iRiver H320 20 GB Digital Music Player with Color Display

iRiver H320 20 GB Digital Music Player with Color Display

Product Description
Amazon.com Product Description
The sleek and compact 20 GB iRiver H320 digital music player holds up to 600 hours of your favorite songs. Plus, you can transfer and store digital pictures and view them on the vivid color display. It also features a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 16 hours, enhanced 3D sound, ultra-fast USB 2.0 file transfers, and simple navigation. It's one of the first players to be fully compliant with MicrosoftÕs Windows Media Player 10 secure music format that is used by such online music services as Napster. The iRiver 300 series also includes the H340 model, which has a 40 GB hard drive.

The compact H320 plays MP3, WMA, WAV and OGG formats and includes a built-in FM tuner and integrated voice recorder. You can also record, encode and store MP3s or uncompressed WAV files from a variety of sources to the H320's hard drive--no PC required. And it doubles as a standard hard drive, enabling you to store or transfer files of any type. The intuitive navigation system and color interface that makes it effortless to find any song. The H320 supports JPEG and BMP image files, which can be viewed on the crisp color LCD.

The iRiver H320 has longer battery life (16 hours) compared to other hard drive-based digital audio players. The sharp color display. It's also compatible with the latest version of the MoodLogic Software which offers an easy-to-use solution for users to create mixes based on genre, mood and tempo rather than simply by artist and track names.

Other features include:

Line-in and Line-out jacks

Upgradeable to future formats and features

Dimensions: 2.4 x 0.9 x 4.0 inches

Weight: 6.9 ounces

What's in the Box
The iRiver H320 comes bundled with iRiver earphones, quality carrying case, installation software CD, AC adapter, USB 2.0 cable, line in/out cable and printed user manual.

Choose your music. Choose your device. Know it's going to work.
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The PlaysForSure logo makes it easy to find digital media stores and devices that work together. Choose from a large number of digital music and video stores including: CinemaNow, MSN Music, MusicMatch, MusicNow, Napster, Wal-Mart Music Downloads, and many more.

Product Description:
The sleek and compact H320 20GB digital music player holds up to 600 hours of your favorite songs. Plus, you can transfer and store digital pictures and view them on the vivid color display. A rechargeable battery that lasts up to 16 hours, enhanced 3D sound, ultra-fast USB 2.0 file transfers and simple navigation are just a few of the features you won't find anywhere else.

iRiver H320 20 GB Digital Music Player with Color Display

Average customer rating:

Faulty product, disappointing service.

extremely poor customer service!

Solid MP3 Player

iRiver gets the basics more than right.

Not completely intuitive, but worth figuring out.

iRiver H320 20 GB Digital Music Player with Color Display

Manufacturer: iRiver
ProductGroup: CE
Binding: Electronics

MP3 Players | Portable Audio & Video | Refurbished & Used | Special Features | Electronics Features | Electronics
Audio & Video | Refurbished & Used | Special Features | Electronics Features | Electronics
iRiver | Brands | Electronics Features | Electronics | MP3 Players | Portable CD Players
Electronics Available for International Shipping | Specialty Stores | Electronics Features | Electronics
20 GB | Hard Drive-Based | MP3 Players | Audio & Video | Categories | Electronics
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Product Features:

Plays up to 600 hours of digital music with 20GB of internal storage

Large, vivid color display, Ultra-fast USB 2.0 transfers

Supports secure transfers from Windows Media Player

Rechargeable battery lasts up to 16hrs

View JPEG or BMP images on color display

ASIN: B00065W74G

Product Description

The sleek and compact H320 holds up to 600 hours of your favorite songs. Plus, you can transfer and store digital pictures and view them on the vivid color display. A rechargeable battery that lasts up to 16 hours, enhanced 3D sound, ultra-fast USB 2.0 file transfers and simple navigation are just a few of the features you will not find anywhere else.

