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iRiver H320 20gb Mp3 Player

80

Very Good
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  • IRiver H320

PC World Editor's Review

by Sam Jemielity

High-capacity jukebox flaunts a beautiful color display.

At $275, the IRiver H320 sits near the high end of the price continuum for 20GB players (the 20GB Apple IPod currently costs $280). Even diehard IPod fans will regard the H320's large, vivid display with jealousy.

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Multifunction buttons simplify switching between playback modes, changing equalizer settings, and getting to the most useful controls. Transferring music from your computer to the player is easy, and navigating through your music library on the device is straightforward, though somewhat slow. The H320's FM radio reception was good, and its voice recording worked without a hitch.

The bulky IRiver might have provided louder volume--on an airplane, it wasn't quite loud enough for my decibel-damaged ears. And because the color screen saps battery life (IRiver claims a hefty 16 hours for its player anyway), you must adjust the display's backlight so that it turns off fairly quickly. I set it at 10 seconds; unfortunately, when the screen darkens, you can't read it at all. Pressing any button illuminates it; but if you want to skip forward a song, you have to press the button twice--a minor annoyance.

Upshot: Reasonable price, great audio, dazzling color display, FM radio, and photo viewing make this device a strong contender among 20GB players.

Sam Jemielity

User Reviews for iRiver H320 20gb Mp3 Player

  • Reviewed by: greenfood

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: batterylife is good i average about 12 hours, it uses little software so its compatable with linux, win 2k, win me, and win xp. video is great. voice recording is clear. so is the radio.

    Weaknesses: its alittle big, cant listen to music and look at pictures at the same time

    Overall Evaluation: it is the best investment i made. i was debating between this and the i pod and i picked this because it had a voice recorder. to my supprise the voice recorder was clear enough for me to use to rec lectures in class. and at school i can save my work on this mp3 player because when i pluged it up to a computer at school it appeared as a drive and i could drag and drop stuff into it. the screen is a tad small for movies but a movie is a movie. the sound on it is great. it does not get as loud as an ipod but it reproduces a clean sound.

  • Reviewed by: disgusted

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Features, sound quality, adjustments, recognized as a Hard Drive..

    Weaknesses: ZERO customer support, cannot contact iRiver, no response to e-mails..you are stuck with it..

    Overall Evaluation: iRiver America has removed the H300 series from their website in the last few days..(Aug 1). it is like it never existed..accessories are sold-out and no replacement date is listed...No response to e-mails from iRiver.. it is like there is no business there...no firmware updates, and no suport... The International Version is still produced and supported.. but not he US versionI was EXTREMELY happy wiht the player until today, now I am stuck with a $300 piece of junkSTAY-AWAY, STAY-AWAY, STAY-AWAY

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