6. IRiver H10: Are Photos Really A Plus?

Having not learned their lesson from the poor performance of the IFP 1090 and its built-in camera, iRiver has again tried to mix photos and music. But they seem to have forgotten one little detail - screen size. The H10 doesn't take pictures, it just displays them, yet the screen is still only 1.5" (3.8 cm) in size. This postage-stamp format may provide 260,000 available colors, but it won't let you see much detail in your pictures. To make matters worse, you have to be directly in front of the screen to avoid reflections, and certain files, even though they're in JPEG format, aren't recognized for some reason - especially if they're the result of conversion from another image format.

The iRiver has text capabilities, but can only display documents in .TXT format. And here again the size of the display limits its use to reading Post-Its consisting of an address or meeting reminder. The H10 has several other such little gimmicky accessories: a voice recorder, FM tuner (fairly mediocre in quality), a radio-alarm (or plain alarm), clock, and pre-programmed shutoff. Enough to use up the 10-hour battery life pretty quickly!

And the sound? Fortunately, iRiver does much better in this area. With all the possibilities for adjustment offered by its equalizer, even the most demanding music buffs should be content. Note that the factory settings are a bit light on the lowest frequencies.

Some other good news is that you won't have to replace the earphones. Unlike its competitors, iRiver ships its music players with a pair of quality Sennheiser MX 400 earbuds. For home listening, you could improve the sound quality even more with true hi-fi headphones, but for jogging, it's hard to beat this set.

Don't pay too much attention to the "PlaysForSure" label on the box. You can use Windows Media Player 10 synchronization to load the player, but the H10 is not limited to the Windows world. It can also play MP3s transferred from a Mac or a PC under Linux, via standard drag-and-drop.