iRiver H320 vs iPod

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

James Hancock — Sun, 24 Oct 2004 22:01:00 GMT

Creative is just as bad with their Nomads. Why the hell can't someone create a device the works the way most people use it?

Here's what I want to see:

1. 20 hours battery life
2. USB 2.0 (IRiver should have put one 2.0 port with USB server support in it)
3. Plug it in and it syncs with WMP 10 automatically with no intervention and gets ALL of the music in my collection automatically (why else would you buy a juke box?)
4. Also shows up as a removable drive like a thumb drive so that I can use it as a removable hard drive if I want.
5. Artist, Album, Track grouping and lookup al-la Creative/IPOD, but do it right so that I can just click somehow on it and tell it to play AND a different click shows me the tracks.
6. No I dont' want a color screen.
7. FM Radio
8. FM broadcast for my car. (No I'm not going to buy a BMW with a stupid interface or a car kit to play it through my tape deck. My Acura lease will go back without the tape deck ever used!)
9. WMA support. (that rules out IPOD)
10. Play/Pause button, forward/reverse (channel scan in FM radio mode), Scroll Wheel al-la Creative that also selects, Off button, lock button, and volume buttons. NOTHING ELSE. Nothing else is needed, and there shouldn't be multiple functions for the buttons.
11. No drivers to install if the computer knows about removable drivers like Me/2000/XP etc. do.

Absolutely nothing else is needed. No software, no nothing.

This is SIMPLE. Why in god's name would you use this device in any other way? I mean, don't even include ANY software with your device. If you must, put WMP 10 on a CD for people that don't have it. Otherwise it should just work in windows automatically.

First company to make one that does everything above with a 40 gig drive or larger will have me as a loyal customer. Everyone else, be ashamed of yourself. Very ashamed. This isn't hard.

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Bjoern Graf — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 02:14:00 GMT

The "[...] 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." might be related to the software iRiver intended to be used for collection management: if I have to choose between drag'n'drop and an unusable, buggy media manager I would be happy to drag my files around :) Another pro for drag'n'drop support request - assuming d'n'd includes file copy support - might be that one could create an alternative file/music manager easily...

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

DrTim — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 03:32:00 GMT

lol, you just described the iPod apart from the battery and WMA (FM Radio? Why? You are carrying round your 5000 favoutire songs).

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

James Hancock — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 03:36:00 GMT

BTW:

MS you could make this happen by making most of the above basic requirements. (unlike the mess that is the Iriver player to meet your current standard... this shows that your standards are broken)

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Omar Shahine — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 04:47:00 GMT

I love NPR, so having a Radio for the commute is necessary.

I realize I am looking for something like the iPod, but it needs to play WMA and subscription content.

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Sandro Lange — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 07:07:00 GMT

I personally don't use the DB as it makes the handling a lot more complicated, frankly, I don't like the iPOD for the Database-feature. What I want is a fast drag'n'drop&run-feature, meaning - storing the files in every fashion I want with full filenames etc. etc.

I just navigate trough my directory-structure and find it much to use and play the music the same way I do it on my PC with WinAMP.

Of course a DB is great for searching for artist, genre etc. - but how often are you doing this? I have a directory-structure sorted by genre and artist - I use this structure for years containing over 8000 files and I did never have a problem with it.

Did I mention I love my iRiver IHP120 (now H120) over the iPod. The battery last twice as long as the one from the iPod - no need for additional-Software, no need to use a Database, it features a remote-control with LCD-display which is the only but most important thing I need :) The sound-quality is superb, I found it even louder and clearer than the 3th generation iPOD I tried. The optical in- and out is super - also the recording feature and the FM Radio.

The iPOD is neat and slick but it won't even come close to my iRiver - feature and battery-wise.

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Nick — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 07:36:00 GMT

iPod. Why settle for second best... and why deal with any music store other than iTunes; they all are worse, and they are a puny niche market next to iPod/iTunes...

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Omar Shahine — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 13:47:00 GMT

1) Because, as I've stated, all my audio is WMA Lossless.
2) Because Apple's iTunes Music Store music doens't play on any device except in iTunes or the iPod. I have a Media Center where I play most of my audio.
3) Because I want choice and think I'm entitled to it.

