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iRiver SlimX iMP-350 CD/MP3 Player with Ultraslim Design

iRiver SlimX iMP-350 CD/MP3 Player with Ultraslim Design

List Price: $129.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Honestly.... IT ROCKS!!!
Review: I had done alot of researching and searching around for a good all in one media player(You should too). I saw the 350 in a best buy catalog and decided to check it out. I was planning to get the slim sony model, i dunno what it was called... but when i saw all the features of the 350 slim x, i was blown away. I went to the store to see it first hand. I saw the slim 400 too but i thought it looked kinda boring, not as good as the 350 with that sharpish curve on the top and they both had almost the same features so i decided to get a 350. OMG it is awesome. People say it takes a while to load songs, it really doesnt. I have my super mp3 disc with 165 songs on it, over 16 hours of music, and it takes exactly 6 secs to load, which is great considering all the stuff it has to read. The firmware update works great. You get updates at iriver.com, the new update even puts the game snakebyte on to play on the remote which is great to kill some time in a train or bus. Theres even a program that lets u put lyrics on your songs which will display on the remote as the song progresses. I found the program a little hard to figure out... but i got it after reading the intructions at iriver.com. The radio sounds great. I would recommend getting better headphones, not that they sound bad, but they kinda look cheap. I have to agree with some other reviewers that say the remote is a bit hard to use at first. IT is for about the first 2 days but this is because the remote controls so much different things, i swear there are like over 80 different things u can tweck to suit your listening needs, u can have ur nam displayed on the remote, u can change the visuilzations(yes it has 3 differnt ones)Considering all the remote can do id say that it is really simple to use and the font size is just right. I have 20/20 vision but my mom has really bad vision and wears these thick lens glasses and she could read the remote fine too. My bro owns a new panasonic cd player and its so funny to put the slim x next to his. The slim x is literally half the thickness of the panasonic. and it is smaller and yet the slim x has so much more features on it. I got mine for 120. I bet if u shop around, u can get it cheaper, the 550 is coming out also, or it did, but it still has relatively the same features and i still think the 350 looks better than the 400 and 550. Well i hope this review helps u alot. I highly recommend this all in one player.Im sure there is nothing out there that can beat these slimx player, i think its all about thich of the 3 models u think look the best. O and some people worry about the brand name, iriver, its a great brand, they specialize in making mp3 players, maybe u have heard of the rios, iriver makes them. Well i again hope this review is helpful.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome Product
Review: Having bought this, over a year ago, I am still amazed by its size, features, and more importantly, sound. For its price, the Slimx-350 is simply unmatched. There are hardly any other portable players, besides the other Iriver products, that match this one in looks. The only downside of the package is the headphones. I suggest the Sony MDR-520, which I have, to fully harness the sound from this super slim monster.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Design - Great Price
Review: What can I say other than I love it. Just got back from a business trip to the U.K. and it worked all the way over and back. The alternate AA battery pack worked well once the rechargeables died. No problems with reading my CDs either. I'm using TDK 700mb disks all burned rather full of music. I have found that multi-session disks can cause the thing to grind at bit. I just burn disks very full once and call it a day. Disks are too cheap to scrimp.

Anybody know where to find additional batteries other than I-river - they seem pricey. Seems to be a very rare battery type.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Looks May Be Deceptive
Review: (Sighs).....I was horribly dissapointed in this cd player. They should let you rent them before you buy them. The shock protection is horrible. The radio is horrible, and everything else about this "waste of money" is horrible. I would go further into detail but it would be to distressing and dissuading to hear. It's just down-right depressing. I know my review would hardly help you out because I haven't told you any concrete evidence, but I put like this: I value my cd player as my best friend. I take it everywhere and we go through good and tough times(That was with my past sony cd player's [man's best friend]). If you're really looking for a really good cd player, PLEASE, YOU MUST READ THESE CUSTOMER REVIEWS BECAUSE THE MAAJORITY THE INFORMATION GIVEN TO YOU BY THE COMPANY ABOUT THE CD, 9 TIMES OUT OF 10, IS FEIGN(FALSE). I love cd players and I even used to be a collector of them when I was young. I know what a cd player can do and how it should perform. This fails to meet my criteria(and soon I believe will that fate of any other's expectations). I am Mr. Veracity and it was my purpose to write this review. Good-luck on cd player hunting.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: buy this cd player if..........
Review: buy this cd player if you dont mind sending it in 4 times a year. thats about how many times it will stop working a year. i had mine for 5 months and it stoped workng. i sent it back and they replaced it. after about 3 months of carful use it was not workng again. this cd player is perfect if you love hassles. do not buy this product if you want a quality cd player!!!!! it is a waste of money!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best portable CD/MP3 players ever
Review: I like to consider myself an audiophile on a budget; very picky about how my music and movies sound, yet a don't have a bunch of money to spend on high end audio equipment. I've been through countless CD players over the past 6 years, all of which either had defects, broke, had poor sound quality, etc. Actually all of them had poor sound quality. I went through Sonys, RCAs, Panasonics, and RioVolts, using the included headphones with the first half, then a pair of good higher end ones for the second half.

