Iriver X20 4GB

...the end, I chose the Iriver X20 with 2GB internal memory, which I got from advancedmp3players.co.uk for 79 pounds.

Note: I am aware that the product category says 4GB, but since there are no functional differences between the models, I figured the review would apply to any other X20 as well and estimates about how many songs / pictures / movies you can store on 4GB can be found almost anywhere.

Before starting my full ...
.../> - easy synchronisation on iriver plus 3, WMP 10, WMP 11
- firmware upgradable
- dimensions: B X W X D - 4.9cm x 9.8cm x 1.4cm
- weight 71g

There are so many features in this little player, that I can't possibly cover all of them here. I will try to talk about the main features, but will also try to keep this as short as possible in order to avoid sounding like a handbook :-)

The first thing you'll ... more

When facing the idea that I would spend most of the upcoming 5-6 weeks in the library to prepare my final exams, I decided I needed some sort of incentive to stay motivated. Since I still hadn't bought an mp3-player (I know, but I never really felt I needed one...) I figured it was time to do so. While I have to admit that I do fancy the ipods because they're so incredibly sleek and tiny, my boyfriend couldn't accept this defeat (he hates them) and offered me three alternatives, that were considerably cheaper than the Apple player. In the end, I chose the Iriver X20 with 2GB internal memory, which I got from advancedmp3players.co.uk for 79 pounds.

Note: I am aware that the product category says 4GB, but since there are no functional differences between the models, I figured the review would apply to any other X20 as well and estimates about how many songs / pictures / movies you can store on 4GB can be found almost anywhere.

Before starting my full review, I'll give you an overview of the main specification (for a full spec go to the above mentioned website - there you get all the information you could possibly want):
- wheel-based menus
- QVCA Colour 2.2" TFT-LCD display
- battery: 22 hours (music), 6 hours (video)
- mp3, wma, asf, ogg q-10 files
- micro sd-card slot
- fm radio & fm recording
- photo viewer
- movie player
- voice recording
- direct encoding & line-in
- USB 2.0
- easy synchronisation on iriver plus 3, WMP 10, WMP 11
- firmware upgradable
- dimensions: B X W X D - 4.9cm x 9.8cm x 1.4cm
- weight 71g

There are so many features in this little player, that I can't possibly cover all of them here. I will try to talk about the main features, but will also try to keep this as short as possible in order to avoid sounding like a handbook :-)

The first thing you'll notice about this player, is it's gigantic display - it covers roughly 2/3 of the screen. The colour depth is quite amazing and watching short video clips and pictures on it, is quite entertaining and an enjoyable experience. However, especially watching videos dramatically reduces the battery life, so I'm not planning on doing it much in the long run. For me, it is mainly a means of listening to music or radio at my convenience. And that you can - the sound quality is superb and while indoors I never have to turn up the volume to more than half. While cycling or jogging outdoors, you can adjust upwards and thus make sure any background noise is still cancelled out.

The main screen after switching it on, is taken up by the menu which is arranged in a circular way and each menu entry is represented by a little picture and a caption to tell you what you're dealing with. You can move between entries by moving the scroll wheel in the desired direction. This might sound awkward, but it is really simple and intuitive. The scroll wheel has four little uprisings on which you can rest your thumb to move the wheel effortlessly.

There are 8 entries overall: now playing, music, fm radio, recordings, pictures, videos, browse device and settings.

Now playing brings you to the screen that is displayed while your music is playing. Here a little album art is shown next to the artists, song title and album title of the song currently playing. A progress bar at the bottom shows you where in the song you are. The volume level is easily controlled using the scroll wheel. You can also click with the wheel and thus gain access to four different functionalities (at most) from anywhere in the players menu. In the Now Playing section this includes getting to your current playlist or changing the playing mode (which includes playing the intro repeatedly, but no "single-repeat" as far as I've uncovered...).

The Music section gives you the full list of music on your player. You can choose to display either all of them at once, all your playlists or all songs by artist, songs, albums or genre. Upon selecting e.g. an artist, you can decide to either play only that artist, add this artist to your current play list, play all songs or add all songs to your current playlist. For those of you using Windows Media Player all of this will sound very familiar.

As the name suggests, within the FM radio section you can listen to various FM channels which you can either manually select or save (up to 20). You can also choose to record say a song while you're listening to it on the radio, which can be very helpful - does anyone else remember listening to the radio all day only to get a really good mixed tape? Well, now it's time to do this using your mp3 player. The recorded songs will appear under a separate heading "Recordings" in the Music section.

Recordings, pictures and videos are all fairly self-explanatory - you can record everything that the inbuild microphone picks up on, view pictures or watch videos. I haven't tested the recordings functionality yet as I have spent quite some money on a separate voice recorder - so this wasn't important to me at all. In connection with the display I have already mentioned that I was very impressed by the quality and colour depth of the display and I'm sure you'd share my opinion.

The section "Browse Device" gives you the opportunity to look at the individual files stored on your mp3 player or the external sd card that you can insert into it. This is pretty much the view you get when you plug the player into your PC and open it in "My Computer" - a bunch of folders and files to look at. The player distinguishes between internal and external memory and thus you can tell what is exactly stored where. The SD card slot was one of the reasons why I chose this player as it will give me the opportunity to upgrade the memory if I want to. I don't intend to carry all my music around with me on this player (2GB wouldn't be nearly enough to do that), so I figured that 2GB would take me a long way. However, I have the opportunity to upgrade without having to face huge additional costs. A 4GB micro SD card (currently the maximum available) sets you back about 30 pounds, which is nothing compared to what you pay for a player with an internal memory of 6-8GB.

And finally, there is obviously a whole range of settings from the date & time, LCD brightness or language to a sleep timer. The mp3 player also automatically switches off if it isn't used in a little while - what constitutes a little while can be changed here. You can even re-format both the internal and external memory - in case that's what you wanted to do.

Ok, in conclusion I have found this to be a very very decent player for only 79 pounds (99 for the 4GB version, 149 for 8GB). It has all the functionality I want and keeps me entertained in the library for long hours. I currently have 450 songs on it (no videos, no pictures) and it plays roughly 280 in one go (plus switching off and on and playing around with it a little cos it was new!) - with an average song length of 4-5 minutes this comes down to 20 hours - only 2 hours short of what is advertised and I haven't actually tested the non-stop playing because I'm really not spending 22 hours in the library... :-)

The only minor issue I have is that there is no option to edit song information (probably a little hard without a keyboard) or delete songs in order to free up space (for recordings etc). All this can only be done while you're at a PC. But while you're there, anything can be controlled - you can copy whole directories onto the player and it will "dig down" and find the individual files in the folders. Synchronising is really dead-easy and can be done using the supplied software, Windows Media Player or simple drag and drop. The PC is also the place where your player gets charged - this happens simply by plugging in the UBS cable into your PC (while running). The initial charging took about 2 and a half hours, which is half an hour less than advertised in the manual. Some people will think it is a little annoying to be dependent on a PC, but first of all - with 20 hours of playback time you have sufficient time to plan when and where to charge it, and secondly the iRiver has an exchangeable battery: so for veeery long journeys or for simple convenience you could decide to just buy yourself a second battery so you can switch once the first is running low.

Final, final verdict: I would definitely buy it again and recommend it to anyone looking for a reasonably cheap but fully loaded (in terms of functionaly) mp3 player!

Thanks for reading, rating and commenting!  

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