Here is a summary/review of the iRiver H10 from amazon.com ...
----
I purchased the iriver H10 20GB (Blue) about three weeks ago after saving and researching for about 6 months. In summary, I have been very happy with the player and would definitely buy it again.
The Good
The sound quality is very good. The included ear buds are fine (I'm not a fan of ear buds in general), but the source is clean and accurate and you can spend as much or as little on after-market headphones as you like. There is a lot of control over the EQ.
Virtually all of my music is in Variable Bit Rate MP3 format. The H10 supports MP3 and the Microsoft format (WMF). I don't use iTunes (ACC) or Audible so lack of support for those formats is not an issue for me.
The form factor is nice. It's about the same size as a deck of cards and fairly light. It fits in my hand or a pocket easily.
The user interface works well with either one or two hands. The controls are simple, intuitive and make sense. (I recommend you read the short manual or it might take you a while to stumble onto some of the more subtle features.) The thumb slider works well, even with a large list to scroll through-when your thumb hits the end of the slider, the display keeps scrolling. Using the slider to control volume rather than a physical knob or wheel is a good idea.
One of my main reasons for picking the H10 was the FM tuner. I like to listen to National Public Radio and other local stations. The tuner has good reception and it is easy to program stations as presets. I have used the ability to record an FM transmission a few times already.
The color display is bright and clear. The screen layouts make sense and have useful information. I don't have a reason to use the player to display pictures (other than when showing off the player), but it does have this ability.
I had no problems getting Windows XP to recognize the player-it shows up as a USB drive. Data transfer rates have been good for a USB device. I've loaded my entire library several times as I've played with different software besides Windows Media Player. It takes about an hour and a half to transfer 12GB.
Some reviewers have complained that the player locks up when they used Windows to browse the player's hard drive. It does take a while to display the contents of folders on the player, but I haven't had the player or Windows actually lock up.
The battery life has been good. I've taken it on a couple of multi-day trips and haven't run it down completely.
The OK
The player is designed to work with Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 (included on CD with the player). WMP does all of the basic things you want: rip, organize, update ID3 tags, build playlists, sync with the player. Of course it takes Microsoft's typical "software for dummies" approach-it doesn't do any of the things as well as some other programs and you can't change the way it behaves, where it stores your music files, etc. ("Sorry ma'am, but you don't need to know the bit rate we're using to encode your music. Move along now...") But, if you are willing to be assimilated (resistance is futile!), it can manage your music collection and player adequately.
Fortunately, because you can copy the music files directly to the player using Windows, you can use any software you wish. I like to use FreeRIP to create the mp3 files-it works very well, queries freedb so you don't have to type in any information, supports variable bit rate encoding, and is free.
To use the player with a lot of content, having clean ID3 tags is critical. ID3 tags store the information about the music file (artist, album, title, genre, etc.) in the MP3 file. I tried Windows Media Player, but again ended up using a different free program (MP3Tag) that worked better, especially when cleaning up hundred of files at a time.
Some reviewers have complained that the player will not play songs in the order that they were on the album. Remember that the players has only the information in the ID3 tags and the file names to work with. It doesn't seem to use the "Track" tag, but you can get it to play in album order if you include the track number in the file name and play songs in alphabetic order. For example, I name my music files "Artist - Album - Track# - SongTitle.mp3." 99% of the time I have the player on random shuffle.
I'm still looking for a program that can make it easier to sync the player and manage playlists.
I don't expect the software to be an issue for the typical owner-I tend to be very particular.
I suppose the support for text files is useful, if you wanted to keep some reference files on the device. I've read novels on a Palm Pilot, so I'm not opposed to using a small device for reading, but electronic devices have a long way to go to before they can match the performance and convenience of paper for pleasure reading.
Some reviewers have mentioned having to upgrade the firmware and having to remove the battery to reset the player. The H10 20GB does not have a firmware upgrade release yet, and it resets very easily by pressing a small recessed button with a paper clip. I have had to reset the player a couple of times, but it reboots quickly and this hasn't been a big deal.
The Bad
Bad is relative. Nothing I've encountered with the player is truly "bad."
Probably my worst complaint is that there is a brittle-sounding click in the headphones as the player changes songs. I don't really notice it any more, but at first it was annoying.
I like to listen to longer material, audio books and old radio programs, and fast-forwarding to a mid-point to resume listening can take a while, even with the scan rate set to max (6x). A progressive scan (longer you hold it down, the faster it goes) would be more effective and intuitive.
The player comes with a white translucent silicone protective cover. It has a belt clip and is soft and does a good job of protecting the player, even if it is not the most attractive thing I've seen. I've listed it under the Bad category because it also makes it difficult to feel the Prev Track/Play/Next Track buttons through the silicone.
I haven't had to call iriver for support yet, but have no illusions about the quality of live support that will be available. Unfortunately, no one provides good customer support. Best we can hope for is a device that is made well enough that the need for support is rare. So far, the H10 20GB seems to fall into this category.
Because the player is designed to be a copy of your master library, there's no obvious way to delete files (even ones you've recorded using the player's FM tuner) using the player's interface. You have to connect it to your computer for this.
There's also no obvious way to figure out how much disk space is left on the player, either from the player or from Windows. As a work-around, I add up the size of the various media directory trees on my computer to estimate how much space is left.
I'm hoping both of these are addressed by firmware upgrades.
Oh.. and I wish I had gotten red.
-----
