Made my decision for IRiver H10 over IPod Mini and IRiver H320 for audio device. (1 Viewer)

[ChrisLazarko]

Well I made my final decision. I've got the IRiver H10 and it is the best player in my opinion although the software issues are still being worked out, but a new firmware should be out within 2 weeks to fix the known bugs.

Here is a linkie to the product: IRiver H10 Linkie

The H10 is the centerpiece on the webpage so you can't miss it.

The advantages the IRiver H10 has over the Ipod Mini:

Color Screen, FM Tuner, Voice Recorder, FM Tuner can also be recorded, Photo Viewer, Text Viewer, Equalizer, bass boost, etc. Another beauty of this player is that it is viewed as an external hard drive, so there is no need to use "I-Tunes" or any of that crap to have to copy songs over. It also accepts any Mp3 file, no need for any of that apple proprietary stuff.

The advantages the H10 has over the H320 is that it is about 1/2 the size of it, and it has a touchpad like the IPod instead of the buttons on the H320.

For anyone looking to grab an IPod, consider the IRiver H10. Although there are still some kinks to be worked out with it, overall it is a great player.

Only downside is it is $300, but the features it gives back definantly make up for the cost of it.

The other nice thing is the form factor allows me to put it anywhere I please. I use it alot of time for home audio to replace minidiscs and normal cds and it works great. When ripping music from CD's I also put it on the highest bit-rate which then the file is still only about 5-6MB... Very nice, plus the 5GB can hold plenty! Goodbye cd-player and minidisc player. Just cleared up my entire home audio shelf with this baby.

Oh yeh it's also great when i'm on the road, plug a casette into my car with it, great audio quality. And obviously when i'm out walking or working out i've always got it with me! Can't beat it.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

FYI, all iPods can play MP3 files. I have a mixture of Apple AAC, fixed rate MP3, and VBR MP3's on my iPod.

 

[Mike Foley]

^ Don't you have to convert it to iTunes format first?

 

[Scott Merryfield]

No. You just need to import the file into your iTunes library, but that does not convert the file to Apple's proprietary AAC compression. It's still the same MP3 file, copied to your iTunes music library. You can also rip music in the MP3 format directly within iTunes. I used Exact Audio Copier w/ LAME encoding, though, since it's a better MP3 encoder than the one within iTunes.

Other formats supported by the iPod and iTunes include wav files and Apple Lossless compression. WMA is not supported, though.

 

[Mickey Brown]

I had an iRiver player. I really liked it.

Then I got an iPod.

The best thing the iPod has going for it is the seamless integration between iTunes/iPod. The music store is fantastic.

Apple got this thing right. It's so easy it's sickening. This is the way software/machine are supposed to work.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

I wish Apple woud put some of their new iPod profits into R&Ding a scratch-resistant coating.

 

[Citizen87645]

If you're on the Mac side there is a LAME encoder plugin for iTunes.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I have a Windows XP machine, Guo, so I have to use a separate MP3/LAME encoder. Anyway, my main reason for using EAC w/ LAME was for a few CD's that would not rip properly within iTunes -- the resulting music files had numerous errors (and I tried ripping with iTunes error correction turned on). EAC was able to rip these tracks with no errors. So I doubt that a MP3/LAME plugin for iTunes for Windows would have solved this problem (but who knows for sure, since one doesn't exist).

Fortunately, I've only experienced these errors on a couple of the 600+ CD's I've imported for use on my iPod.