iRiver H10 6 GB

I have had my iRiver H10 now for a few months now and am very pleased with it. I think it compares well with other better known mp3 players but costs a lot less. There are 5,6 and a massive 20GB versions available. I have the 5 GB which I bought from Amazon for £120.

It is small and light, weighing only 96g (or 3.5oz in old money). There are four colours to choose from - deep red, slate grey, midnight blue or silver. It is really stylish looking, although the rubbery case is not which is a shame. The touch scroller is a pleasure to operate and is very touch sensitive. This is marred by the forward/pause/back buttons on the side which take a little getting used to until it is possible to use them without needing to put your specs on to see which is which. The colour screen is a good size at 1.5inches which makes navigation easy and adds to the fun of viewing photos.

It has superb audio quality with the supplied headphones and I have not felt the need to upgrade. With its 5 GB storage capacity not only can you store lots of music or podcasts (which I use a lot), but also pictures, documents and video. I also use the radio feature a lot and it is possible to record direct from the FM radio if there is something you want to store and listen to again.

The built in microphone is easy to use. There are three quality levels for voice recording, and the quality at the medium and high settings is remarkably good so you would only need to use the lowest setting for a very long recording or if there is not much space left for storage.

The iRiver software programme is reasonable easy to use for creating playlists, rating your music, sorting by genre etc. The drag and drop is good for those who don't want anything too complicated. I have also found it is compatible with windows media player which also makes it more versatile

The H10 charges from either the USB or from the supplied mains charger supplied. An LED on the interface cord tells you when it's charging. The battery is removable and easily replaceable which is good to keep in mind. Unfortunately I have found the battery life to be a little disappointing at about 10 hours max instead of the advertised 14 hours but it is easy and quick to charge so this is only a little niggle.

In my opinion I would say this is very good value for money, it looks good and has lots of features which are simple to use.