iRiver S10 reviewed

Last we spotted iRiver's diminutive S10 digital audio player it was riding the coat tails of Apple's 2G Shuffle, but now that reviews are starting to trickle in, it's gotta stand on its own to make a name for itself. The folks at CNET Asia were some of the first to get their hands on one, and as usual, they put the unit through its paces -- apparently without managing to lose it. The biggest plus, obviously, is the S10's size, measuring just 42 x 30 x 10.8 millimeters and weighing in at 17.5 grams; which could have been a drawback if not backed up by an intuitive design featuring iRiver's D-Click input system. On the downside, the player's small size comes at the expense of battery life, which actually beat iRiver's rated time of eight hours by about 30 minutes in CNET's test, but that still falls well short of what many peeps are used to in their DAPs by now. Nevertheless, if you're looking for the smallest, full-featured MP3 around, CNET says the S10's "the best that money can buy."

[Thanks, Mr. Riveria]

[Asaf @ Oct 3rd 2006 12:39PM]

I think that there is a link problem with this post.

[Jonathan Marks @ Oct 3rd 2006 1:47PM]

Not impressed at all with i.river, not only with their customer support and European website which is a disaster in usuability (I use it with students to show them how NOT to build a website), but also in their technology. They are coming out with a DMB Tv reciever at Christmas in Europe for 99 Euro. If the preview models were anything to judge by, these mini DMB receivers are very prone to freeze frames and audio blocking. Sorry guy, send people to Europe who know what they are talking about...your sales team needs to be fired on the spot.

[glacia00 @ Oct 3rd 2006 2:03PM]

Iriver players suffer most from the same thing that many players do which is having to use their software to load files on it.

If people love it (as some people seem to for whatever reason) fine give them the option but for what is basicly a storage device it's rediculous.

[PEZ @ Oct 3rd 2006 4:44PM]

I tried the new nano, and I think it stinks like a peanut butter sandwich compared to the old one.

Call be crazy, but...

[rokorre @ Oct 4th 2006 4:18PM]

and what dont you like about the new nano? im jw becuase i love it over m old scratched to heck nano

[David Chau @ Oct 3rd 2006 8:17PM]

@Glacia00

You don't need iRivers software to load the files. I just drag and drop my files onto my H10, acts like an external hd.

[rokorre @ Oct 4th 2006 2:03AM]

yeah it looks cute but my 8 gig nano does the job i need it to . . . perfect for music in the car

[Derek @ Jan 1st 2007 8:21PM]

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.