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Ipod, Iriver, Creative...

I

ikickpigeons

Senior member
Hello everyone. I have narrowed my search for a new mp3 plyaer down to three. The Ipod 20gb, The Creative Labs Zen Touch, And the Iriver H140 or H340. So if you are familiar with any of these MP3 players please tell what you know. If you know anything about the differences the pros or cons please reply. ANd please dont turn this thread into one of those "Ipod too expensive and ghey" threads, only serious people please. Thanks inadvance for the replies.
 
I have heard bad things about the iriver and in every review I have read said nothing beats the ipod. Go with the ipod!
 
really? ive heard that the Irover was an excellent MP3 player. But i am skeptical as always. ANd i know i can always trust the Ipod...
 
Originally posted by: KoolDrew
I have heard bad things about the iriver and in every review I have read said nothing beats the ipod. Go with the ipod!
Click to expand...

I don't know what planet you're from, but I've only heard GOOD things about the iriver, and I love my iriver ihp-120 to death, you ipod fangirl 😛
 
how is your Iriver 120? Whats the diff between the H120 and the H320? is the interface easy? How to you burn files onto it?
 
my problem with the Ipod is the battery life. Ive heard it sucks. These two MP3 players have 24 hours of battery life. The ipod only has like 4 hrs. Im going to be using it for road trips and there will be times when i cant recharge for a while.
 
I have an IHP-140 myself and am well pleased with it. Which one is better for you pretty much comes down to what features you value most. I won't deny it, the Ipod is slimmer and has a somewhat slicker interface. Plus, all the cool kids have one these days. On the other hand, the Iriver has superior battery life, a far better wired remote, and considerably more impressive features(when I was buying it also happened to be around 50 dollars cheaper, and I like black cases better than white ones, your mileage may vary). I've actually had some use for the internal microphone, optical in and out jacks, and analog in and out jacks, so they matter to me.
Besides physical features and appearance, there are two other main points of contention. One is file formats. Both players can handle .wav and .mp3 trivially enough. The Ipod has .aac while the Iriver can handle .wma and .ogg. I have most of my collection in either .mp3 or .ogg(better and easier compatibility with *nix/*bsd and better sound quality) which made the Iriver seem like a better buy. You should keep your preference in mind.
Finally, method of interfacing with the host computer. The Iriver appears, to the system, as a straightforward USB2 hard drive with standard fat32 file system. Non music and music files are handled exactly the same. You simply use your platform's preferred file manipulation tools to drop files into the player and you are all set. I just use a hierarchical folder system to keep mine organised. Artists or genres are top level folders, artists or albums second layer, disks third layer, than tracks. Any system will do; but you might well want one if you are getting even close to 40 gigs. You can even, if feeling somewhat perverse, use Itunes(The Iriver is a standard hard drive, Itunes works on music collections on hard drives, and so forth). The Ipod pretty much depends on Itunes, of course, though I've heard tales of various OSS clones for linux. Some people like the convenience, some people tell horror stories about losing the music on their computer and not being able to get it back from their Ipod, your mileage may vary.

All in all, though, it is something of a matter of taste. Apple has, undoubtedly even by the admission of its critics, created a great MP3 player for people generally. Cute, slick, trendy, easy to use. However, it lacks a lot of things that a slightly geekier user base really would rather have e.g. longer battery life, better I/O, more standard interface and format support, superior recording options, no DRM nastyness, etc. Your choice.
 
Hmm. What scared my off the Ipod was the crappy battery life. I do a lot of traveling with my school and in general so a 6-10 hour battery life isnt enough. I do however like itunes and im already using it with all my music. So if i wanted to i could use iTunes to transfer music? And for other types of files i could use like explorer or something? Also is it easy to navigate through your files? The iPOD has the scroll wheel but how does the iriver stand up? Thank you so much for your post it helped me a lot. BTW what else does the H-340 have besides the color screen and the ability to view photos?
 
I use a Zen extra (the one before the touch) and i have to say the only disadvantage of it is the size compared to a iPod, the nomads have higher SNR rating than the iPods and can play higher bitrate music (i think, correct me if im wrong). Saying that the ipod is meant to be a fashion thing now days but the Zen is cheaper (looks better in my opinion) and has higher quality music. And a removable battery so if you want you can buy a second and have extra battery life. Saying that you really have to think about what you want, if size is most important go for the iPod, anythign else go for the Zen or iRivier. (i have no experience witht eh iRiver so i cant comment on it)
 