Hancock

Melangell — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 13:56:00 GMT

James Hancock could get all he wanted except for the FM radio/broadcast, and (the abortion that is) WMA by buying an iPod. He's probably one of those who irrationally hate everything APple no matter how superior their products are.. By the way cowboy, it's "iPod" not "IPOD".

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 08:46:00 GMT

ipod is the same thing as IPOD..
very picky there Mel.
h300 rocks anyways, u apple lovers
can go hug ur ipods.
i'll stick to mine.

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Carl — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:35:00 GMT

No one has forced Apple stuff on me. I have a PowerMac G5 and an iPod because I like the technology and user experience. My Windows box just became too much of a PITA to maintain and cleanse of malware, viruses and other random OS crap outs.

All of my music on my Mac and iPod is in industry standard unprotected MPEG-4 .m4a files using the industry standard AAC codec. While its true that Apple's music store protected tracks (.m4p) are encrypted using their proprietary FairPlay DRM, it is also true that all DRM solutions are proprietary, including Microsoft's WMA. And their codecs are not industry standard.

It is possible to use the open source Hymn program to remove the FairPlay encryption from the .m4p files leaving a nice standard MPEG-4 .m4a file that any decent media player should play. You are *not* locked into any proprietary Apple formats. And, if you like lossless, that is available too in .m4a files as an option when ripping with iTunes.

It would be nice if the iPod played WMA, but I think the real problem is in Microsoft's control over the licensing of their proprietary codecs and DRM.

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Omar Shahine — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:49:00 GMT

The real problem is that Apple won't do this. The licence terms for playback of DRM are very flexible.

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Valentin — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 12:47:00 GMT

You know, as far as I understand it, Apple did not allow M$ to play Quicktime movies in Windows Media Player.

Although I would love my iPod to play WMA, I don't think it's very fair to expect Microsoft to share technology when another company wouldn't do it in the first place.

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Dr. Phil — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 17:37:00 GMT

I have both the iPod and H320, and to be honest, like the iriver better. both are connected to an iMac running iTunes. The only thing that does stink is the manageability of files by artis, album, etc. however, by creating folders I feel most of my searching issues have been alleviated. The new iPod Photo would have been my first choice of portable media players, but the cost was just too high ($499 for a 40 gig $500 for a 60 gig)

This product, as many minute issues it has in my mind, is far superior to a comparable iPod. I think once all is said and done and you figure out how to navigate using the rudimentry button structure, that is far more complicated to learn than it needs to be, it is a par superior produt to the iPod. Even for Apple users....

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

shortie — Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:24:00 GMT

iriver kick ipod a$$ hands down

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

James Hancock — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 16:50:00 GMT

Valentin:

The iPod right now could play WMA and MS would be more than happy to let them (MS has said so directly)

Apple actively disables the WMA functionality before they leave the factory in the firmware. It's just Apple being stupid as usual.

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Rigid — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 05:21:00 GMT

I am extremely happy with my new H320. Navigating took a little while to learn but now it is a snap. The flexibility, extra features, FM radio and the color screen all appealed. iPod was missing quite a lot. Nice interface on iPod but my attitude is that this is a detail. After one day I recomend the H320 without hesitation. Nice sound.

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Leo — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 20:56:00 GMT

i jest got me a iriver and i dont like it to much why! so chek it im transfring musick to my iriver from my computer and avre other minet i well git thes canot reed from source or its being yosed buy another application it dose thes to me for avre theng musk pohtos and apps if you know why plz e mail me PLZ @ leohenry77@hotmail.com PS iPod Photo IS KING!!!

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

stu — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 07:18:00 GMT

if you are using itunes, it will automatically convert wma's to aac's, which is what i found out.

re: iRiver H320 vs iPod

Natalie — Tue, 23 Nov 2004 23:22:00 GMT

i don't have either iriver h320 and ipod but i want the iriver h320. i don't care what anyone else says...

it is compatible with windows ME whereas the ipod is not compatible with windows ME since you need iTunes to transfer all your songs. i wish i had xp but dad says that i can't get it since windows ME is running fine. anyway, if i get xp then i will get ipod but right now, i want iriver :D

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