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I recently purchased the iRiver iHP-120 - 20 GB hard drive media player from Amazon. I've been playing with it the last couple of weeks. It's great. Quality is awesome, battery life is good, and it doesn't drain it like some players are known to do.
I've got a nice collection of Digweed shows and other DJ mixes on the device, all of which are quite large in size. The player queues up X number of bytes during playback so the hard drive is only in use for certain periods while fast-forwarding or queueing up the next section.
I'd recommend it to anyone. However, I'm not sure how it compares to the new iPod's coming out with the revised battery life and price drop.
The thing that pushes it over the top for me is the raw flexibility you get. It shows up on your computer like a hard drive and you can playback MP3, WAV, OGG, and WMA files. Because it acts like a removable storage device, you can put anything on there. It's great.
I saw some type of app you can buy that does that for iPod, but you don't get it in the box.
The iRiver playback audio quality is excellent, especially and obviously with higher bitrate MP3's. Most of my collection is 192 and up, VBR and constant. I archive my CD and vinyl with 256 VBR, 192 minimum. The quality is crystal.
If you're in the market for a player, I suppose the price-drop on the 30 GB iPod puts it at the same price-point as this 20 GB player (maybe iRiver's dropped their price too, dunno - I hate to look
)
But the iRiver still offers flexibility and greater playback file types than the iPod, which still makes me happy about. And although the iPod is a good looking piece of machinery, I can get over that with something that does what I need it to. In the end, I felt the iPod end up just looking pretty. If that's all you're into, fine.
But if you want music management that is flexible, and multiple playback file types, this is your device.
I've got a nice collection of Digweed shows and other DJ mixes on the device, all of which are quite large in size. The player queues up X number of bytes during playback so the hard drive is only in use for certain periods while fast-forwarding or queueing up the next section.
I'd recommend it to anyone. However, I'm not sure how it compares to the new iPod's coming out with the revised battery life and price drop.
The thing that pushes it over the top for me is the raw flexibility you get. It shows up on your computer like a hard drive and you can playback MP3, WAV, OGG, and WMA files. Because it acts like a removable storage device, you can put anything on there. It's great.
I saw some type of app you can buy that does that for iPod, but you don't get it in the box.
The iRiver playback audio quality is excellent, especially and obviously with higher bitrate MP3's. Most of my collection is 192 and up, VBR and constant. I archive my CD and vinyl with 256 VBR, 192 minimum. The quality is crystal.
If you're in the market for a player, I suppose the price-drop on the 30 GB iPod puts it at the same price-point as this 20 GB player (maybe iRiver's dropped their price too, dunno - I hate to look
)But the iRiver still offers flexibility and greater playback file types than the iPod, which still makes me happy about. And although the iPod is a good looking piece of machinery, I can get over that with something that does what I need it to. In the end, I felt the iPod end up just looking pretty. If that's all you're into, fine.
But if you want music management that is flexible, and multiple playback file types, this is your device.