So I've been through just about every portable CD player between $50 and $100, and not provide the quality, reliabilty, sound quality, features, and EQUALIZER that this one does. I purchased this player about a month ago, and I've been loving it since. So what sets iRiver's iMP-350 away from all the other brand's CD players? Well quite a few things:

SOUND QUALITY:
This player has incredible sound quality with my favorite pair of Sony headphones that I've been using for about 3 years now. The sound is rich and has a true 3 dimentional sound unlike the flat, bland sound most other players provide. What allows this to be acomplished? Well, a higher quality and more powerful amplifier ensure sound sure to please. Another very important contribution is the parametric equalizer and several presets. I will go into that later.

FEATURES:
This player has as many, if not more features than a surround sound receiver. You will rarely use the unit itself to control the player, as there are only the basic buttons on it and no display. It is meant to be used through the high quality, well designed, and back-lit remote. The remote, which also serves as a radio antenne, has two regular buttons, 3 multi-function buttons, and a hold switch. Each of the multi-function buttons goes side to side and pushes down, and depending on whether you press, press and hold, press than press and hold, etc., it will do a different task. It seems very complex, but it is quite simple and easy to learn I felt, but I am very tech savy. But the manual is EXTREMELY helpful, providing simplistic instructions and diagrams so anyone over the age of 6 should be able to use the unit. The complexity is necisary to pack all of it's features into a small unit to match the SlimX name. There are tons of settings to customize the player to you, which you can access through a menu with sub menus. Most of the features are very self explanitory and well spelled out, but a few may have to be researched in the manual. The Firmare, or software that works the CD player, can be updated using instructions on their website, allowing a few extra features to be added, and a few flaws fixed. You can see the manual at www.iRiver.com by following the links to the iMP-350 page.

EQUALIZER:
The equalizer is what really sets this player apart from the others. Insead of bass boost on or off, you have a beautifully setup parametric equalizer, where up to 3 settings can be saved depending on your firmware version. Using the EQ works by choosing the corner frequency to boost, which are 50hz, 100hz, and 200hz for bass; 2kHz, 4kHz, and 7kHz for treble. Then you can boost both the bass and treble seperately on a scale from 1 to 12. The EQ works extremely well. Setting the treble right can enrich the sound quite a bit, and setting the bass right can give you fairly deep a hard hitting bass for a portable player. If this is to complex for you, they have preset EQ settings, which can be easily cycled through.

INTERNAL RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES:
The 2 included NiMH 1450mAh provide the player with about 8-14 hours of play between charges. The included external battery pack allows you to extend this time and extra 8-14 hours using 2 standard AA batteries. I know of no cheaper players that have internal rechargeable batteries. Although they will eventually wear out, gradually providing less and less battery life, new ones can be purchased for $20 from iriver, or you could just use the ext battery back.

All in all, this unit provides much more than any other player on the market. You know Sony's jog dial? One of the multi-function buttons functions similarily, but does a much better job. It is truely a compilation of all features included on all cheaper CD players plus more. It plays normal CDs, CDs with MP3, WMA, and ASF files, as well as tune in FM radio stations. Future updates could allow more file support. Some say they had problems with it playing some disks, and I almost did not buy it because of those, yet I have had no problems except when I burnt the disk by "Disk-at-once" instead of "Track-at-once." By the way, this was iRiver's high end model 2 years ago, pricing at $200, and now is half that. A bargain!!

