iRiver iHP 120 20 GB MP3 Jukebox

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Manufacturer: iRiver
Price at amazon.com: $291.04
Usually ships within 24 hours

Product Features:

• Play MP3, WMA, ASF, and WAV formats
• Includes built-in FM Tuner, voice recorder, and optical In/Out
• MP3 Encoding
• Backlit remote control with 4-line display
• 20 GB of internal storage

Product Description:

The iRiver iHP-120 is the ultimate digital audio player. Listen to over 600 hours of your music or tune in to the built-in FM radio. With a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 16 hours, ultra-fast USB 2.0 file transfers and simple navigation, the iHP-120 is the music player of choice. Compatible with Windows 98 SE, Me, 2000, XP, and Mac OS 10.2

Average Customer Rating:

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Comment: Best mp3 Player on the Market. Period. Rating:
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Having owned this product for a about a month, I am happy to report that I am very, very pleased. I am not going to go over the plethora of features and options in this review, rather I will list some of the things that I enjoy most - in hopes to enlighten you as a potential buyer.

For me, it came down to this mp3 player and of course the famous iPod. Although the design of the pod is quite nice, and navigation is a breeze, it is way too simplistic and lacks the versatility of the iRiver. I find the design of the iHP to be quite nice.. with an all-metal exterior and well designed remote (with all the funcions of the main unit - such as track listing, bitrate, etc). When you hold this you get a sense of the sheer quality of the unit. Solid.

The main reasons for my purchase are as follows:

Long (16 hour) battery life. While the iPod's 4-5 hour life may be sufficient, you never know when you might be yearning for melodic fix with no access to a charger.

Optical in/out - line/in out. Very nice to have this at a buddies house and be able to hook up to his stereo (iPod needs docking station for optical out). Also you can hook it up to a car stereo via the tape adapter, very nice.

No Drivers. So your at so-and-so's house and she has that set list for your favorite band. Just plug in the player to a USB port and drag the folders to the drive that pops up and your all set. Which leads me to my next plus..

Functions as a hard drive. With no drivers needed for installation, the iRiver functions as a secondary hard drive. You can store data files as well as read text documents on the player itself. Did I mention the HD is made by Toshiba? 'nuff said.

Ogg Vorbis support. For those of you that don't know, the .ogg format is a way of compressing music files similar to mp3. Ogg is open-source and is completely free, unlike mp3 (trust me its not a free source). Here is where ogg really shines. You can encode a .ogg music file to sound the SAME as mp3 - but it will take up LESS SPACE. Or (my favorite), you can have it take up about the same space, and sound BETTER. This seems nice but let me tell you, ogg files sound AMAZING on this player. I was very impressed with it. Did I mention that the iPod has copyright protection on a lot of files?

Comes standard with a leather case. This may not seem like much, but its a nice case that covers the optical input/output as well has having a nice beltloop. The beltloop came in handy more than I thought it would.

Volume fade. May not seem like much, but when you turn the player on, or resume it from being paused, it fades the volume up slowly to the point it was at last. I LOVE this. It is the little things like this that make me proud of my iRiver *wipes a solitary tear from eye*.

I could go on and on, and probably should - but other reviews cover the rest and I want to watch Adaptation. So heres the wrap-up.

This player sparked me to write the first review I have ever written for ANY product on the internet. I wanted to share with everyone the joys that is iRiver. But what review would be complete without a few complaints, you say? Well.. as much as I love my baby, here they are.

Slow scroll speed. You can turn this setting up, but it is still not as fast and responsive as the scroll wheel on the iPod. With over 15 gigs of music on my player already - this has yet to annoy me more than slightly, and is easily covered up by the other features (plus the unit is firmware upgradeable.. so they might even fix this).

Neophyte usability. If you are even remotely savvy with electronics (mainly computers/directory trees) you should have no problem. This is more of a warning to those people who are looking to buy this product for the clueless. The setup is not bad by any means, but it is not as straightforward as the iPods.

In a nutshell, if you want a solid mp3 player with tons of high-end features, great sound, and lots of depth, buy the iRiver iHP.

If you really don't need any extra features, want to spend more moeny for less, and just want simplistic player to get the job done, get the iPod.

Seriously guys and gals, this thing is worth every penny. I truly believe it is the best mp3 player on the market. Hope this eclectic review helped someone. G'nite and thanks for such an outstanding product, iRiver. Keep up the good work.

