iRiver H320 vs iPod
I was really excited to see a device like the iRiver H320. However, upon opening the device the experience turned out to be an extreme disappointment. I believe that iRiver built the Kitchen sink here. This device tries to be too many things to too many people. A hard disk, a USB Host device (International only), an MTP sync device (US only), Photo Viewer etc.
Make sure you read my post iPod Replacement Criteria before reading this review. Remember, I have only one goal, to review this compared to an iPod. I don't care about anything the device offers that does not meet my core criteria.
Lets see how it stacks up.
Other Reviews:
Size: The size is very comparable to the 3G iPod.
| |
iRiver H320 |
iPod 3G |
| Height |
4.1 inches |
4.1 inches |
| Width |
2.4 inches |
2.4 inches |
| Depth |
0.9 inches |
0.57 inches |
| Weight |
6.6 ounces |
5.6 ounces |
So, as you can see it stacks up very nicely.
User Interface: The device has a very readable color screen. However, the interface for browsing files is just a file explorer. What you may ask? That's right, there is no way for the device to build a database of audio allowing you to browse by Artist, Genre, Album etc. It makes you wonder what the point of meta data is if the device makes no use of it.
iRiver does ship an application that you can install in Windows that can manually scan the audio on the device and build the data base file, but it only supports MP3 files. Ridiculous if you ask me.
The good news is that there is an open source .NET application that will do this job as well as many others (like sync audio on your hard drive) called Tag Database Tool (TDT). TDT works very well except for the fact that it barfs on files that are DRM protected (purchased and subscription audio. I made some changes to the application to use newer Windows Media APIs that allow it to do this. If there is enough interested I'll post my changes somewhere so folks can download them.
(Warning) After cataloging the 2,000 or so songs on the device, I found that the database increased the device boot time to over a minute. Unbelievable if you ask me. Since the device "shuts off" when it's not in use, that means that if you want to turn it on and use it you are subjected to a greater than one minute penalty.
However, I still find it inexcusable that iRiver ship a device that only has a file explorer interface. In addition the device User Interface is confusing with many of the buttons overloaded for different tasks. For example, to switch to FM radio you must hold down the Record button. I could not figure this out myself and actually had to resort to reading the manual. I never had to read my iPod manual to figure out how to use it.
Connectivity: The device has two USB ports. Now why would a device need two USB ports? Well when iRiver created this device they had two goals in mind. 1) A Music Jukebox, 2) A USB On The Go. USB On The Go allows a device to act as a host device for something like a digital camera or card reader allowing you to offload photos from a camera without a computer.
Now, before you get all excited lets look at how this was implemented. On the International version of the device you get one USB port that is USB 2.0 for connecting to a PC and one that is USB 1.1 for connecting to a camera. The USB 2.0 port can act as a charging port if you are not "connected" but the device is powered down. On the US version of the device you get a USB 2.0 port for connecting to a PC similar to the international device and a USB 1.1 port that supports MTP for synchronizing to Windows Media Player. You are limited to USB 1.1 and this port will not charge the device. I suspect that iRiver made this decision because it was the only way to get PlaysForSure support and they figured that most of these music stores are US only so they essentially took a device that had one set of features and repurposed it for the US market. I think it would have been better for them to forgo PlaysForSure support till they could get it right in the product design.
| |
International |
US |
| "Data" port |
USB 2.0 (charging) |
USB 2.0 (charging) |
| "Media" port |
USB 1.1 for USB On The Go |
USB 1.1 for MTP |
Now, the USB 2.0 port only connects the device as a fixed mountable drive. This essentially means that it is mounted to your PC as a non-removable hard drive. This distinction is important because it PREVENTS Windows Media Player from Synchronization with the device as it's not removable. So, if you purchased this device to be a hard drive you're in luck! If you purchased it as a music player you are stuck with an expensive hard drive.
I emailed iRiver about this limitation and here is what they said:
We have tens of thousands of users who are very happy to manage their music collections independently of an application and prefer to drag and drop files to their player. We completely understand that your needs and desires may not match theirs. If syncing your collection via USB 2 is an important feature for you, then I may suggest that this player is not suited for your needs. We will have a product available later this year will allow for faster transfers through Windows Media Player:
http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/pmc120.aspx
Apparently their user base like to "drag and drop files to their player". Great, I'm not one of them.
Charging: The iRiver comes with a separate DC adapter charger with a proprietary plug for the device. Since you can't really charge the device over USB even though the device supports it (can't charge during sync), you really do need this charger. So, it's another thing to drag around when you are traveling. No thanks.
Sync: This device only supports sync with Windows Media Player 10 using the USB 1.1 port which does not support charging. Syncing 20 GB of audio while transcoding was one of the most pitiful experiences I've had on my PC. I started on Saturday morning and the device finished on Monday evening. Now normally transcoding will take a while as the PC much convert each song from WMA lossless to WMA 128. However, once I reached about 1000 songs, the device would essentially hang or timeout. This required me to unplug the device, plug it back in, and continue synching. I had to do this every 10-20 songs after I got to 1,000. I reported this to iRiver as well and got this response:
Thank for the report. I will pass this to them for further research.
Maybe transfer 1-5 files in the meantime?
Um, yeah. The fact that this device only supports USB 1.1 for MTP sync made this super painful.
Accessories: The device comes with the following accessories:
- Charger
- USB cable
- Line Out cable
- Carrying Case
Battery Life: iRiver claims 12 hours. I got about 8 hours.
Software: The device comes with a CD that contains a Mass Storage driver if you are an unfortunate soul still running Windows 98 as well as some software I didn't bother installing for creating the device music database. The device also comes with Windows Media Player which is great, but since you can't realistically sync with that software I'm not sure why they include it.
Price: I purchased the device for $320 which is reasonable.
Storage: 20 GB
PlaysForSure: The device supports the following PlaysForSure logos.
- Basic PlaysForSure support
- Support for Audio Download
- Support for Audio Subscription
Kudos to iRiver for supporting Audio Subscription. This makes it one of the few devices that can play subscription audio content (Janus) from music stores such as Napster. This was my favorite feature of the device. Unfortunately since the device isn't SyncsForSure compliant, it's all very useless.
Support: Unfortunately iRiver doesn't have a proven track record for fixing any problems in firmware updates. If you have a few hours to spare (which I did as I tried to make the sync work) you can read all sorts of stuff on the MisticRiver forums.
Web Site: The Website for the iRiver H320 doesn't tell you that the device will only sync with Windows Media Player 10 using USB 1.1 and that the device will not charge via this mechanism. IMHO it's making false claims (or lack of claims about the real capabilities of the device).
Optional Features:
- Device appears as a hard drive in Windows.
- Device supports FM Tuning.
- Device has a color screen.
- Device supports FM Recording
- Device supports Audio Recording
Final Rating (see my post on my review criteria to understand what this means).
Lame- fails in some areas. Do not hand over your money for this device.
Seriously, I did not enjoy debugging and trying to fit this device into my lifestyle. I figure the 2 or so hours I spent hacking TDT to support WMA DRM'ed files was well worth it as I learned something new, but if you are looking for a device to replace your iPod or you are on the market for a new device I would wait till iRiver works out the issues above (or some one else ships a comparable device).