Amazon.com Product Description

The sleek and compact 20 GB iRiver H320 digital music player holds up to 600 hours of your favorite songs. Plus, you can transfer and store digital pictures and view them on the vivid color display. It also features a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 16 hours, enhanced 3D sound, ultra-fast USB 2.0 file transfers, and simple navigation. It's one of the first players to be fully compliant with MicrosoftÕs Windows Media Player 10 secure music format that is used by such online music services as Napster. The iRiver 300 series also includes the H340 model, which has a 40 GB hard drive.

Other features include:

Line-in and Line-out jacks
Upgradeable to future formats and features
Dimensions: 2.4 x 0.9 x 4.0 inches
Weight: 6.9 ounces

Customer Reviews:

Faulty product, disappointing service........2006-12-01

I was promised a product that would be "like new". For $150, I received an iRiver with a battery that literally lasts only a few minutes, instead of the advertised 17.2 hours.

I spoke to the vendor about the battery, and he ignored the issue.

The iRiver came with its hard drive not formatted, I had to format it for it to accept mp3 files.

It was supposed to come with a remote control, which never came.

extremely poor customer service!.......2005-10-16

fine product.
extremely poor customer service I have ever seen.
I have contacted many times with them, they have NEVER answered me so far.

Solid MP3 Player.......2005-06-11

I got my iRiver H320 as a Christmas gift back in December 2004. It's been almost 7 months to date and I've found the player to be very durable and reliable. I'm an avid music listener and gadget lover - and so I've used the unit heavily and have taken it almost everywhere. I've tossed it in bags, thrown it in the glove compartment box in my car, have worn it in my pockets, and have even dropped it. Amazingly, the unit is still solid and plays like a charm. In the past 7 months of use, I have experienced no mechanical errors or defects at all. There is some normal wear and tear on the unit, and some scratching on the case, but for a hard drive player, the construction is quality and I'm impressed. I fully expect this player to last me for quite a while.

As all of the other reviews indicate, the player is very feature rich. Perhaps my favorite feature is it's ogg vorbis support. Using ogg vorbis as opposed to mp3 has allowed me to cut the total size of my music collection in half - without having to sacrifice sound quality. Another great thing about this player is that you can use it like a regular external hard drive. You can use music management software if you choose (like iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc), but this also allows you simply drag and drop your music onto the player - which I prefer to do, because it is so much faster.

Admittedly, the button/navigation system has a little bit of a learning curve to it and isn't as intuitive as a click wheel or touch pad - but it really isn't that difficult. When I first got my player, I simply took a couple minutes to sit down and learn the button functions while waiting for some music to copy over. I have thousands of songs on the player - and if you store your files in logical artist/album directories, navigating through them isn't difficult at all. If you know how use a file tree on a computer, this should be no big deal.

Recently I've done a little bit of tweaking - I've flashed the drive with foreign firmware (in order to support video), and have applied different "themes" to the firmware. I've also physically taken it apart, and have inserted my own graphics (or "skin") inside the casing. If you're at all into themes, skinning, or modding, this is a good player for that. The back can be removed fairly easily, and if you visit the forum on http://www.misticriver.net/, you can learn how to replace the battery, upgrade the hard drive, or build a DIY battery pack.

Overall, this is a great player and I can really only find 2 faults with it. First is the fact that it doesn't have the ability to create on the fly playlists without having to hook up to a PC. And the second is the size. It's a little bit thicker than the iPod....and the case it comes with is very chunky. But for the quality and all the features you're getting, these are relatively small quibbles. It seems that no player on the market has it all. So if you're the type of person to put quality and features above "style," then this is a good alternative to the more popular (and more expensive) iPod. (And if you really want something super small and light weight to use while running, or to wear on your clothing - consider a flash player).

Unfortunately, the H320 and H340 models are becoming harder to find at major retailers. iRiver seems to be pushing their smaller models in order to compete with the iPod Mini. However, if you're interested in finding one of these, I've seen quite a few new and used on eBay.

iRiver gets the basics more than right........2005-05-16

Following the successful release of the monstrous 40 GB H140, the iRiver H320 comes even more fully-featured than its predecessors.

The design of the MP3 jukebox has slightly departed from the old joystick controls and monochrome display, moving to a bright and vivid colour screen and flat navigational buttons.

