iRiver Clix review roundup

If you like to buy products described by seasoned reviewers as "very good," "great," and "excellent," then you'll certainly want to check out iRiver's 2GB Clix DAP if you're in the market for a player that screams "iDon't." Everyone who's gotten his/her hands on iRiver's rebrand of followup to the U10 seems to be in love with the little thing, citing audio that's both accurate and loud, easy-to-use, intuitive controls and interface, its crisp, clear screen, a plethora of options for photo viewing, and even good video playback despite a maximum of 15fps. Other nice touches include relatively high bit-rate options for in-line, voice, or FM recording, a good selection of digital equalizer presets, and better-than-average earbud headphones included in the box. Out of all the reviews that we've seen, the only major knocks on this $200 player are for its use of MTP (as opposed to UMS) file transfers and its supposedly short battery life (at least compared to the U10), although PCMag managed to squeeze a respectable 27 hours out of their Clix in testing.

Read- PCMag
Read- Anything But iPod
Read- Cnet

[yumyum @ May 24th 2006 7:42PM]

Is it just me, or does the outer frame of the screen look green?

[rothgar @ May 24th 2006 7:43PM]

If only they made this a little bit bigger, with a hard drive and bluetooth. Then it would be really spectacular.

[Kate Winthrop @ May 24th 2006 8:00PM]

I like the way this looks and I just signed up for URGE a few days ago. Media Player 11 is really excellent.

Too bad I just bought a 1G t10 at best buy (for 179) else I'd make the move on this...

nice to see a well thought out package. lets hope this can save the near bankrupt iRiver company.

idont

[ii @ May 24th 2006 8:05PM]

iDon't!

[3rdsun @ May 24th 2006 8:08PM]

I dare u to say anything bad about this.

[Dave Zatz @ May 24th 2006 8:12PM]

All I have to say is 15fps is *not* video. :p

[Nick @ May 24th 2006 8:36PM]

3rdsun: I get more than 15fps on my cell phone. 15fps Sucks.

[sergio @ May 24th 2006 8:36PM]

I got the iriver newsletter about the Clix. See it here.
http://www.devicetodevice.com

[Lee Gibson @ May 24th 2006 8:41PM]

2 GB of 15 fps video? Oooh, yeah, that's gettin' my juices flowin'.

Not.

[David @ May 24th 2006 8:56PM]

15fps is watchable, though I wouldn't want to watch video on any player with a sub 3" screen like the Clix or iPod.

if iriver had a 4GB Clix and had it out last december I would of probably bought one over my iPod nano, but it's tempting enough to consider the 2GB Clix as a 3rd player if I had the money to spend on another player.

[kibets @ May 24th 2006 9:00PM]

the fact it does video 'at all' is just a little bonus. this looks like a nice item at a good price even without video.

rock on iriver

http://www.idont.com

[Big Ed @ May 24th 2006 9:05PM]

I'm surprised that Cnet rates the iPod so highly, since they are the most anti-Mac review site on the internet. Anyway, this may be a decent device but, what's with the 15fps video playback? If you want to have video, come packin' with a larger, brighter, hi res screen, and have more than 2GB of memory. Jeeze! What is this, amatuer hour?!

[bob @ May 24th 2006 9:06PM]

all i can say is iwont...ya see what i did there - im so funny

[Goodman @ May 24th 2006 9:09PM]

It's the same price as the 2gb iPod Nano. Except... it does videos, radio, flash games, has a bigger screen, a glitzier interface, a substantially longer lasting battery and doesn't scratch so darn easy. And it got a higher rating from cnet (both players are Editors' Choices... the cnet editors aren't iPod bashers). I also like that you can rate songs as you play them, and synch those ratings with your PC. Seems like a cool deal to me.

[Pun B @ May 24th 2006 9:41PM]

I have IRIVER H340, software leaves so much to be desired. I would wait for a reviewer who can knowledgably compare Iriver's old interface to whatever theyre using now. Also see 5g iPod's at newegg.com -- even cheaper than amazon, like 374. for 60gig.

