iRiver H10 Review

Good Points
Stylish
Simple to use
Excellent sound quality
Good build quality

Bad Points
Software a bit annoying, and not many optional extras are available... yet.

General Comments
I bought 2 iRiver H10 MP3 players and had them delivered to me whilst I was serving in the Middle East. This may have been the reason why one of the players stopped working within 24 hours of receiving it.



My retailer replaced the unit for me, and I have never looked back since. The player is so simple to use, and you only really need to use 4 buttons in order for it to do everything:



On/Off button: won't explain this one!

Scroll Pad/Button: to change the volume, scroll through tracks/albums/artists etc.

Select button: to select whatever you have scrolled on to, artist/track/album/equalizer setting etc.

Back button: to go back to your previous selection.



The screen isn't massive, but the graphics are good, as is the colour. Each section has it's own colour; Blue for Music, Purple for Radio, Red for recording and so on.



Battery life seems adequate enough; obviously this depends on how loud you have the volume set to, how long you have the back-lit screen set to stay on for, and so on. New batteries for these units seem pretty reasonably priced, around £15.



I'd advise buying a cradle for your player, as it keeps the unit charged and looks stylish when placed on your desk or at home. Trying to get hold of these can be very difficult, as it would appear the UK has SOLD out completely. I have a cradle for my unit, but the one I have on order for my partner has been on order now for over 6 months.



Firmware upgrades are easy enough to do whilst connected to your computer and 'online'. I use Windows media player to load/delete music onto my iRiver, as I've found the 'iRiver Plus' software (which comes in the box) a little difficult to use, but that might be because I get on better with the Windows software.



My partner tells me that her unit often randomly switches itself on without her touching it, but this seems to be happening less and less now.



My biggest grievance with the unit is that it loads the tracks onto the player in alphabetical order. This is extremely annoying when for example track 1 merges into track 2, but because the player plays them alphabetically track 6 merges into track 1. I've just found a way to solve this - you need to re-load the albums onto your player, but before doing this you must first edit each track by placing 01 then the track title, then 02, 03 and so on, by doing this the tracks will play in that order.



The iRiver comes with a soft rubber case with a belt loop for protection and for attachment purposes (a cost option with the iPod), decent headphones, software, charger and USB lead.



I'm a bit disappointed at the lack of extra accessories currently available for it, but I'm sure this will change; and maybe I'm only comparing it against the 100's of iPod accessories available.



It's far better than an iPod (you can load WMA (Windows Media Audio) files onto it for a start, which are better quality than MP3 files). None of the paint has worn off the buttons on my unit so far, and I have seen this happen to iPod's.



Buy an iRiver not an iPod! You won't regret it!

My family now has 4 units.