There are two separate USB connectors, one for USB 1.1 and one for USB 2.0, the question is why the USB 2.0 was not just made backwards compatible seeing as they use the same plug. However, they each have a unique function. One plug is for the obvious transferral of music (the player rescans itself every time it is switched on. Consumers complain of the overly long loading times but it is understandable as, unlike the buggy iPod, the H320 identifies and fixes file problems during this rescan), and the other plug is for the transferral of purchased and copy protected music, requiring Windows Media 10 as standard.

While, it still retains its slightly chunky form factor, weighing in at just over 180 grams (compared to the iPod's 155 grams), it is slightly slimmer than its predecessors with a stupendous battery life clocked at over 17 and a half hours (using the typical non-replaceable Li-Ion batteries).

The colour screen, as well as surprisingly not sapping any battery life from the unit, is easy to read with large well-defined characters and the brightness enabling it to be seen even in direct sunlight.

Along with the colour screen and the new feature of being able to view pictures, the H320 comes with the additional features of a stable FM tuner that works well even in fringe areas and the ability to display and scroll text documents (there is a firmware upgrade enabling the H320 to simultaneously scroll lyrics in time with music). The picture viewing mode, while handy, is limited to JPEG and BMP files, like the iPod Photo, however, unlike the iPod Photo, there isn't an AV connection enabling you to display these pictures on your TV.
It seems that this feature was more conveniently tossed in to make the addition of a colour screen seem reasonable.

The departure from the traditional joystick controls and limited buttons is a stroke of genius on iRiver's part, making the iRiver more accessible than ever. The four-way rocker buttons make accessing and skimming through the file system a breeze, as well as the fact the this simple drag and drop file system is so similar to the Windows filing system that even a person with minor experience with computing could grasp this players system comfortably. However, a downside to this is a lack of music management software as well as the inability to easily group songs by category unless done manually, a long and tedious task.

In the Sound menu, you can choose your own treble and bass settings or set the SRS WOW system to your liking. The SRS helps some music feel spacious, but a single vocalist in some recordings can be masked by the surround effects. It's best in small doses. It was a bit disappointing that iRiver dropped their usual option of being able to fiddle with a 5-band equalizer, the range of equalizer settings was slightly limiting.

As with all iRiver products, the H320 has remarkable recording capabilities, well surpassing all similar players, allowing recording of up to 320kbps. There is also the addition of an optical line in, enabling direct "ripping" from most high-end portable CD players. However, as this ripping is in real-time there is no automatic splitting between tracks or identification of albums, artists etc.

Surprisingly though, unlike its relative recording functions, playback does not support lossless compressions and raw compressions such as WAV files, supporting compressed formats such as MP3, WMA, and ASF at up to 320 Kbps and Ogg Vorbis up to 500 Kbps. While these formats at their highest quality can emulate high quality audio fidelity, for perfectionists with high-end audio gear, lossless compression is a nice feature and the firmware updates have yet to deliver this.

As part of the gear included there is a pair of iRiver earphones made by none other than the well-respected Sennheiser (they are actually re-badged MX-300's), and as such, provide more than adequate quality sound for ear-buds.

The iRiver maybe a bit pricey for most, retailing at nearly $300 retail (on Amazon) and the color screen and photo viewing capabilities are more convenient than a reason to go buy H320 but for those of you with a bit of cash and who want or require high quality, advanced features, not minding a slightly chunkier player; this would be one of your first choices.

78/100

Pros: Near perfect audio quality with Lossy Codec's. Easy navigation with the addition of a color screen. Excellent recording capability. Displays photos, text. Literally a Plug and Play device. Astounding battery life.

Cons: No menu listing by identifiers such as artist and album. Surprisingly lacks lossless compression codec's. No slide show mode or TV mode for photos. Pictures displayed are of a lower resolution. Frustratingly slow scrolling using the rocker wheels, especially in large song collections.

Overall: Missing a few key features, nevertheless, iRiver has once again come out with an Mp3 jukebox perfectly catering for those geeks and audiophiles who know what they are doing, and the others who want to look like they do.

