iriver's E100 reviewed before it hits American soil

As any true iriver aficionado would realize, just because one of its device isn't yet available in the US doesn't mean that it's not being thoroughly enjoyed elsewhere. Case in point: the E100, which was recently loosed in Europe, has already been acquired, photographed and reviewed by the cats over at Pocketables, and unfortunately for those certain of this thing's awesomeness, it's not exactly the surefire winner you had hoped for. Put simply, the fantastic styling and native FLAC support weren't enough to overcome the lackluster speaker output, subpar audio quality (for iriver standards, anyway) and non-integration of material on the internal memory and microSD card. Still, it seems that those without ultra-high expectations would be more than pleased with what the E100 is packin', but we'd still recommend giving the full review a look before pulling the trigger and never looking back.

[Thanks, Jenn]

[kyle allen @ Mar 15th 2008 6:48PM]

it looks like an ipod a zune and a creative all in one

[Andrew @ Mar 15th 2008 8:07PM]

Oh my.

[ssuk @ Mar 15th 2008 7:05PM]

I like the thing. I got one in black, 2GB. Yeah, the speakers are a bit underwhelming and the FM tuner is a bit of a pain and doesn't pick up certain stations automatically (although you can edit them manually through iriver plus 3). It's quite user friendly, the up/down buttons to change tracks is also very easy to get used to and quite ideal for me.

Any sound quality woes are pretty much a non-issue, for you'll be curious to try out the SRS WOW HD equaliser. However, you wont ever want to take it off. It's such a wonderful and gorgeous equaliser. Sound quality is amazing compared to anything I've heard before.
Movie playback is nice with both headphones and speakers, the lowest backlight setting allows you to see everything. Picture playback is nice, although I wish I had some way of changing the track I'm on while viewing pictures. Same for eBooks. They include that in a new firmware update and this thing would be more or less perfect.
The iriver plus 3 program also needs a good kick up the arse and given a PROPER English translation. A lot of the help files are gibberish and some parts of it aren't helpful at all. However, since you can just bypass the ip3 with Windows Media Player or just dragging and dropping files onto the device... There's no real fault there.

[YoMomma @ Mar 15th 2008 7:13PM]

but will it blend??

that is the question!111111

[Mtirv @ Mar 15th 2008 7:22PM]

*clicks little - button*

[Iain @ Mar 15th 2008 7:37PM]

Yes, it probably will.

But, being an iRiver DAP, you can be sure that the noise it makes as it blends will be a richer, warmer sound with stronger bass and clearer treble than the noise a blending iPod would make.

[mushrooshi @ Mar 16th 2008 2:51AM]

Don't breathe this!

[tekdroid @ Mar 16th 2008 7:39AM]

With all due respect to the reviewer, sound quality assessments like that one don't carry much weight to me. But then again, I find most sound quality assessments close to useless. I would have liked to know what music was tested and some sort of description about how it sounded relative to the others, regardless. It's just entirely too nondescript.

Disappointing that the battery is non-removable, but to be expected these days, I guess. I like the fact that the device is Mass-Storage compliant and supports FLAC. No crappy software and near-universal support with no crappy transfer or computer descriptions.

I'd like to take a listen to it someday.

[tekdroid @ Mar 16th 2008 7:42AM]

descriptions = restrictions.

Teaches me not to post when talking to others!

[Wwhat @ Mar 17th 2008 8:19PM]

Seems a silly complaint, what does it matter what music he tested it with? He quite forward that he's no extreme audiophile but he tested a lot of DAP's so if he says it's slightly less than you normally get from iriver I don't see how that would be more validated by all the usual BS and flowery language about what they listen to.
Clearly they didn't try very hard on this thing with the no-WiFi and no BT and poor viewing angles and for iriver slightly lower standard of soundquality.
Yeah it has FLAC but that's quickly becoming standard now and yeah it has drag&drop, but that's not enough to lift it from the crowd I think.

[jP @ Apr 5th 2008 6:47PM]

Interesting, never heard of it. Until now anyway!