iRiver H340 Review

Overall Rating

Huge disk capacity
Acts as a USB host so can also be used as a mass storage device for digital cameras etc
Needs no software - is recognised as a removable disk by Windows.
Supports a wide variety of file types.
Can store and display photos and videos.
Can make live and off-air recordings to disk.
User forums are good - you'll need them!

Is NOT supported as an MP3 player by WMP, iTunes, Media Jukebox, RealPlayer. Can only be used through Windows Explorer.
No music specific functionality - cannot browse music other than the way it's stored. E.g. if you want to view your music by genre then you have to create and populate the directory structure in that way yourself, after which it will be like that until you change it back.
Online support from the vendor is patchy. Website forum throws errors in Chinese whenever a registered user signs in.
Radio reception is poor.
No remote control supplied, which means that the unit cannot be operated in the provided belt pouch.
Buttons are counter-intuitive

The iRiver H340 is my first portable digital music player - I have been waiting for some years for the technology to mature and was looking forward to entering the brave new world of digital music.

Your appreciation of this device will depend solely upon your expectation. I was expecting to be able to plug the device into my PC, download and synchronise the music files on the device and on my computer, easily create playlists to suit my mood and take them with me, and browse the music on the player by genre artist or album. Instead what you have here is a 40Gb disk in a box - no more, no less. For technical reasons that are too dull to go into, when you connect the iRiver it is NOT recognised by most software as an MP3 player, but as a hard disk. Therefore, it is not recognised by Windows Media PLayer or RealPlayer or iTunes, or any other piece of software that would give me the functionality I wanted. [The documentation for these applications state that they do support this device - they don't. They are referring to the US model which has a different USB configuration]. To load music to the player you are restricted to using Windows Explorer to drag and drop.
The most success I have had was using MoodLogic to create playlists - the software does synchronize with the device, but was let down by it's inability to let me register and pay for it! Therefore I don't know whether it would actually create playlists that would work in the iRiver. The iRiver supports playlists (but not the ones generated by Windows Media Player), but each song reference must be an accurate reference to the song on it's disk. There are 2 ways to do this - it can allegedly be done using Winamp, but the instructions to do this run to two pages! Alternatively, you must create a playlist file, open it in Notepad then edit every entry to create the correct path name!
Using this device is about as much fun as editing source code in Notepad - clunky, inefficient and frustrating. I have 10 years IT experience and it took me a couple of days to realise it was never going to work the way I expected. I would hate to think how long it would take Joe Public to get it working.
If you're technically savvy and are happy with minimal functionality then this is for you. If you want value for money and an enjoyable music experience then look elsewhere.

Members' Comments onsimes69's Review

• silverstone on 15th Mar 2005

  It does have a database you just didn't know how to use it I guess. You can search by genre, artist, album, title, or folder. It's play for sure compatible and CAN BE connected to media players. Radio reception I find is very good without an antenna, did you set your region? A remote is available it came ith the old ihp-series but since this player is cheaper it doesn't come with a remote but is available for a very good price. Online support by iriveramerica.com is very good you have to set up a "black-box" and you can send requests and they come back to you right away. There you can also download new firmware. So, basically all your bad points...don't exist. Really good player. Best HD-player available.

• simes69 on 20th Mar 2005

  Agreed that some of the points in my review are incorrect - I subsequently learnt how to do those things. However, the fact that I couldn't fathom it out at the time of writing does say something about the complexity and lack of documentation. I did work out how to activate the ID3 tag database within the player and am happy with that - I can now browse by genres if I wish. It took me 3 months to acquire a remote control - it arrived just this weekend. I still can't synchronize it, but research on the Web has thrown a couple of good software products that come close, e.g. iRivium from RedChair.

• warbyr on 23rd Apr 2005

  Here Here... Its an awful piece of junk. DONT BUY ONE!!

• kopw on 25th Apr 2005

  Simes, 10 years IT experience? I figured it out the day I took it out of the box (with no IT experience). It is not difficult. 3 months to get your remote is not an iRiver issue, they are available, and can be shipped overnight from many reputable retailers. What really are your issues with it?

• camelot on 15th Jul 2005

  Spot on

• gnasher on 15th Aug 2006

  Durrr, what could possibly be confusing or frustrating about using windows explorer to drag and drop files onto the iriver? Not exactly difficult except maybe for IT professionals? Playlists can be made simply by dragging whatever songs you want into a folder and loading it on.
  
  The iRiver is most useful as a hard drive. It can store any type of file. It ALSO plays music. You have the option of using rubbish mp3s or you can encrypt wav files so you at least have a choice of a decent sound format. Not only that, but you can stream audio and video content directly into it! There is nothing else available that can do this so it stuffs the ipod.
  
  I am a professional musician and graphic designer and this is one of the most crucial bits of kit I have. I can transport massive amounts of data across platforms easily with no fuss and I've still got buckets of space for a shedload of tunes. Who cares that it takes a few seconds to scroll through your collection? Simply not important as far as I'm concerned. Even filling it up to begin with is a doddle. Simply dump your entire iTunes folder (already organised into artists, albums and songs) onto the iRiver. By importing albums from CDs using something like iTunes to your computers hard drive it automatically creates correct encryption addresses for the iRiver file system to read. This way it will play albums in the proper order. ITS EASY!
  
  If all you want to do is be a walking apple advert and listen to inferior sound quality mp3s then buy an ipod like all the other sheep, good luck when it goes wrong! They are flimsy, poorly made and do not even compare in terms of functionality. The iRiver is by far the greatest tool on the market for multimedia storage and playback.
  
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