[Goodman @ May 24th 2006 10:09PM]

Out of curiousity, I downloaded iriverter, to see how much space video would take up after it was converted for use on the Clix. I took a high-def wide-screen file of the final episode of West Wing (downloaded previously using bittorrent) and converted it. It was 42.5 minutes long, and on my PC converted in about 22 minutes. The converted file was 150mb. So one could throw a couple of videos on Clix to wow your friends or watch on airplanes, and still leave plenty of room for music. The converted file basically looked fine. But obviously the Clix is still primarily a music player

One nice touch- iriverter offers to chop the edges off of widescreen videos, to better fill the screen of your player. It's a good option for TV episodes, since generally even when TV shows are shot in wide screen they generally put all the action in the middle anyway, since most people won't be watching most TV shows that way.

[AutoDas @ May 24th 2006 10:16PM]

bob the iDon't campaign already has the iWont. lol This is the ultimate flash player out there. offering way more features over the nano. I bow down to anyone that can process at least 25fps. ;)

[SteveR @ May 24th 2006 11:39PM]

Well i have to say the Clix is an amazing device, i thought i should make a quick list of the advantages:

Nano Advantages:
Weight/Size
Lossless Codecs
4GB Model

Cix Advantages:
11 More hours of battery life than nano
More Formats
Larger 2.2" inch screen
Video
Flash Games
More EQ presets
Better supplied Headphones
Sweet Dock
Remote
FM Tuner
Line In Recording
Builtin Mic
Windows Media Player 11

For the same price and capacity i will sure as hell go with the Clix over the Nano. Apple is overrated

[peter @ May 25th 2006 12:50AM]

anyone know of any deals if you but this with a year or URGE? something like 250 for this + a year or urge to go?

[phez @ May 25th 2006 1:03AM]

The 2GB will definately make sales suffer.

[Goodman @ May 25th 2006 2:55AM]

>The 2GB will definately make sales suffer.

Probably. I'm tempted to wait until a 4gb player. Though the 5 gb harddrive player I have now sure has a lot of crap on it that I just end up scrolling past.

Oh, and irivirter rips DVDs to convert to Clix format. I popped in a Buffy DVD and was able to choose an episode and convert it. That's nice.

[TZK @ May 25th 2006 6:22AM]

I got the email on this one, but in the end, my cellphone does all that shit - so I got a 4GB Sandisk Sansa m260 for $125 brand damn new. Sounds great.

[ClixFan @ May 25th 2006 9:29AM]

I have one of these clix's and it's very nice except for the fact that it doesn't support AAC Audio format. AAC is standard format for MPEG4 videos. Their customer support stated that they plan on supporting AAC in the future but no time has been set. I was interested in recording video from the Neuros Recorder2 (http://tinyurl.com/7ukm6) to the Clix, but it's not directly compatible. Luckily, iRiver has given its support to some freeware called iRiviter that will convert these videos to Clix compitable format.

[tekdroid @ May 25th 2006 10:07AM]

from the AnythingButIpod review of the Clix:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2006/05/iriver-clix-review.php

Even though I give the Clix much praise, it falls flat when it comes to OS compatibility and transferring music. MTP transfers are limited to Windows XP and will only work 100% when Windows Media Player is used as apposed to MTP drag and drop. iRiver can easily fix this by updating the firmware to support UMS drag and drop file transfers.
-----------
Neeeeeext.
Also, no FLAC support.

[David McLauchlan @ May 25th 2006 8:38PM]

Actually, this isn't true - you can download updates that put MTP support on Windows OS's right back to Windows 98SE, meaning that the Clix can work with older operating systems.

No doubt though, the real sizzle is when this awesome device is paired with Windows Media Player 11.

