iRiver E100

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http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic/0,39029995,49296422,00.htm

Reviewed 15 April 2008

Reviewed by Nate Lanxon

If you're just not bothered about that iPod nonsense but still want a functional, affordable and attractive player, you'd be justified in considering the iRiver E100. It will be available at the end of April in capacities of 4GB for £80 and 8GB for £100, and is surely on the affordable end of the MP3 player market.

But will iRiver's previous successes with the Clix line carry the E100 through this furiously competitive marketplace? Let's find out.

Design
Our first impressions were that the E100 is of a good size, with decent screen dimensions and a lightweight build quality. We're still impressed, even though the four-way directional pad has a sporadically unresponsive nature. Sure, this fiddly control pad doesn't improve the use of the similarly sluggish menus, but it's blisteringly simple -- a killer feature for technophobes.

Above the control pad sits the 61mm (2.4-inch) colour screen. Compared to Creative's similarly-priced 4GB Zen player, it's significantly less impressive. The resolution is certainly good enough for an MP3 player, but it lacks the beautiful crispness of the Zen or iPod nano, providing a moderately pixellated image. But it's reasonably bright and when combined with its size and the E100's menu design and navigation, it's acceptable.

Features
At its core, the E100 is an MP3 player that'll also handle OGG, WMA, FLAC and ASF files, though no Windows Media Lossless. There are plenty of EQ settings to play with, too. MPEG-4 and WMV videos are also supported, along with a variety of image formats for creating slideshows of your favourite photos. Either Windows Media Player or some bundled software will help you convert your stored video clips, although it didn't like working with our high-definition test files.

While podcasts aren't supported by default, Podcast Ready's excellent application can be installed on the E100 to provide automatic downloading and syncing of shows. In addition, songs bought on Napster will play when synced with Windows Media Player. DRM-free iTunes Plus downloads -- not to mention any other iTunes downloads, however, will not.

We liked the ability to bookmark tracks and videos. After bookmarking a song, video, podcast or audiobook at, say, 1 minute 30 seconds in, the song shows up in a dedicated bookmark list. This lets you browse a list of tracks -- or book titles, for instance -- that have bookmarks within them, and resume listening without affecting playback when the tracks play as part of a playlist.

As a bonus, the E100 is expandable up to 8GB with microSD, but tracks stored on these cards are not pulled into the main music menu.

Happily, it functions as a pretty capable recording device. In addition to voice recording via internal microphone, you can plug in a 3.5mm cable and record from any external source, including an external microphone. Three WMA quality settings -- up to 192kbps -- allow you to record over 100 hours of audio or, as the E100 has a built-in FM radio, stereo radio broadcasts.

Performance
These recordings sound terrific. The highest bit rate gave excellent results when captured from an iPod, and the built-in microphone is sensitive and clear. This would be ideal for students wanting to record lectures, or even amateurs venturing into the world of podcasting, as the WMA format is easily workable.

But the focus here is music and we're pretty pleased with its performance. There's no gapless playback, which is a shame, but sound quality is decent. Through our studio-grade reference headphones, we heard surprisingly little difference between the E100 and -- wait for this -- Creative's Zen, a player we consider to offer superb playback quality. It's an improvement over iRiver's B20, and while the Zen offers a marginally warmer sound, the majority of people listening to MP3s won't hear a discernible difference.

Sadly, the poor screen lets the E100 down during video playback. Blacks are all but missing, resulting in a washed-out video image with unsatisfactory viewing angles. We didn't have much fun watching video on here, so if that's your main concern, opt for the Creative Zen.

It has to be said, though, that you can't get any simpler than dragging and dropping files from Windows or OS X directly into the E100's memory. You can, of course, use Windows Media Player if you'd prefer. And as it uses standard miniUSB, there's no risk of being stuck without a proprietary cable.

Conclusion
The E100 is a likable player, but it's inferior to its main rival, the Creative Zen. The E100 offers great sound quality, simple operation and a pleasant design, but it's sluggish performance and poor screen make it significantly less desirable to use at this price point, considering how closely priced the Zen is.

But if you're taken with the design or just don't fancy a Creative or Apple player, it's a nice offering and will reward you with simple functionality, some useful features and great sound quality. It's just not a breakthrough device.

Available from AdvancedMP3Players. 

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday