All this talk about an iriver being complicated is only true for more advanced features, its actually very easy for a very nontechnical person to make it play some music, which is presumably the main purpose of an mp3 player.

Quote: Originally Posted by immtbiker I get my music from a Russian site, which is legit. the site is http://www.allofmp3.com Choose "English", unless you speak Russian. I have found almost everything I have ever searched for. Actually, that site isn't legit, its simply too...

Quote: Originally Posted by Morphling As someone said earlier VBR MP3 is not old and inferior. In fact a lot of people I talk to with portable players use APE or APS lame vbr. The way I look at it, there will always be some compromises with portable hardware and for me a decent...

Quote: Originally Posted by blessingx If you're archiving in a lossless format and only use lossy on a portable, if you wish to use the best MP3 encoder (LAME) it's achingly slow (even using the 'fast' tag with the presets). Even if you think QT based AAC is only equal in quality, it...

Wasn't divx 3 contain codce basically ripped off from ms or something like that and thats why commercial products can't admit to supporting it?

Thats not the much fabled iriver h-series firmware update, its simply the eu version of one that came out for korea shortly after launch.

Quote: Originally Posted by penbat Quite possibly but maybe Toshiba have an exclusive contract with Apple. I think the Karma, for example, uses Hitachi drives and they haven't even got anything bigger than a 20GB version yet. I don't think they have an exclusive contract with...

Quote: Originally Posted by penbat As the 30GB and 60GB versions are also more energy efficient than the 20GB and 40GB, it should also give better battery life than the current 4G line up. On the register.co.uk they mention that they are going to also be bringing out a 40gb with...

Quote: Originally Posted by philodox My only issue with the 400 series is the fact that they use the macrovision protection for DVD recording Does that mean you wouldn't be able to stick your own dvds on it? Quote: The features that they have added in the 400 series are...

Quote: Originally Posted by dj_mocok /me shivers.... LCD displays = battery eater. For general cd useage that won't be an issue since it will be designed to switch off fairly rapidly.

Quote: Originally Posted by evo i'm beginning to think if this convergence thing might not be a good thing after all, how about a group of portable gadgets that communicate wirelessly, rather than a all-in-one [e.g. av400 & its succesor, av500] Theres nothing wrong with...

Quote: Originally Posted by Darth Minidisc The Iriver does do those things (and looks a lot cooler) but I like the Gmini implementation for photos better. Unless I can shoot and have the pictures transfer while shooting (kinda doubt this) then the Gmini means I can swap cards and keep...

Quote: Originally Posted by Dweebgal i don't get why people are getting thier panties in a bunch so much, not all stuff is volume limited. and if you really want something that is limited....IMPORT Or buy it and then flash it with non-eu firmware in the case of some stuff e.g...

Quote: Originally Posted by Zuerst Wow... that sucker is huge!!! Aren't they suppose to get smaller as they go??? I have seen a few comments about the h3xx series being huge, they are only a couple of mm thicker than the equivalent h1xx model, hardly huge at all.

Depending on what files you'd want to play on it, the iriver could be a lot more useful than the archos since it states support for mpg whereas the archos one doesn't.

Smaller capacity storage devices becoming obsolete in time, not something thats ever happened before now is it. Realistically, in the future there will still be a market for flash, mini hd and normal hd players, the difference will be that the capacities will be higher and the costs lower...

I wouldn't expect iriver to rush to do much with these minihd players since they are still making money from their various flash-based players, its a shame really since one in a similar style to the ifp-5xx series would be rather nice.

The muvo 4gb would cover your needs, but like one of the prevously mentioned players, it loses its place if you connect to a pc between uses.

I own one of those sony pocket radios thats linked to above and its very good, but I have to say that the pocket radio I have from a company called Roberts is a lot better than it. I'm not sure where you go about looking for stuff from them in the states (they may be fairly common for all i...

I have got one of those battery pack things from maplin, luckily i haven't had to use it much, but its been useful when i have needed it. I'm not sure where maplin actually ship to but for those who can buy from there the direct url for it is: Battery Holder

Quote: It's sort of ugly, but in 18 months when it's selling on discount racks for $99, it'll start looking pretty good, I bet. At that price anyone would start to consider it probably, it'd be handy for me to go with my digital camera that uses sd cards.

I don't know if they have done this one as well, but i think the previous models were also sold under the ibead name.

Maybe they'll try to widen the gap between the mini and the standard ipod and will just do 30 and 60gb versions of the new ipod.

Xclef also do an mp3 players that accepts sd/mmc cards, iirc the model is the mt-500. Its slightly bigger than the mpio, but its a mass storage device. As far as the fl100, you can play mp3s off an sd card you have copied mp3s onto, as long as the sd card was initially formatted by the fl100...

Quote: Originally Posted by noguilt check out the new Zen (if only we knew when it would actually be available; at least it does appear on the Creative website, albeit "not in stock"): http://gear.ign.com/articles/520/520463p1.html note also hints of a new Karma and new Iriver...