iRiver H340 40 GB Digital Music Player with Color Display

Rating:
Summary: Had my H340 for a little over a month...
Review: And so far, it's been excellent. The sound is crisp and clear, the battery life is good. I own an iPod and decided that it wasn't exactly the product I was looking for. Don't get me wrong, iPods are a great choice if you are a more casual user with only music in mind. I needed something that could function as an easy external hard drive in a pinch as well as play music over long car rides, flights, etc. The H340 performs all of these functions admirably. The interface is not as 'quick' as my iPod however; it takes longer to find the songs and artists I want. It is easy to figure out and use though. The recording and radio functions are nice. Comparing the two sonically, I have a pair of nice Sennheiser headphones that I used on a 192kbs song on both my H340 and my iPod and personally (now, bear in mind, my iPod is a third generation), I felt that the H340 has superior sound. That's just me though. If you get an H340, make sure you check out www.redchairsoftware.com and www.misticriver.net. Red Chair has a great program (Irivium) for syncing and managing all of the files on your H series and mistic river has a community of H series owners. The only reason this product gets four stars is because the touch wheel is slightly more convenient than the navigation on an H340. Given the choice now, I would wait until the iRiver H40 comes out in a couple months for the extra features I need and the ease of a touch-scroll mechanism. I'm still glad, however, that I got an H340 for christmas.

Rating:
Summary: pc is to mac as iRiver is to iPod
Review: Bottom line is- if anyone is whining about the usability of this product- they are simply lazy or inept. I have had to have my iPod replaced three times under warranty before finally demanding my money back. On top of that the iPod would freeze my system even the entire OS!.

I have had this thing for a day and the difference is clear. If you are in the least bit technically savvy you will love this product.

I've finally found what I'm looking for!

-Nick

Rating:
Summary: User Hostile
Review: Despite the praise given to the iRiver, a prime reason to buy this device, is to show it to other designers as to what not to do when designing.

Before describing why it is bad, here is a quick run down of what it offers. It has lots of features. Beyond playing mp3 and wav files, it has an FM tuner, recording device, picture viewer, file storage, lines in, lines out, and even a carrying case. It can also be found for a comparitively reasonable price.

So why is it annoying to use. Well first, the buttons are small and close together. When the volume was to high once I went to lower it but manged to hit the nav button. I then was in navigation hell and couldn’t get out resulting in my ears being blasted into deafness. As for the Nav button, its not even the only Nav button. In fact sometimes, you have to hit the left arrow button or even worse, the record button. Of course, if you do not hold the record button long enough to get to the correct nav screen, that’s right you start recording when you don’t want
to.

When listening to the radio, it is not even easy to change between preset and non-preset channels. Therefore you may not get to the channel you want.

Of course, one might just buy it for listening to music. Frankly, when buying a digital music device I want an interface that’s a little bit more than a standard file tree. It has metadata such as artists and albums, it should not be hard to get to them and have all their songs play. With the iRiver your stuck to navigate through sometimes lengthy file trees.

In a nutshell, if you need lots of features, this may work for you. You will, however, have to deal with an incredibly user unfriendly device.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty much perfect
Review: I bought an iRiver a few months ago. As a DJ I needed a replacement for my minidisc player that I use for both listening to music as well as recordings my sets. The iRiver is one of the only portiable MP3 players that provides recording functionality. I've been loving it so far. I haven't had any problems. The battery is amazing -- I recorded a 5 hour set last week on the battery without any problems. Another great feature is the way you can hook the device up to any computer and transfer music off/on to it -- no need for installing specialized software. The only complaint I might have is the size of the iRiver -- its definitely not as sleek as the ipod. Regardless, for what you're getting there is no alternative to the iRiver. The screen is beautiful and the playback volume is also excellent.

