I have to go on record here, and say that I mostly concur with Austonia's findings. (shock shock horror horror)
His assessment seems pretty right on to me, and this is coming from a guy who loves his IHP for what it does, but can accept it for what it does on a mediocre level. A few people hit the nail on the head with the "each DAP has its strengths and weaknesses" statement. There's no way that any DAP on the market will please %100 or the people %100 of the time.
I chose the IHP knowing some of its faults and made the sacrifice. However, I may be hanging on to some false hope, which states that since a lot of the things that I find fault with, can be fixed via a firmware upadate. Truth is, these "fixes" may never happen. Here's what I agree with:
1) Sorry, having to wait for the text to scroll at a super slow speed even when set to 4x just to read what file I"m looking at is SUPER LAME. This means I have to set the back light to a high enough time frame in order that the light doesn't go out, which if it does, forces you to tap the nub again, thereby making you have to start from the very beginning..so you'll never be able to read the whole thing ! And as we all know, the back light is one of the biggest contributers to battery waste.. Not good.
2) The useless file icon...we can all agree on that. Moreover, it wouldn't take very much for the programmers to make some basic changes to the GUI, like changing the fonts and optimizing the real estate. Without those file icons, I can see at least 7 or 8 more fonts fitting in.
3) The redundancy of button taps when in particular views/modes. I totally agree. Not a very creative structuring of commands.
4) Ah, the infamous 'nubbin'. Some don't mind it, some do. Personally, I was never a fan of it. I got used to it, but some people will find that offensive. You can't really use the tip of your thumb with it, you have to use the center of your finger instead because the surface is so smooth and the action is so tight. A poor choice considering the IHP 120 is Irivers second go at this. Even more disappointing is that the 140 is the third go. So many little quirks and bugs should have and could have been addressed since the release of the IHP 100 but hardly any real progress was made outside of Lyric Database support which IMO is the biggest joke of all.
Now on the other side of the fence, there are a couple things I don't agree with. First off..Austin, (no sarcasm by the way) you may need to see an ear doctor. Dude, I find it hard to believe that the volume of the IHP using canal phones isn't loud enough for you, or as you put it, "barely loud enough at 40 in a quiet room", when my Sony V6's are plenty loud at 15 in a quiet room. There are times when I forget to lower the volume from 40, after having unplugged it from my stereo, and when I put it on, my ears get blown the hell out ! When I go to sleep sometimes I listen to it with the volume on about 5 and it's still loud enough to keep me up, so I'm not sure about your findings there. Try the Etys from the line out too....Just as a side thing, not to say it will increase the volume to your liking.
And then there's the connectivity problem you seem to be having all over the place. Very strange. I'm beginning to wonder if the IHP 140's initial firmware is buggy. I've brought my IHP to many places such as the office or friends houses, and I've never experienced this phenomenon. I've always plugged and played as I'm guessing the greater percentage of IHP owners have. It's a known fact by the way for some of you who don't know this, that if you're running Win 98 or below or around, (perhaps ME?) drivers are required.
I continue to love my IHP mostly because the sound quality to me is fantastic. The only other player that can beat it IMO is the NJB3. I've tried all the others except for the Karma, which I'm still wanting to try out, but IMO, the IHP's sound quality is the most versatile and rounded.
I am however getting fed up with Iriver support. It's very unlikely that I'll buy another Iriver product unless they get their acts together and decide to address issues that are relevant to the here and now, and what the customers keep having to beg for, but with no response from them at all. I suppose that the IHP 120 will last me long enough until some company gets it to 'nearly perfect' status. Shame though, Iriver could be the ones if only they listened to the people who put food on their tables.