Sorry about the delay old boy; finals week and all that. I'll address your questions about the Iriver(as it is the only one I have experience with). Navigation on the unit is pretty easy. The control stick isn't quite as slick as the scroll wheel; but it is quite easy to work with. Also nice is the ability to control any function of the player from the wired remote. The buttons are a little fiddly for some of the more uncommon functions; but it is really nice to be able to do anything without even looking at the player itself. As for transfering files: The Iriver will look exactly like any other hard drive when you plug it in. So, if you can manipulate files on a hard drive with a program, you can use that same program on the Iriver. For most Windows users this means using explorer. When I said you can use Itunes, I essentially meant the following: right now you have a music library located somewhere on your hard drive(s) that you add too, organize, and arrange with Itunes. If you were to get the Iriver, you would simply copy your music library over to the new drive using explorer, and then tell Itunes that your library is now the H: drive (or whatever drive letter it gets mapped to on your system). You will then use Itunes the same way you always do, except that when you unplug your player and take it with you, it will have your library on it. The concept of "tranferring" is really something that makes more sense with players that require custom drivers. The Iriver is just a hard drive, from the computer's perspective. It just happens to be able to read a fat32 filesystem and play certain files when disconnected.
As for the H-340, I don't have one myself, so I cannot comment in detail; I've heard that it has a usb1.1 host port in addition to the usb2.0 transfer port, and that it can use this host port to directly transfer images from any camera that acts as a standard mass storage device. I'm not totally sure about that , though.
 
thank you phisrow and im getting into my finals now... 🙁 sadly i knew the day would come... I thkn im going to get one of the irivers. But between the H140 and the H340 i dont know. Thank you.
 
Biggest problem with iPod is the fact that it's proprietary hardward and Apple likes to
make their products fairly expensive.

I'd rather get an iRiver based on price, but I do like the interface for the iPod.
 
I have heard bad things about the iriver and in every review I have read said nothing beats the ipod. Go with the ipod!
Click to expand...
where are you getting your revierws from, CNet?
ipod has
-less features
-worst sound quality
-worst battery life
-looks appeaing to metrosexuals

so how is it exactly better other than it has a more dumbed down interface suited for mindless AOL zombies?

here is a good site for some real reviews : www.dapreview.net
 
iriver is feature-filled (FM, recording, battery-life), but i find the interface is built for engineers. it does a whole lotta crap, and is confusing. once you get it, it works fine. i just put mine on play and shuffle and never worry about it. next track/volume change is easy enough. i also like the fact that all you have to do is plug in your iriver to your pc, drag and drop your music, and it's done. and the iriver is ugly =)

i've played with ipods a little bit. they seem to be more stylish and sleek. the navigation is EASY, learned it after picking it up after a couple minutes. (you couldnt figure out iriver's navigation scheme without a manual) i think you NEED itunes or the equilavent to put music on your player, which you may like, if you like music managers (i dont).

i know that irivers can store other files, avi, zip, rar, anything and function as a portable storage device. but i dont know if ipods can be used the same way.

i think that the bottom line is that if you want features/power/tinkering, go iriver. if you want ease of use, go ipod. but thats just my opinion. (almost like pc vs imac)
 
Apple spends its revenue on ads and paying U2... other companies spend it on bringing you higher quality, better-sounding, more feature-packed players. As a business, it's a good tactic, since probably 98% of people buy goods based solely on television commercials... but the product resulting from such a strategy inevitably sucks, and ipods are no exception. Those who do their research can do much better. VanillaH gave a pretty good rundown on them, though the 4g has at least improved on battery life a bit. If you insist on looks over quality/features/everything else (assuming you like the ipods looks, most people do - I think it's ugly, looks like a kid's toy), consider the compromise of the Rio Carbon (small & looks nice, but only holds 5gb) or the iaudio m3, which is smaller than the ipod and about as feature filled as the iriver, also has a sleek look, and is very competitively priced. Downsides are the display is on the inline remote, not on the unit itself, it has only so-so sound quality, and you need to have the dock (a small, but seperate component) with you to use it as a portable hard drive.

Originally posted by: rainypickles
i know that irivers can store other files, avi, zip, rar, anything and function as a portable storage device. but i dont know if ipods can be used the same way.
Click to expand...

The hdd-based models by apple, iriver, and iaudio all follow the universal mass storage standard - plug them into a usb port and most OSs recognize them as a hard drive, nothing to install - though the ipod won't play music you transfer to it this way.
 
My iPod works prefectly. The only problem I have is its battery.
Fortunately, I found a good site that offering cheap and OEM battery:

http://www.iPod911.com


I just bought an iPod photo, according to WSJ, it is an revoluation of entertainment...

Well... I hold the comment untill I really sense it. But I doubut it will have an "iPod Movie" in the future.

Aside that, iPod is always the best choice.... regardless the price.
 
