Product Reviews

Although the big name in hard disk MP3 players is Apple, there are other contenders. The month before last, we saw Philips' first and distinctly lacklustre stab. This month sees iRiver having a go with a 20GB hard disk. Although iRiver isn't a particularly well-known name, it's been producing MP3 players for a while. Weight and size are almost identical to a 20GB iPod at 160g and 60 x 105 x 19mm.

File transfer is via a USB 2 interface, and surprisingly it doesn't require any rights-management software - just drag and drop files in Windows Explorer. Most of the functions are controlled via the front four-way navigation stick. The navigation system is well designed, with a single click of the selector taking you one level down into the menu system, and a long, held click bringing you up one. It's all very intuitive given a day or two's use. The display itself is a crisp, high-contrast unit. The wired remote also has a multiline LCD, showing all the same information with the exception of the main unit's audio level meters, which are fairly pointless but look nice.

The iHP-120's input and output options are the most comprehensive we've seen on an MP3 player, with both analog and optical digital line in and line out via 3.5mm sockets, plus integrated microphone. There's even a separate lapel mic in the box; the quality of voice recordings is extremely good. The unit will record to MP3 or uncompressed WAV format, with MP3 bit rate adjustable from 40 all the way up to 320Kb/sec. When it comes to standard playback, the iRiver supports MP3, WMA, ASF, WAV and, unusually, the Ogg Vorbis format, which is a completely open-source, patent-free codec and should thus be supported at every opportunity.

At 1,300mAh, the iRiver's non-removable lithium ion battery has twice the capacity of an iPod's, giving a rated life of 16 hours, but that's a tad optimistic if you do a lot of album skipping. Ordinarily, the hard disk spins up to buffer the current and next couple of tracks in internal RAM, then shuts down to save power. However, skipping requires more drive activity: eight hours was closer to the mark when we were testing, although that's still equal to the iPod's best-case life. The battery only takes three hours to fully recharge from flat too.

Quality-wise,

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output from the iHP-120 is pretty much as good as it gets. There are no glaring deficiencies in frequency response, the headphone output has enough oomph to produce decent bass in a good set of headphones and the noise floor is low enough to be undetectable. There are none of the decoding clicks and pops of the Philips HDD100 either. It's also worth noting that the iHP-120 is free from the HDD100's capricious firmware lockups, remaining rock solid throughout testing. Disappointingly, though, there's no user-definable graphic EQ, but the usual Jazz, Classical, Rock and Pop presets are bolstered by adjustable 12-step bass and three-step treble boost, which is all user EQ settings get used for most of the time anyway.

In addition, the iRiver sports SRS effects, as found in Windows Media Player. The basic SRS settings create a sort of presence/surround effect, opening up the soundstage and giving things a bit more sparkle. TruBass does just that, although it sucks power from the rest of the frequency spectrum. Finally, there are Focus and Boost settings, both of which cleverly ruin the sound in a user-definable frequency range. Nice to have the option, though.

Last on the iHP-120's feature list is an FM radio, which again provides high quality with the proviso that the headphone lead acts as an aerial so reception performance is pretty variable.

You can even use the iHP-120 as a text-file viewer la iPod, although you'll need to be determined to wade through anything longer than a couple of hundred words given the 19-character by eight-line font size. The relatively large text is also a drawback for track navigation; an option for a smaller font would be a boon. The iHP-120 doesn't replicate any of the iPod's other features like games, contact or calendar synching.

The only real drawback of the iHP-120 - in common with all other high-capacity hard disk players - is the size. It won't slip easily into a front pocket in the same way most flash-based players do, making it slightly more of a faff when you're out and about with it in your bag or your coat pocket. There's also the fact that it's slightly more vulnerable to damage, particularly if you happen to drop it when the drive is spinning. And, of course, it costs over £300, which could make you reluctant to use it all.

Things will soon start getting tough for the iHP-120 in this country, since Samsung is due to start importing its Napster player to these shores soon, plus Sony and Dell will be joining the hard-disk player fray at some point next year. But if you constantly wait for the next model, you'll never buy anything. If what you need is a hard disk player with excellent sound quality and straightforward, intelligent design, the iHP-120 is it. The only sticking point is the price, of course, which is hefty by anyone's standards. But you get what you pay for.