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Comment: Iriver v. Ipod Rating:
*I actually have the 40 gig but I'll post the review here*

Well I've had this player for about 1 week now and the performance has been even better than I expected. I decided to buy this after nearly 6 months of researching different products, talking to electronic stores, and trying my friends players (all Ipod). I choose the Iriver over the highly publicized Ipod after considering some important factors:

1. User Interface...... Advantage Ipod
I have to admit that one of the resons I initially leaned towards Ipod was the incredible user interface. The second I picked up my friends I had it figured out almost instantly. this could be atributed to lack of features but it is still impressive. The Iriver is a very nice interface as well, but if you aren't willing to read over the manual you may have trouble.
2.Sound quality..... Advantage Iriver
After hearing both I was equally impressed although I listened with different earphones. There are two reasons Iriver is better in this department: 1.higher volume ability 2.Many equalizer settings which are all very customizable and provide for excellent sound.
3.Battery Life......Advantage Iriver
The numbers dont lie as Iriver gets 16 hours(mine lasted for 19 on a test) compared to Ipods 8 (often 6). Also there are frequent complaints about paying $100 to replace the already disabled Ipod battery in a year and a half.
4.Design........Advantage Ipod
Its easily Ipod as most would agree;however, the Iriver is only slightly larger, and its durability is exceptional.

5.Features......Advantage Iriver
This is basically useful features versus novelty items. While the Ipod offers games, a calender, and a notebook. The Iriver boasts a FM radio, internal microphone, real-time mp3 encoding, optical line in and out, and the list goes on.
6.Accesseries.....Advantage Iriver
Both have- usb 2.0/1.1 cable(or firewire),earbuds, power cable, case,
Ipod alone-none???? although the earbuds are better, remote(not very functional and only with 20 gig +)

Iriver-fully functional reomte w/ lcd, external mic,
7.Music formats/transfers.......Iriver
each has drawbacks-ipod no wma or ogg, iriver not bought music (can get around that) or acc
The winner here is that iriver has easy drag and drop features as well as the database function supported with itunes. You can plug in the iriver to any computer and just drag or drop files without the difficulty of an ipod.
8. Price............Iriver
Not only can you get a 40 gig for the price of a 20 gig ipod, but the value is much greater.

Overall... The Iriver is the clear winner here, which is why I choose this. The Ipod is a respectable player but for the price your basically paying for a design and a brand name when you could get a better (slightly less atractive) player in the Iriver. If you want a functional player, but mostly want to make a fashion statement get an Ipod.Bottomline if you really care about music and want the best technology get an Iriver and you will not be disapointed.

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Comment: I REALLY wanted to like this product... Rating:
Let me begin my stating that the iRiver hardware is simply top-notch. The device itself is compact, the battery life is great, the sound quality is superb (assuming you aren't using the included earbuds), the full function backlit 4-line LCD in-line remote is a godsend, the player can be accessed simply as a hard drive, it plays a large number of file formats, etc.

However, I am regrettably returning this thing to the store. Why? Because iRiver simply makes it too damn hard to get music onto the device from my CD collection.

1) There is NO included ripping/organizing software. Zilch. Nada. What you get on CD is drivers so a Win98 box can talk to it, and a small program to create the database file so your player can access the music by Artist or Genre or Album or Track Name. (Without the database, you navigate your songs solely with a directory tree.)

2) While you can easily download software that will perform what I am complaining about in 1), no one package will do it all for you. To rip a CD, you have to do the following: (using programs you scrounge up from the internet yourself. iRiver is no help)
a) Rip the CD with the program of your choice. This program will also need to sort them into sane directories, for when the database doesn't work.
b) Run another program to make sure that no filenames are longer than 48 characters. Why? Because the database function won't work otherwise. (With pop music, this isn't a problem, but it sure is with classical music. For example, from Hilary Hahn's Bach Concerto's CD, CDDB returns the following track name: "10 - Concerto for obe, violin, strings und continuo in c minor, bwv 1060 #1: Allegro")
c) Run a third program to sync up your directory tree w/ the iRiver. If you just drag 'n drop, it takes a lot longer.
d) Run a fourth program to build the iRiver's internal database.

3) The filename MUST start with the track name. If it doesn't, the player sorts the files in an album in alphabetical order. (Which is a big no-no for lots of classical music, along with musicals, and classic albums that were simply meant to be played in the right order, like the Greatful Dead.) Too bad this makes the search by track function completely useless. The player is too stupid to use the track number tag in most music files.

4) re: That silly 48 character limit I mentioned earlier. A program that simply truncates the filename isn't gonna work. The track name that CDDB returned really IS the title of the piece. I could abbreviate, but I really don't feel like doing that BY HAND for every CD that needs it.

5) Scrolling: Scrolling through a long list of anything on this device is SLOW. A progressive scroll speed, ala Creative would work wonders.

6) on-the-fly playlists: I used this function w/ my dearly departed Creative Nomad Jukebox 2. All I want to do is queue up several tracks and/or Artists and/or Albums to play. Nope, can't do it. This feature is promised by iRiver "Real Soon Now" via a firmware upgrade, but I'm not holding my breath.

I am a geek for a living, but my time is more valuable than spending hours fighting with my consumer electronics.

If you already have a pile of neatly sorted MP3's (with short filenames, and tagged with track numbers) on your computer, then this player is great. Simply drag your music collection onto the player and you are good to go. If you have an extensive CD collection you need to rip, you could have a problem.

Posted at November 11, 2003 07:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)