Go with the H340 (or H320). I have played with iPods, but as of this week I now own a H340. My decision was between the iPod and iRiver, and after talking to lots of people, reading tons of reviews, and looking around the forums at misticriver.net, I decided to go with the iRiver. So far I am very satisfied. Yes, the interface is confusing, but after 2 days I felt like I had basically mastered it. HOWEVER, I should say that I can totally imagine some people never being able to figure out or remember the ins and outs of the controls. For example, my brother wants an mp3 player, and I'm not going to recommend the iRiver to him because I know that after about a year of use all he would know how to do is turn it on. I love listening to NPR, so I am excited about having a player where I can listen to it, AND record shows that I like. The sound quality is great, better than iPod and much more configurable in terms of equalizer, SRS WOW, etc. Downsides? It's bulkier than the iPod, and doesn't have OTF playlists. Oh, and did I mention that you can play VIDEOS on the iRiver if you flash it to the Korean firmware? Lots of people have done that from the US, and I haven't heard of any problems being reported as of this time.
 
If you are not mentally incompetent, or if you are decent with computers, the iRiver is better.


People say the iRiver is hard to use, but if I was some 50 year old man with only a limited understanding of computers (ie I can check my email and go to porn sites) the iRiver would be too complicated for me.

iRiver has an excellent voice recorder (built in and small attachable microphone)
excellent FM tuner
excellent music playback
Don't know about the controls for the iHP-3xx series. the iHP-1xx series are fine, although of course they fall short to the iPod's scroll wheel. The iPod's scroll wheel is better than any other player out there, hands down.
Drag and drop of your files to the iRiver. It appears as an HDD when you plug it in. No bullsh!t interface software like the iPods iTunes (I hate extranneous software bullsh!t, that kind of stuff pisses me off the most).
Included headphones blow. So do the iPod's. Go do yourself a favor and get some low end Sony MDR-71SL's for 30 bucks at amazon.com.
You can record music from OTHER machines (like CD players and etc) with the optical double male headed jack. Just plug the two devices together.

What else.. I don't know. iRiver is pretty much feature packed and great to use. I honestly feel it bests the iPod, but not by much.

The iPod is good as/similar to the iRiver in playback quality. It's slick and stylish, minimalist and clean. But it doesn't come with as many features as the iRiver, and there's that sh!tty iTunes that they try to get you to use. the FM tuner doesn't compare to the iRiver's. The biggest thing about the iPod is undoubtedly it's scroll wheel. That little piece of engineering is total genius.


I owned an iRiver iHP-120 before a friend broke it. He's buying me a new mp3 player, and I went with the H320. I wanted the 120, but they are not being produced anymore, and the new ones were being sold FOR MORE THAN I BOUGHT ONE A YEAR AGO 😛. So oh well! 🙂

Ryan
 
Originally posted by: ikickpigeons
my problem with the Ipod is the battery life. Ive heard it sucks. These two MP3 players have 24 hours of battery life. The ipod only has like 4 hrs. Im going to be using it for road trips and there will be times when i cant recharge for a while.
Click to expand...


4 hours? I get 8 easy and I do alot of seaching and changing of playlists. Also all my songs are encoded at 192 or greater.
 
Paying U2 huh. You might want to check again but apple paid U2 nothing for the promotion they did.
No point in arguing with you your just those I hate anything apple makes type who probably go home every night and kicks their dog



Originally posted by: Gurck
Apple spends its revenue on ads and paying U2... other companies spend it on bringing you higher quality, better-sounding, more feature-packed players. As a business, it's a good tactic, since probably 98% of people buy goods based solely on television commercials... but the product resulting from such a strategy inevitably sucks, and ipods are no exception. Those who do their research can do much better. VanillaH gave a pretty good rundown on them, though the 4g has at least improved on battery life a bit. If you insist on looks over quality/features/everything else (assuming you like the ipods looks, most people do - I think it's ugly, looks like a kid's toy), consider the compromise of the Rio Carbon (small & looks nice, but only holds 5gb) or the iaudio m3, which is smaller than the ipod and about as feature filled as the iriver, also has a sleek look, and is very competitively priced. Downsides are the display is on the inline remote, not on the unit itself, it has only so-so sound quality, and you need to have the dock (a small, but seperate component) with you to use it as a portable hard drive.

Originally posted by: rainypickles
i know that irivers can store other files, avi, zip, rar, anything and function as a portable storage device. but i dont know if ipods can be used the same way.
Click to expand...

The hdd-based models by apple, iriver, and iaudio all follow the universal mass storage standard - plug them into a usb port and most OSs recognize them as a hard drive, nothing to install - though the ipod won't play music you transfer to it this way.
Click to expand...
 
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