[SpoonMan]

Someone over at iPod lounge did a review of the iHP-120, are the 5 points brought up still an issue in the latest firmware? No shuffle option borders on criminal when you're talking about 20 gigs of music...anyhow, you can take a look at the review by going here.

 

[austonia]

woh.. nice find.. these are the kind of details I need..

1. I like to listen to a particular genre sometimes. On the iHP-120, you can't shuffle an entire genre. You've got to listen to the songs as they are in their order in the machine. Can't do this with Artist or Album, either.

2. No playlists on the fly. You can only queue the next song.

3. Playlists take some time to load. A 1700 song playlist takes about 30 seconds on my iHP-120 to load.

4. Playlists can not be shuffled. Playlists are built in WinAMP, and you can shuffle the songs in WinAMP. But once they are loaded in the iHP-120 the songs remain in that order.

5. The machine forgets that you were playing from a playlist when you shut down. AGGHHHH!!! JUST KILL ME NOW!!! So, when you start up again, the iHP-120 continues playing the last song it was playing when you shut down, but afterwards it plays the next song of that ALBUM and so on. It forgets you were playing a playlist. So, not only do you have to wait another 30 seconds while you reload the playlist, you have to forward through umpteen songs you've already listened to because it starts at the first song in the playlist and you CAN'T SHUFFLE THE PLAYLIST!

 

[Murasame]

inability to make playslist on the fly and no shuffle the playlist it's indeed very annoying....
hope futures firmwares could take care off this issues.

 

[rafer]

hey, ive had my ihp-120 for a couple days, and have yet to write a review. but here's one thing that i can conclude. this player IS the best palyer out there, it is sooo nice, i have had an ipod before as well. it jsut needs some firmware updates to fix some bugs and lack of software features, with these updates, this player WILL become the new Ipod IMO. Everything is there for it to become the king, iRiver just needs to work on the software a bit. a full review will come in a little bit

 

[phatty]

The one thing that really bites me in the *ss is that people are so quick to pass judgement on an immature product. The facts:

Ipod = 3+ years of maturity and firmware

iHP-100 Series = +/- 6mos.

Rio Karma = +/- 3or4mos.

In my opinion only the iRiver iHP-100 series and the Rio Karma in their current state of release/development are meant for hardcore techies, geeks AND... those with the patients and understanding of what it takes to get a new product in line with more mature competition. I would just say to all those quick to pass judgement on the 120... Let's see what happens when we get a major firmware release which addresses:
on-the-fly playlisting
shuffle playlists
gapless/crossfade feature
etc, etc, etc....

I think we'll see a few "Ipod Killer" reviews then and see people writing new reviews based on a more mature product and thanking themselves for being patient.

 

[rafer]

once software bugs and defeciencies are fixed in the iHP-120, it will be the best player out there hands down.

 

[Theresamarie1]

Quote:

Originally posted by austonia woh.. nice find.. these are the kind of details I need.. 3. Playlists take some time to load. A 1700 song playlist takes about 30 seconds on my iHP-120 to load.

Probably a dumb question but I'll ask anyways.. why would anyone have a 1700 song playlist?? I can't imagine wanting to listen to 1700 songs in succession and what I want to listen to tomorrow is different from what I want to listen to today. Not to mention how long 1700 songs is in time... at 4 minutes per song on average 1700 songs takes around 113 hours!
I must be missing something???
How do people use playlists?

 

[SpoonMan]

Quote:

Originally posted by phatty The one thing that really bites me in the *ss is that people are so quick to pass judgement on an immature product. The facts: Ipod = 3+ years of maturity and firmware iHP-100 Series = +/- 6mos. Rio Karma = +/- 3or4mos. In my opinion only the iRiver iHP-100 series and the Rio Karma in their current state of release/development are meant for hardcore techies, geeks AND... those with the patients and understanding of what it takes to get a new product in line with more mature competition. I would just say to all those quick to pass judgement on the 120... Let's see what happens when we get a major firmware release which addresses: on-the-fly playlisting shuffle playlists gapless/crossfade feature etc, etc, etc.... I think we'll see a few "Ipod Killer" reviews then and see people writing new reviews based on a more mature product and thanking themselves for being patient.