[Tony Laux @ Jun 25th 2006 6:50PM]

Bashing on the 15 fps video...It's a flash player. Dapreview did a video showing the 15fps video of the clix right next to another player playing 30fps...difference was hardly noticeable. "what's with the 15fps video playback? If you want to have video, come packin' with a larger, brighter, hi res screen, and have more than 2GB of memory. Jeeze! What is this, amatuer hour?!" It does come with a larger, brighter (I think, haven't seen in person), hi-res screen than what's out there...2.2inch is relatively big for the price. I have a samsung yp-t8z right now, and love having video playback, even though its on a 1.8in screen and about 15 fps. Less fps also means much smaller size too. Not that you can't, but it really should be used for music videos more than movies/tv shows. Calculating an average size for video converted for the player, you could fit about 30-35 music videos for for about a forth of it and leave the rest for music/photos. 2 gb is a good size...I have 1 gb, and can pretty much hold on to all I need. It's not my whole collection, but it's only the stuff I will ACTUALLY listen to. When things just crowd the list and don't listen to them anymore, I take em off and add stuff when I want. Maybe I'm just weird like that :D. Overall great value for the price.

[frodobag @ Jul 2nd 2006 12:00AM]

I've had mine for a week and it's been terrific so far. The 2" screen is so tiny that 15fps doesn't seem bad at all, but I don't plan to watch a lot of video on it and personally I prefer it's quality to a video iDon't. Music videos look fine, as did an episode of a tv show. It's primarily an MP3 player for me, the other features are just a great bonus.

The flash games are fun enough to amuse you during a short break or while in line. The text viewing is not really too good on such a small screen so it's not much for reading e-books but that might improve with a firmware update. The picture viewing is really nice and the ability to see album art is fine, but I don't plan to do that since it eats up battery life.

2G is fine, mostly music on mine with a few short videos and some flash games and room to spare. But I suppose when they roll out a 4g I might want that. The best part is how small it is, like the top 40% of an iDon't or Zen Vison:M, just the screen part. A bit thicker than the iDon't but about the same as the Vision with better battery life than either of them.

[Matt @ Jul 28th 2006 10:56AM]

This is an awesome player. Everything about it. You compare this to the NANO, and it destroys it. Who are the douchebags saying 15fps video etc... Compare this to the NANO idiots. Its cheaper than NANO TOO. PLUS you get video (the quality is awesome!!), FM tuner, voice record, FLASH GAMES! (TONS OF GAMES OUT THERE). Hands down, this is an awesome player for the price. I mean, I watch my TV shows on it and its only about 120MBS for a 90 minute show. AWESOME!! The music GUI is awesome. Easy to easy. so simple. ALSO YOU CAN TRANSFER by DRAG AND DROP. Yo ucan transfer music like that, videos and ALSO text files so you can read on it. YOU CAN DRAG AND DROP. There's also new firmware to update some things. I love it!

[I,Robot @ Sep 15th 2006 11:11PM]

I have an iRiver H340, and I have to say... My old H140 was better. It actually recorded in WAVE files -- that will NEVER happen again. H340 only does MP3 recording, but at lease it's at 320.

However, the battery on the H340, can no longer hold a charge for more than 15 minutes, witch is totally pissing me off. I'm just waiting for it to blow-up on me. To come home and find nothing but charred reckage and a burned up table.

[sitapatidas @ Sep 25th 2006 9:08PM]

Would be good if it had UMS support for this player so that we can use it with Mac OS X and Linux.

[Realist @ Nov 17th 2006 9:01PM]

Hmm...2 GB not enough space? 15 fps too slow for video? For the latter, 2 gb translates to roughly 5 hours of music at 192 kbps. A 5 minute clip only uses 4.7 MB @ 128 kbps. Do the math. So unless you're flying to Hong Kong, that would seem more than enough to me.
As far as watching a video on a 2" screen, all I can say is WHY? I don't even like watching movies on my 17" LCD. 2" would be like watching a parade of postage stamps. Leave Oz, people, and return to Kansas.

