battery), easy and relativily inexpensive. I think the H10's removeable battery is a huge draw for the player, and whether you find it easy to replace the iPod's battery or not, you can't argue with the truth that however easy it is to replace an iPod battery it is all the more easy to replace the H10's battery.
Furthermore, some people do enjoy the radio (Myself included). Maybe you Dave, don't like listening to a sports game, or possibly recording your favorite radio show, but others do; the radio funciontion probably won't ever be used as much as the Mp3 playback function, but that doesn't make it useless (As you seem to suggest).
Finally, let me just point out, that Microsoft owns a significant amount of Apple (They have been buying apple stock for awhile now), it's all part of Bill Gates plan to take over the world (That's a joke, Dave)...
Oh, and let me just point out how childish Dave sounds in these sentences (Brings back nostalgic memories of arguments I had in the 3rd grade.):
"...if you have a brain. Oh wait a minute, you don't."
I am not a comuter person however have spent too many hours manipulating my files on the h10. I hit the browser feature and the h10 sent all my files to the browser and emptied my music folders. The place where I bought it said to erase the files an re down load them back onto the h10. This does not make sense to me. I did and seemed to work again however the sales person said for me not to use the browser anymore??? I donot get it?? Now I cannot access any files on the h10 to delete or view either through the media player or explorer. Could it be my computer or is it the h10??
The sound from the headphones is good, battery life not sure about, 5g memory ample, and in general it is ok except I think the hard drive on this thing is wonky and is giving me problems.
This isn't a very good review...
First off, why haven't they updated the review now that we have firmware 2.0? Granted, no one should have to worry about firmware updates as the out-of-the-box product should already have the good enough firmware. However, that didn't stop all the other gadget and electronic sites from updating their reviews, or at least writting a paragraph on what the firmware fixed or failed to fix. Really, Until they update this review it's pretty useless...
Second Problem, this part from the article threw me off: "Furthermore, theres no shuffle function, so unless you do manually change the names of your tracks youre always going to be stuck listening in the same old order. No thanks!"
Did they not have enough time to a.) Read the instruction manual. or b.) Look through the H10's interface.? I mean, to say that there is no shuffle function...
Lastly, anyone else think it is stupid that they couldn't figure out that simply tapping once up or down on the touch pad with scroll up or down one song?
This review is decent, however it is out of date (And was even when it was first published, as the firmware 2.0 was released even before the article was....), which means many of their complaints have been fixed with the firmware update. Furthermore, it seems the reviewer was really lazy. I mean, they missed or failed to include some pretty obvious and elementary stuff including: the firmware update, the shuffle function, the one song scrolling, data such as what the settings where for their battery tests (Such as volume level, and EQ settings), etc.
To review the review, I'd give it a C-...
For anyone considering a H10 purchase I would read IGN's H10 review, it seems more fair...
I guess now ones reads this anymore however tis is someting you might want to try. Plug in you h 10 in the usb outlet and it will charge without the plug in adaptor.
This is really stupid. Mp3 players are get broke. If you have a broken one, go back to the store and change it. I have read many reviews where you only get 7 hours out of an ipod. Where the harddisk broke after 10 days
where after 3 months the battery was broken and apple wouldn't fix it. I did buy an Iriver H10 in the Us. Firmware 1.00 no problems the Sennheiser (note the name as this is a good headphone company). The only problem I had was this: they don't give the accesoires with it. for 30 dollars you can buy the dockingstation and the remotecontrol. The Dockingstation is actually quite handy: you have an elegant little thing next to your computer. The moment you come home, you push it in and Media player automatically uploads the songs you have downloaded since the last docking. as with the remote control, this will solve other problems.
I work at Best Buy and they are giving me a choice of a FREE Iriver H10, a FREE IPOD COLOR PHOTO 30 GB or a FREE samsung SC-X105L since my department is the best in the region.
I am worrying about whether to get this or the SC-X105L. I wonder how is the 20 GB version of the H10? Nothing about that here.
too bad it will play in alphabetical OR numerical order. if you want it in alphabetical you click 'all' under an artist, and it will play alphabetically if you select the album you want. you just have to make sure your id3 tags are set properly.
can i change the start up screens for the H10 and how? email me forum_160@hotmail.com that would be great thanks
My iRiver H10 will no longer power up. Does anyone know of a way to get this thing repaired?
i was so upset when my dad bought me iriver h10 for xmas cause i wanted a ipod nano but it is way better the nano it got better features and yeah. my sis has nano and she jealous of mine.
shows she aint going for fashion like everything else although it is nice looking (i got blue) so yeah umm...
its a good choice
The player was actually advertised to me as a movie/mp3 player by some no-idea sales clerk, and now once ive brought it home I relise it can not only not play movies, its difficult to keep songs under the same artist name, or even transfer all songs on to the player. Any mp4 files (having previously owned Itunes) were not able to be transfered to the player by WMP 10 and not all JPEG picture files were able to be viewed. Any flaw with artists names immediatly split songs up and these flaws were not able to be corrected easily, rather the files had to be deleted off the player and then reloaded, and even then in some cases the files were still split up.
STOP, read this if you planning on buying the H10.
Our house has a number of Ipods, Irivers, Archos, etc.
We just bought the new H10 Iriver for our oldest daughter. STOP, DO NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE. The Windows MP10 is simply JUNK, in combination with the H10 it is an unmitigated disaster. Hours spent setting up PLAYLISTS that simply are inflexible and prone to being rewritten though endless resyncs, none requested by us. This player may be ok...PHYSICALLY. But the WMP10 destroys any chance of fast uploading, creative file ordering, even simple a music file deleting, etc. etc. has made this player a complete waste of time and money. This has been an utter disappointment. Our houses verdict, terrible, terrible, terrible!!!!!!!
I have never been so dissapointed and frustrated in my life. I just erased all my music I've had for the last 6 months and am ready to give up entirely and get an ipod. This iRiver, is the worst peice of technology I've ever encountered. I'm floored that all of the best buy staff told me they would hands down buy this over an ipod or any other competing products, that this (iriver h10) was the future in technology.It is SUCH a hassle to load music, delete music, handle. There are literally no support websites, it's a bunch of Bull, never ever buy one of these.