It's not like including a shuffle feature in your 20gig music player takes a lot of thinking...besides, it's not like rio and iRiver are that new to the mp3 game...the iHP is their first HD player, but they've been makin other types of players for awhile now. The mp3 player market isn't a new one anymore, and there are lots of resources for these "new companies" to look at.

Being a newcomer doesn't mean your products won't be looked at the same way as those who've been around for years, afterall, these are the companies they're in direct competition with. I doubt a firmware release will address the crossfading issue...as I'm pretty sure you need to have 2 seperate decoders to crossfade (though I could be wrong...feel free to correct me). As for the others, sure they may be addressed, but don't be fooled into thinking adding extra functionality to an already relatively complex OS is easy...it's not easy by any stretch of the word, except for the shuffle issue..that should be relatively easy

As for hardcore tech geeks...I'm about as into gadgets as one can be, aside from that, I'm a 4th year computer science major, and I've been into computers and things related to them all my life...I love small shiney things, but I have an iPod, not because either the Karma or iHP suck, and not because I'm impatient, but because the iPod fits best into my lifestyle.

 

[carlin]

well, my little anti-apple friend just bought an iHp-120, brought it to school today, and i took it from him for about 4 classes and lunch and played around with it. I did not like it all, i am very used to and very biased to my iPod. I am not really technology smart, so my iPod is much easier to use and much more functional for my purposes than the iRiver. The menus I thought were a little hard to navigate compared to the iPod and the playlist functionality does not seem as easy as the iTunes playlists do. this probably appeals to the techno geek, not the everyday person. Obviosly since the iPod outsells the iRiver hands down. I would like to see recording and line out built into the iPod, but otherwise, I will stick with my iPod. I would like to play with it a little more, but he said he might exchange it for an iPod, and I am now making fun of him to the end for being such a d-bag. Take my experience with a grain of salt, I have had iPods for 3 years, and the iRiver for about 4 hours.

 

[matics]

Quote:

Originally posted by phatty Let's see what happens when we get a major firmware release which addresses: on-the-fly playlisting shuffle playlists gapless/crossfade feature etc, etc, etc....

My question was why weren't these issues resolved before the iHP-120 was released. Surely they had feedback from users of the iHP-100 and iHP-115 to address some of these shortcomings. I guess they may have spent all their effort in implementing ogg vorbis support.

 

[sanity8me]

i agree the playlist on demand is prob the ihp's biggest problem, but the reservation option is def a huge plus and, in my opinion, a sign that iriver is working in the right direction towards one.

 

[SpoonMan]

I've said it before and I'll say it again...not all "techno geeks" would rather do things the HARD way. Technology is great, but it should make things easier, not more harder or more complex to operate. I watch my fellow classmates doing things the hard way day in and day out, and I just shake my head and wonder why they bother.

 

[GSTom1]

This lack of on-the-fly playlists reminds me of the gen 2 iPods and how you have to make all these playlists on your computer!

Last weekend I was riding in the car with a friend. I was in the passenger seat with my Zen 2.0 and he was in the back with his gen 2 iPod. As much as the Zen gets knocked, I was able to connect my Zen, pick a song and start playing. While that song was playing, I was able to browse through my music library and continue to add songs. Within' 10 minutes, I had about 40 songs queued up, which lasted our entire 1.5 hour car ride.

On the way back, we decided to hook up my friend's iPod. He had some playlists created, but a lot of the music he wanted to play was not in any playlist. Therefore, after each song had finished playing, he had to manually search for the next song to play. He did this for over an hour.

How assentine is that? I can't imagine any new player coming out that doesn't have the ability to queue up songs. That should be a basic feature and you shouldn't have to wait for a firmware update for that! Remember, gen 2 iPod owners waited and waited for a firmware update for this feature and never got one. Instead, Apple released the gen 3 iPod leaving gen 2 owners in the dark.

 

[Lisa]

Weird that there is no on the fly playlist on it.
Can anyone else here confirm this?
Both my imp-150 and ifp-180 can do this. Should think that it's in all iriver players.

 

[jpburton5150]

yeah i have an iHP-120 and it does inded not have a playlist function like the other iRiver players (I've owned two iMPs and an iFP), and yes it does really really suck but i trust that iRiver will fix this soon in a firmware update