iRiver iHP140

A colleague has one and says it's the dog's b*llocks. It handles OGG format and can record.
He's in a minority though - myself and two others on the team have iPods.
(The iRiver's styling isn't as swish as the iPod though.)

Paul

Have you heard it and compared to the iPod?

-- woody

Woody, get the ipod, the river looks like chav shite.

quote:

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Originally posted by woody:
Have you heard it and compared to the iPod?

-- woody

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I have and for me the iPod is still the best, especially if you use AAC at 320BPS and a decent set of headphones!

quote:

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Originally posted by garyi:
Woody, get the ipod, the river looks like chav shite.

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garyi thanks for your most valuable comments...there are a couple of things about the ipod I don't like:

1. price
2. DRM
3. looks quite girly
4. no ogg vorbis support (up to 500Kbps)
5. no FM radio
6. no remote
7. no record function
8. no optical line in/out or analogue line in/out

chav shite? Don't think so!

-- woody

Woody the analogue in/out comes via the dock.

There is a remote.

It doesn't look girly (well the minipods look a bit girly)

I don't know what DRM is.

Price as with anything in life is what you pay for better quality kit, we could all easily be chatting away on an Awia forum eh?

What would you want to record with it? You can get a mic for it and record voice or what ever, but what else would you want to record on an MP3 based portable devise? No really?

The trouble with these kinds of things is peoples expectations is that they must do everything, even things you will never use, and companies because it is possible will provide this. The iriver looks ugly and is clearly a blatant attempt to get credence from the back of the ipod, and its not worked.

Long live the ipod!

Woody:
Get the ipod. I have a Hango PJB100 that I dearly love, but sadly, it is no longer made. I got an ipod for my wife at Christmas and it sounds great. The only thing that the PJB100 does that I wish the ipod would is a random play function that is very handy. Unless you want to go to the trouble of designing play lists, you basically have to listen to albums in order on the ipod.

Cos.

On the ipod, goto settings>shuffle and switch on shuffle.

It will now random play either songs or whole albums.

The new itunes release also has this as well as apple lossless compression for importing tunes.

Gary,
Thank you very much. I will try this the next time I see my wife. However, if trying to shuffle more than just an album, will this present cuts from all over the hard drive? eg: could I find Dave Matthews' "Crash" immediately followed by Vivaldi's "Spring" (one of three movements)? The PJB100 is organized into sets, such as Rock, Blues, Opera, etc and shuffle can be set to mix it up within sets only. I find that function great fun when I am listening at the gym.

The shuffle feature if set to songs will just pick random songs from the entire collection on the ipod.

I am not sure how to set random within say a genre, however the latest itunes version does have some new features.

Gary,
Thanks for your reply. There have been a few times when I have had the shuffle feature set to randomize the entire hard drive and it can be a bit jarring to have a cut from one genre followed by another entirely. On the other hand, with say, 20 albums in my "Blues" set, I never know what is coming next. It is sort of like listening to a good radio station, but knowing that whatever is coming up next I will really like, because I put in on the player myself.

Conversely having the shuffle on the ipod re-introduces you to stuff you might not have picked off the shelf in years. This is especially true since I have turned to hard drive as a main source of music through the hifi.

If you are thinking about the iRiver then don't forget to look at the Rio Karma as well. It has had some great reviews and I am very pleased with mine. You can download and install the management software so that you can get an idea of how you can set up playlists and random play.



Nigel

quote:

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Originally posted by garyi:
The iriver looks ugly and is clearly a blatant attempt to get credence from the back of the ipod, and its not worked.

Long live the ipod!

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So what you're basically saying is that because the ipod was the first it's the best? Hmm...doesn't work for me. BTW are you a mac user?

-- woody

quote:

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So what you're basically saying is that because the ipod was the first it's the best? Hmm...doesn't work for me. BTW are you a mac user?

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I don't think he was saying that.
To me the iRiver is ugly, whereas the iPod is a design classic.
Wasn't the Creative Jukebox was the first hard drive MP3 portable player?
(Oh, and I'm a PC/UNIX/Mac user.)

Paul

Actually weren't Archos the first people to do HDD player (I have a 6GB version that I now use as a data backup device as it sounds dire)

The iriver isn't beautiful but it's OK looking and it's cheaper and has some killer features (radio, remote with display, ogg vorbis up to 500Kbps). Plus I won't get mugged

I ordered it yesterday and should get it today so I'll post my thoughts.

-- woody

The iPod is beautiful and is a joy to own and use.

Other options are cheaper, better sounding (allegedly) and have more features but invariably look awful and are more clunky (if more featured) to use.

You decide.

Matthew

Does it really look that ugly?

-- woody

Woody, you are happy and after all that is the important thing eh?

awww no I wanted your approval and to admit that the ipod was a bit of an (overpriced) dog

-- woody

snigger

I'll get by with seamless intergration with itunes, palm pilot and my phone..

cool...and I'll get by with listening to music and seamless (driverless) integration with windows/linux and winamp. We're both happy it seems

-- woody

garyi,
How are you doing with the Creatures that I seem to remember you bought to go with your ipod? Also, how is the battery holding up?
Cheers
Simon

The creatures are fine for what they are, we have it in the bedroom with a spare dock, plug it in a choose a song. Very tidy.

We have not had a single problem with the battery, typically Sheila takes it to work and has it going for around 7-8 hours and there is still juice in it. I'll see how it looks in a year!