Alternatives: iPod Photo - iPod's popularity is warranted, being one of the easiest and most fun to use MP3 players on the market, the clickwheel was an innovation on Apple's part, it is easy to see why they are so popular. The colour screen of the iPod Photo is even more useful than the iRiver H320's and displays at a higher resolution. However, lacking the ability to support Windows Media Codecs and some other popular codecs as well as the strong protection against music sharing makes this a slight turn off for audio geeks.
Olympus M:Robe 500i - While the use of a full touch colour screen, integration of a digital camera, inclusion of a dock and wired remote seems like a techno dream, Olympus pulls this M:Robe off poorly. With uninspiring LCD screen that lacks brightness and tends to display pictures in a rather cold light and a frustrating interface, the M:Robe 500i is the not the easiest MP3 player to use. Being rather pricey, the buggy nature of its audio playback and the poor battery life makes this more of a show-and-tell player for the rich and very rich. At least its dock and chrome finish look very stylish.

Not completely intuitive, but worth figuring out........2005-05-15

The reviewer just before me should have read the manual a third time! You most certainly can browse by artist, album or genre; if he/she can't, there's something wrong. (Press the blue "NAVI" button, and you should see four icons for "FILE / ARTIST / ALBUM / GENRE.")

This player, for the cost of a 20GB iPod or less (and far less than the iPod Photo), allows you to use a file tree structure (including drag-n-drop from Windows); browse by artist, album or genre; use playlists; store and display photos (though, unlike the iPod photo, not while listening to music); get great FM reception; record voice or FM (and can break FM recording into separate MP3s for each song); use great audio options; read text files using the built-in .TXT document reader (store your to-do list or phone book on your player!); and it has an astounding battery life (I normally charge it once a week or less, though I probably listen less than most people), not to mention the full-color LCD screen.

Some people have also commented that the case doesn't allow you to access the buttons. They must have an older version, because my case has a cut-out for the buttons; the only things you can't access with it on are the two USB ports (and why would you need a protective case while it's connected to the computer anyway?). One problem with the case, though, is that the clip is screwed together, so as it swivels (which happens as you're wearing it), it can unscrew and the player can fall off (having dropped it several times while in the case, this is not a major problem, i.e. it doesn't hurt the player, but it is annoying).

The UI is a bit clunky, that's true-some of the buttons do different things in different menus. But it took me about three days to completely figure out the whole thing (and that's only a few hours a day; I don't listen while I'm at work or asleep!), with the exception of playlists, which I didn't add until a few weeks later (but took only a few hours to figure out). In any case, the player itself is so great that it's worth figuring out.

The only thing I haven't done yet is download music from online music services. Right now I have about 180 CDs burned as 64Kbps .wmas (since that's "CD quality" and obviously a track can never be of better quality than its source, so why waste space by increasing the bitrate?) and a handful of 128Kbps and 192Kbps MP3s, for a total of 3GB; and a few dozen 1024×768 photos. Total usage is around 4.5 GB including the player's files.

One thing that I had to get help on (hint: misticriver.net's forums are far better than iRiver's tech support) was the player's not recognizing ID3 tags when browsing by artist/album/genre or when using playlists-it just skipped certain files. In any case, the issue is that the player can't support filenames over 52 characters (except in File Tree format). You can download a utility (TDT, Tag Database Tool) to use to transfer files to the player, which will also truncate the names as it does so (so for example, the file "02 - Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of - U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind.wma" becomes "02 Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of.wma"). TDT also can make playlists, though WinAmp is perfectly adequate for the job.

In any case, using TDT solved my last remaining problem (actually, I had to both use it to put files on the player, then let iRiver's software sync the database), and it now works perfectly.

I know this isn't a very complete review, but I just wanted to (1) correct some incorrect things in other people's reviews and (2) share some things I wish I'd known before I started using the player. People below have already done a great job of raving about features.

Oh, and in my area there's been a rash of muggings of iPod users because iPods are in such demand. Another reason to buy a different player!

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