3. In Use and Final Thoughts

Not only does the battery trickle-charge from USB, it is practically beyond compare in the realm of flash based portable audio (with the possible exception of Sony's "Bean", the NW-E207). iRiver lists the battery life as "up to 25 hours", and we've seen 26 hours quite comfortably; there are even tales of users crossing the 30 hour barrier... though their believability is a little suspect.

The option to record direct from the FM tuner on formats other than WAV is something of an anomaly among PMPs, though certainly not an unwelcome one. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that the U10's FM radio will record directly to MP3.

Thanks to the offer of 20 presets on the tuner the radio will certainly be an option easy to use. While all of this might seem a little over the top, it dramatically cuts down on the need to download "podcasts" and does means that favorite radio shows can be recorded for later use when desired.

As far as audio playback goes, it's far less restrictive than the MPEG-4 only video, supporting MP3, WMA (including protected WMA) and our own favorite open source audio format, OGG. Not only that, but the audio quality is superb - far better, in fact, than can be appreciated with the included headphones, which really will need to be replaced.

The only question we're left with about the U10 is why, given that it has support for OGG, didn't iRiver provide the slinky little device support for OGM playback, which would have made it an open source icon? Who can tell with these things?

It's also worth mentioning that if the U10 is powered off halfway through playback, if you play the same file again immediately after powering up it will resume from the last point. This is similar to "bookmark" features on other players, though obviously only works on one file at a time. The addition of a feature like this makes listening to "podcasts" fantastically manageable, and it functions the same way for video playback.

The U10's main drawback is the amount of regular access to a home computer needed to keep media up to date (or at least fresh), given its lack of storage in comparison to hard drive based players.

Overall, the U10 is a handier device, despite the need to re-encode videos specifically for playback on it and I found it a far more endearing and useful player. Of course, it's all subjective and a matter of personal taste, but for my money I like the friendlier feeling U10. However, those who are less inclined to re-encode their files one at a time might find that the reverse is true.

Join our discussion on this topic