PROS:
-Tons of very useful features
-Great internal amp and superb EQ
-Internal rechhargeable batteries
-High build quality
-Includes everything but a car kit including AC adapter, ext Battery pack, Internal batteries, earbuds, and a carrying pouch.
-Line out adapter
-A lot for your money

Cons:
-Battery life not great because of highpowered amp, fancy remote, etc.
-ESP pretty good, but not the best ever.
-May be hard for some to operate. (complex)

Conclusion: If you like useful features, good sound quality, the idea of a real EQ, and can live with the minor flaws of not perfect battery life and ESP, than this unit is definently for you. Best unit for the price!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not a cheapie but the best you can get.
Review: I bought this player on ebay on a fluke, icould not believe I won the bid.
I had read about them elseware and then found a recomendation from an audio company that sells excellent headphone audio gear (they do not sell any players). This unit truly is slim and feels not that sturdy, but then most portable do not anyway. The unit provides a line out, a major plus for me, which can hookup to a stereo or car audio with line inputs. I understand that the imp-550 model actually has a digital optical output and the imp-400 is the car use model with a cassette adapter.
The controlls on the side are repeated on a remote with LCD display which the headphones aso plug into. The display can be hard to read at times and the layout is different than on the unit and has a bit of a learning curve. The FM radio is a plus and has very good reception for my area (Portland Oregon). Another plus is the AA battery pack which extendes the playing time. The bag that comes with it might be nice for storage in a sock drawer so I would recommend a nicer carrying case with storage, this unit deserves it.
The sound this player produces far exceedes any of my expectations for a portable when compared to my home system but you have to use better headphones than the tinny sounding earbuds that come with it. A side comment here is the difficulty I have had trying to put the foam socks that fit over the buds, do not bother. Buying a pair of good headphones should be next after buying the iRiver. Invest in a Koss, Sennheiser or if you do not mind the size the low impedence Grado SR60. I use Grado headphones at home, but I plan to buy the Koss KSC-50 or possibly the KSC-55 as they are smaller and come highly recommended. As for the audio it does really show the difference between CD sound and mp3 which is a good indication of how good this unit is. But I will leave the format debate to others.
And by the way you get rechargable batterys and a wall wart ac adapter, its nice not having to buy this stuff seperately, the AA batterys for the extended use adapter are not included though.
All I can do here really is recommend this player as well worth the money.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Product-: Pros & Cons
Review: The product is great in comparision to previous cd player i've owned. It is nice and small, with alot of features. Just great.
Pros:
Small/Thin
Alot of features
rechargable batteries
menu layout(easy navigation)

Cons:
easily scratched
short battery life(dont kno y but i cant even listen through 100 songs after charging the batts for a night)
Useless carrying case
not as light as other players i have owned

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is the best cd player ever!
Review: I love the iRiver SlimX iMP-350 CD/MP3 Player! The Resume is awesome because im constantly having to pause and my song stays exactly where it was when i paused. Then, I love the Upgradable Firmware now, i have a password so nobody can get on my cd player unless they know my password. Also It only took me 10-15 minutes to get used to the remote which is really reasonable. Also, its so small, i can hide it on the bus, or at school. The Rechargable NiMH 1400 batteries are great because you never have to buy new batteries. Those are some of the many reasons i love my iRiver!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Looks May Be Deceptive
Review: (Sighs).....I was horribly dissapointed in this cd player. They should let you rent them before you buy them. The shock protection is horrible. The radio is horrible, and everything else about this "waste of money" is horrible. I would go further into detail but it would be to distressing and dissuading to hear. It's just down-right depressing. I know my review would hardly help you out because I haven't told you any concrete evidence, but I put like this: I value my cd player as my best friend. I take it everywhere and we go through good and tough times(That was with my past sony cd player's [man's best friend]). If you're really looking for a really good cd player, PLEASE, YOU MUST READ THESE CUSTOMER REVIEWS BECAUSE THE MAAJORITY THE INFORMATION GIVEN TO YOU BY THE COMPANY ABOUT THE CD, 9 TIMES OUT OF 10, IS FEIGN(FALSE). I love cd players and I even used to be a collector of them when I was young. I know what a cd player can do and how it should perform. This fails to meet my criteria(and soon I believe will that fate of any other's expectations). I am Mr. Veracity and it was my purpose to write this review. Good-luck on cd player hunting.


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