Rating:
Summary: A firmware upgrade could bring this close to perfection
Review: I did a lot of research on MP3 players before settling on the H340 and I am very happy with my decision. I decided against going with an iPod because of the built in restrictions on sharing between computers and the way it adds some encoding to all the mp3 files so that it cannot function effectively as a backup of your music. None of this nonsense with the iRiver H340, just plug it in to any computer's USB port and it shows up like a hard drive, no software required (except for Win 95/98 which requires a driver, and I can't speak for the Mac end of things). This is super convienient and the way that all MP3 players should work in an ideal world. I also strongly considered the Creative NX Xtra since it is available in a 60GB drive and I have a ton of music files but the reports of poor reliability and faulty headphone jack made me steer clear of that one.

The H340 feels very solid and sturdy and I find it quite intuitive and easy to use. To me the sound quality seems good with the supplied ear phones and I have not found the need to change them. It has some nice bells and whistles like built in radio and a recorder (and yes you can record from the radio).

So now on to the reasons why I give it 4 instead of 5 stars. It's called a jukebox right? What's a juke box? All the jukeboxes I know are music playing machines where you can select and line up the songs you want to hear and all the songs selected will play in the order you selected them in. But that's not the way this little machine works. You can only line up one song to play while another is playing. You can not line up a series of songs to play without hooking it up to your computer and creating a playlist. For me that is the number 1 negative with this player. However the firmware is upgradable and there is some glimmer of hope that my player may be able to have this very impotant missing feature added some time in the future. The other negatives are just minor gripes. The way it recharges from USB is badly implemented, when recharging it cannot connect as a drive and vice versa. If you plug your unit into the USB by default it will start charging and you can not do anything with the player. In order to connect to your computer you must disconnect it, power it up, and change the USB charging option to turn it off. So it is best just leave USB charging turned off alltogether.

I have taken up much of this review with negatives but I must stress that I am very happy with my purchase and I think the H340 is a wonderfull little device which could use a firmware upgrade to make it damn near perfect. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS A VERY GOOD MP3 PLAYER
Review: I HAVE READ ALOT OF THE REVIEWS ON THE IRIVER, AND I CAN ONLY SURMISE THAT : SOME OF THESE PEOPLE DO NOT OWN THE IRIVER PLAYER, OR THEY WORK FOR IPOD. SOMEBODY SAID THAT THE SOUND WAS MUFFLED. WELL THEY MUST WORK FOR IPOD. ALL DIGITAL SOUND IS CLEAN. IT'S THE BIT RATE THAT PLAYS A LARGE PART IN THE QUALITY OF THE SOUND, AND THE SPEAKERS YOU HEAR IT THRU.
IRIVER HAS TERRIBLE EARPHONES. I USE THE SONY MDR SERIES AND THE SOUND IS VERY CRISP. AFTER ALL WHAT YOU HEAR IS THE SPEAKERS, NOT THE MP3 PLAYER.
SOME PEOPLE HAVE SAID THAT IRIVER OVERSTATED THE BATTERY LIFE. IN THE MANUAL IT SAY'S THAT 16 HOURS OF BATTERY LIFE IS EXPECTED AT 128 BIT RATE. MOST OF MY MUSIC IS BETWEEN 192 AND 600 BIT RATE. DO I GET 16 HOURS OF BATTERY LIFE? I DON'T KNOW, AS I CHARGE IT WHEN I'VE USED HALF OF THE LIFE. FOR ME THAT'S ABOUT 5 HOURS OF USEAGE.
DON'T LET BIG INDUSTRY (IPOD) CONVINCE YOU THAT THEY MAKE A BETTER MOUSETRAP, THAT'S JUST HYPE.



Rating:
Summary: Death to IPod
Review: I just got this beauty of a player 2 weeks ago and I have to say I was blown away. The color display is awesome, sturdy, tech heavy execution, and solid battery life. I bought the IPod a year ago and had to return it after it crashed my PC twice (????), and the battery had to be replaced after 2 months. IPods are for the conformist rattleheads, I should have nown better, I learned my lesson. Damn it this thing even plays MOVIES!!!! Im still halfway through loading my CD collection and its still hungry (about 60% memory used so far.) It just goes to show, whoever sells the most isnt necessarily the best. Get THIS player, well worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Good gadget, but literature misleading!!
Review: I purchased the H340 last week. Every piece of literature I read said the H340 plays WAV files. Even the box it came in says it plays WAV files. It doesn't!!!!