[Victor Sellarole @ Dec 8th 2006 9:37AM]

I just bought this, it's the best mp3 i've ever touched in my life, it's amazing. the screen is beautiful, the interface is easy, it's so solid it feels like steel, the buttons make a beautiful clicking noise, i love it

[Benz @ Jan 2nd 2007 5:02PM]

This little unit is simply incredible! The Iriver Clix 4G comes with a small black carrying case (I don't think I will ever use it, since you can't see the screen when the Clix is in it.), headphones (which really have quite a nice tone to them, I'm just not a big fan of earbuds), a CD (with Media Player 11 on it), a small instruction booklet, and, of course, the Clix unit iself. The Clix has a beautiful crystal clear tone to it. It has a bright full color screen which clearly shows the album cover, the title of the song, the artist, the rating, and even displays the song which will be played next. The music on the mp3 can be played by a variety of different orders, including playing all (which randomizes the music) to playing by artist, album, song title, playlist or rating. And this little until doesn't just play music, it can display your favorite pictures, and the pictures look CLEAR and BEAUTIFUL on it. Adding pictures to the unit is simple by going to media player and adding your pictures to media player then, on the next sync, your pictures will be on your mp3 player. You can even have a slide show of your pictures while you are listening to your favorite tunes on the Clix! And, there's even more!! You can also add video to the player! And the video is beautiful, clear and even plays sound (if recorded with it). Now, videos do have to be converted (at least mine had to be converted), but there is a lovely FREE program (called iriverter that can be downloaded from the iriver site) which converts video to a format acceptable to the Clix. Once the video has been converted, to add it to the Clix, all you have to do is add it to media player and on the next sync, your videos will be on the unit!! But, there's more!! There are also flash games! And, these are cute FUN FREE little games that can be played if you are looking for something a little different to do. The unit comes with 3 or 4 games installed, but more FREE games can be downloaded from the iriver site. They really are fun! Some of the games include Sudoku (which admittedly is pretty tough to play on such a small screen...but I did it), a Frogger type of game called Critter Crossing (very cute), a puzzle, a Simon type of game and several others! But, believe it or not, there is still more that this incredible little unit can do, it also includes an alarm clock, so now you can wake up to your favorite tunes and if you purchase the separate docking station you can even hit the "snooze" button!! Speaking of the docking station, I know there are some folks out there who don't care for it because it is somewhat expensive ($60) and the speakers aren't the greatest...BUT, there are some very valuable features you gain by purchasing the docking station, first off is the remote. If you purchase the docking station you get a wonderful remote which allows you to control not only the volume but allows full functionality of mp3 playback on the unit. The speakers aren't great, but they aren't awful either. I think they are as good as you can expect to get from such a small docking unit. And the docking station is simply adorable, it looks like a mini tv and there are outputs on the back of the cradle, there is a USB input, and line in and a line out. I use the line out to connect to my receiver and oh, what a great sound I get then!! And, as mentioned before, there is the snooze button on top of the unit, so the unit makes a perfect alarm clock!! We also purchased the FM transmitter ($50), which works equally great. With the FM transmitter, you can listen to your Clix through your car radio which is great if you don't have a newer car that comes with an mp3 input. We also bought the accessory kit ($29), now this is the one thing that I truly think is overpriced. For nearly $30, you get a lanyard (and believe me it is not a great lanyard), a case, an armband and 2 screen protectors and 1 tiny cleaning cloth. Yes, as noted by many others, the Clix LOVES fingerprints, so be sure to get a screen protector on it. It's a good thing the accessory kit comes with 2 of them, 'cause the first one I tried to put on was full of dust specks on the sticky side. But, the good news is, that screen protectors can be purchased at WalMart (I found them in the cell phone accessory area where phone cases and earphones are carried). A package of 10 screen protectors cost about $10 at WalMart (these will have to be cut down in size to fit the Clix). If you are looking for an mp3 player, you can not go wrong with the iRiver Clix.
If your looking for new Iriver products and accessories and cant find them at www.iriveramerica.com check out this site they seem to have more. http://store.misticriver.net/