The curtain is lifted on the iRiver S10

Just in time to catch some portable audio buzz runoff from yesterday's Apple madness, we present the iRiver S10, the South Korean company's latest D-Click input-based portable media device. The scant 17.5g / 42 x 30 x 10.8mm device features 2GB of storage, MP3, OGG, and WMA playback (presume PlaysForSure, of course), as well as an 8 hour battery life. We hope you'll forgive us as details are thin at this hour and only CNET Asia's got the skinny on it, but we'll update you guys as we can.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[vrf @ Sep 13th 2006 5:06AM]

I actually really like the design of that little bugger. (Or maybe just quality photography.)

Nice battery life, too.

[Intrepid @ Sep 13th 2006 5:27AM]

If only people would step outside of the box (or the pod) and see the world of great players available (often giving much better value).

[tg @ Sep 13th 2006 5:43AM]

The design looks good indeed, it's small and stylish but the battery power could be better when compared to some of the latest mp3 player releases.

[binary_hero @ Sep 13th 2006 6:14AM]

I thought they couldn't get much smaller than the U10. Though the U10 does have it beaten on battery life (20).

[3rdsun @ Sep 13th 2006 6:32AM]

No one can hold big disappointments like Apple and the iDiots just love it. They are a fashion house dressing up old products in new clothes with no real innovation. I would like everybody and their moma to stick it to them. We need products like iRiver to bring on fresh ideas instead of depending on the 'click of a wheel'. Who is with me in tell Apple to kiss my assets.

[PEZ @ Sep 13th 2006 6:33AM]

I can see some other click users buyign this, but no one moving fron another player al together to this one.

Especually at that capacity.

[BabyDinosaur @ Sep 13th 2006 7:14AM]

An 8 hour battery life? That's pitiful! The product may look and sound better than the iPod, but with that sort of battery life I just can't see how it could be considered a worthwhile purchase. By comparison, Granny Smith have just upped their iPod Nano battery life to a claimed 24hrs.

[JH @ Sep 13th 2006 7:15AM]

Additional info (price, availability, screen size, etc.) here: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2006/09/iriver-s10-details.php

[MICHAEL_TIS @ Sep 13th 2006 7:51AM]

I will never understand why techies are always so anti anything that captures a large proportion of any market (Intel, Microsoft, Apple etc...). Is it just rooting for the underdog or is it an arrogance that the majority of other people are idiots?

[deuce @ Sep 13th 2006 8:29AM]

I guess when I first read the specs on this I was fairly impressed. It's not much bigger than Apple's newly released Shuffle and it stores 2GB as opposed to the Shuffle's 1GB and this also has a screen. Something Apple keeps telling us we don't need on the Shuffle. So to recap: It looks cool (which is objective), it's tiny, the capacity is fairly decent for it's size, it plays 2 more formats than Apple's devices, and it has a screen.

(This is where someone counters my points with iTunes software being the key factor for the Shuffle, and then I counter with who cares.)

[nak @ Sep 13th 2006 8:48AM]

"I will never understand why techies are always so anti anything that captures a large proportion of any market (Intel, Microsoft, Apple etc...). Is it just rooting for the underdog or is it an arrogance that the majority of other people are idiots?"


any tech site ive been to is very pro ipod and apple.

[xumdeo @ Sep 13th 2006 9:33AM]

it looks great because of the screen, I'd forgive that for it's battery life

let me know if Apple can make something this size with the same screen and better battery life

I really admire iRiver for coming out with their own D-click control system

[xumdeo @ Sep 13th 2006 12:49PM]

may be the sansa will fit you, removable battery, expandable memory, reasonably priced

[DeShaun @ Sep 13th 2006 3:00PM]

Sigh, it's unfortunate.

Digital cameras and cell phones have removable batteries, why can't mp3 players follow suit? The previously mentioned devices also have on board memory AND allow for expansion. What's so hard? I mean, obviously when it comes to sizes larger than 4GB, hard drive style devices would be the way to go, but up until that point, why can't someone just make something a little less...contained, if that's the right way to phrase it.

On topic, though, the battery life makes me a little disappointed. Ever since I plunked down cash for a cheap little samsung mp3 player a year ago, I've been really torn about picking up a second player. Things like this don't help.

[Soap @ Sep 13th 2006 10:45PM]

I find side-mounted buttons a pain to use. If they weren't trying so hard to be sleek, and put the controls on the front I would consider this.

[humblefrog @ Sep 14th 2006 6:44AM]

I'm really impressed how small this is AND with a screen. Which is smaller the new shuffle or the iRiver? This neat graphic shows quite accurately how they compare http://www.sizeasy.com/page/featured

[Covert @ Sep 15th 2006 11:12AM]

Those of you disappointed with the battery life are comparing this player to its far larger counterparts in the MP3 market. At its size, this thing simply can't do much better in that department. Comparing it to the mobiBLU Cube, which is much closer in size, is more reasonable: the Cube gets 8 hours too, and the only reason the new Shuffle should do better is because it lacks a screen.

[Derek @ Jan 13th 2007 10:39PM]

I purchased an I-River S10 while here in Korea. I have had it for about a week. Here are my observations:

The sound is excellent. The headphones are nothing special (I bought some Sony EX-51's, which don't clip hold, but sound great for around $30. You have a lot of control over the bass, field width, there is an EQ, etc. You have a fair amount of functionality here. I also demo'ed the I-River S7, which is about the same size, but doesn't have a screen. Sound seemed identical (through stock headphones), although the S7 has an external button to change between some preset audio settings (less functionality, but great sound). I sometimes wish there were a preset button on my S10, as clicking and hunting through menus on the S10 can get annoying.

There is a problem with the clock. It keeps time UNTIL you start going into settings menus and adjusting things. Then, for some reason, the clock falls a few minutes behind. The problem compounds itself over time, and a few days later, you'll find your clock is off by 10 or 20 minutes. This is probably a firmware issue they haven't figured out yet. The clock is fine if you make no settings adjustments to the unit, but you'll find yourself changing settings all of the time.

The S10 (and S7) both play loud and clear at various volume levels (until maybe above the 85 to 90% level, where some distortion is present). No problems here, and there is plenty of good sound.

My biggest beef with the S10 is that it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to set the screen so that I could watch the "dancing lights" without the screen going black. And I still fiddle with it for 3 to 5 minutes every time I attempt to change this. The menus are very confusing in this regard, and there are different settings in different locations controlling what happens to the screen saver and the LCD backlight. They are two different entities in two different places. Sometimes, you are required to push and hold the right side of the screen to save a setting, but you're not necessarily prompted to do so. The same can be said for finding some menu items, which you wouldn't know were there otherwise.

And yeah, the reviews about the software are correct. Use it to update the firmware from time-to-time, but otherwise forget about it. It's easier to simply drag and drop the files via Windows.