3. Real Plug-And-Play

Once hooked up to your computer, the player is just as easy to use, even though the H10's specifications lead you to expect otherwise. According to the manufacturer, it's only compatible with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. So will users of Mac OS X or Linux be left out? Not at all. Those restrictions apply only to the iRiver Plus software, the music manager bundled with the player. And since it doesn't really contribute any revolutionary functionality, it's easy to do without it and load the player as if it were a removable hard disk.

It doesn't take that much time to transfer music; thirty seconds was enough to move 100 MB of data from a PC to the unit using the USB 2.0 port. The only disadvantages of this method are that you need to use the Browser menu to access your music, and that you have to create your playlists in the audio player. On the other hand, the absence of an official driver for Windows 98SE is more of a bother. Even if that OS is disappearing from circulation little by little, many PCs still use it.

Good Sound

Though not a revelation, the sound quality is quite good. It lacks a little bass in its natural state, but if you play around with the various adjustments that are offered, you can fix that. The equalizer presets appear and disappear with the automatic updates of the firmware and iRiver Plus. Unlike other audio players that give you a few preset options or none at all, the H10 lets you refine SRS to the slightest detail. You can choose to set the sound with TruBass, Focus, and frequency boosting. iRiver has also chosen to set itself apart from its competitors by bundling this model not with low-end earphones, but with a pair of Sennheiser MX 400s. So you won't need to immediately add the price of a decent set of phones to the $279 cost.