I'm an audiofile and store my CD collection on my PC in WAV format. I was hoping I could simply copy these files to the H340. Since it doesn't play WAV files (yet anyway, maybe a future firmware upgrade will add this functionality), I've spent hours ripping my CDs to MP3 files at 256 kbps.

Amazon.com offered to let me return the unit since the literature was misleading. I've not yet decided though. I do like that it includes a FM tuner, picture viewer, and color display, all for less than the price of a 40 GB iPod.

Rating:
Summary: Great inovation to a great invention
Review: I think that the IRIVER H340 is the best MP3 player I have come across thus far. I do alot of traveling and always listen to music, and this sound is great for traveling. When you travel from NY to North Carolina, California, Florida, etc., the drive and or flight can become tedious. This device gives you great sound and it feels like the music is being sung right next to you. As far as muffled sound, that is perposterous and if you don't like the sound there is a number or preset equalizers as well as a custom equializer. The device is very easy to navigate and transfer songs to as well. The display is sharp and vivid, and I wish my television had the same picture. All in all, this device is the best out there at the moment and blows IPOD out of the water.

Rating:
Summary: Sound Quality not THAT Great...expected A LOT more for $400
Review: The reason that this thing gets 2 stars is (NOT because it's a crappy player) but because I expected a lot more for the amount of $$$money$$$ ($400) I paid for this. Granted that it is probably the only MP3 player with a very crisp, excellent 2" color screen and a marvelous voice recorder, plus a decent MP3 player... I expected A LOT more from this from the quality of sound....the biggest reason I look for in an MP3 player. Yes, despite everyone saying that the sound quality was great, I found it to be just above average. I had bought the Sony Fontopia earbuds (MDR-EX71) and found the sound quality of the earbuds to be superb from listening to music from my computer. I plugged it into the MP3 player and I could hear fading in and out, a weak verging on watered-out treble that I could never get strong and crisp enough (just like my polk audio stereo speakers in my car...whose treble gives me those wonderful chills down my bones). I went to the SRS wow and treble boost and base boost adjust to try to adjust it, but everytime i adjusted the treble it would affect the base, and vice versa. I could never adjust it to give me the fantastic highs and heart-pounding lows. I purchased a $35 MP3 player (only 512MB that I wanted to replace with this iRiver), and the sound quality on my cheap MP3--especially the treble--was much better....I tested it using the exact same headphones. I just thought to myself that it was ridiculous for me to spend $400 on an MP3 that just wasn't giving me the sound quality that I formerly loved listening to my albums with.

I give iRiver credit for an OVERALL DECENT MP3 with the very crisp clear color screen, the relatively easy to navigate menus (not to mention all the options they let you customize from sleep timer...to minutes til auto shut off), great voice recording, good as a portable hard drive, smaller size, design, portability, and ease of use. BUT for $400 for sound quality that I could get better from a $35 MP3 player... it just boggled my mind. I tried a friend's Pogo Products RipDrive MP3, and found the quality of Sound to be SUPERB over the iRiver at 40GB and at Half the Cost. Granted the RipDrive only has a blue backlite plain LCD and is about 20% bigger and heavier, I'm not too keen on portability because I don't use this to jog, etc.. you will almost have to get a new case for jogging. And it's still about the size and weight of the old portable tape players.

One more point, the hard drive gets really slow in starting up at the beginning (at least 2 minutes, perhaps more) when I fill this thing up with at least 10 GB worth of music. I hate to imagine if I put even more music. It does have a USB 2.0 so loading and unloading data if everything you've got is 2.0 is a breeze. If you only have a USB 1.1 port, watch out you are about to waste your whole day waiting for data to load and unload.

I really want to give this thing 3 stars, but don't think the $400 price tag justifies the sound. (almost $450 with tax). If you don't care too much about the sound quality being REALLY GOOD, and just want a place to store and listen to all your tons and tons of music, and if you don't mind paying $400 for a just-ok sound MP3 with a color screen, go for this. If this were $150 - $200 i would give it 4 stars. But if you don't want to wait a year, keep dreaming!