Home > Consumer Reviews > iriver ChromeX iMP-150 CD/MP3 Player with 120-Second Anti-Skip and Upgradeable Firmware

I've just received the ChromeX, and I love it! The sounds from this machine are crystal clear and well-balanced; I hear details I haven't heard from other systems.

The anti-shock protection is very good - I've tried jiggling and shaking the player and it doesn't miss a beat.

The 'remote' is light and has all the functions you could want. Navigating the menus on the CD player and with the remote were easy after looking at the manual, and relatively intuitive.

I haven't had the CD player long enough to know how well the batteries last on average, or to run across any problems (not that I think that I will).

Here is a summary of the pros and cons of the ChromeX from what I've seen so far:

Pros:
* Excellent sound quality
* Easy-to-use
* Plays MP3 / WMA / ASF / regular CDs (including CD-R and CD-RW)
* Stylish design
* Upgradeable firmware
* Handy little remote
* Stylish design
* Head
* Inexpensive, especially for this quality!

Cons:
* No AC adapter included (can be purchased direct from iRiver)
* No rechargeable batteries included (despite what the amazon site is included)

For this price it would be hard to find another player with all of the features and quality of this one!

Last year, I was in the market for a CD or mp3 player that could keep my occupied at my tedious summer job. Things I was looking for; playlist function, large storage (100+ mp3s), anti skip, good battery life, and affordability. This player seemed to be perfect, as I have a large mp3 collection on my computer. So, I went ahead and bought it. It's one of the most affordable players out there for mp3s also.

The first thing I noticed was the remote and the headphones. The size of the player is a little large, but the fact that I could remotely change volume, change playing modes, shuffle through songs, and equalize, was definitly a plus. The LCD screen is useful in the evening, and to conserve energy, it only lights up when you press a button. The next 'feature' is not so good, on the other hand. The loading time is VERY annoying; it takes about 10-15 seconds to boot, and sometimes when jumping a bunch of tracks, the loading time has reached 30 seconds. With a couple of mp3s, I get random loading time during the mp3.

Luckily, these problems are limited, and it plays normal CDs and 98% of all my mp3s fine. There is a shuffle feature- and about 5 variatoins of it- and the ability to organize your music through directories and Winamp playlists. This was enormously helpful, so I could directly port my music from the computer to the player. It has an equalizer as well (useful if you listen to different genres of music). I haven't even used all of the equalizer and playlist functions yet, but I'm sure they are good as well.

The anti-skip is amazing. Besides the normal antiskip (which hasn't failed me), there is also a very draining one that will not skip even if you're going down a steep, dirt slope riddled with potholes and debris in a car with two wheel drive (yes, I tried it). But on the topic of batteries, this is the other problem I found with the player. When playing normal audio CDs, I burned through batteries like crazy- only about 4-5 hours worth of music, which meant I sometimes had to change every day. Mp3s conserve power, though, and the battery life jumps to 10+ hours, depending on the volume. Unless you plan on only playing a couple tracks per day, be prepared with some rechargeable batteries. I hope this is something to be fixed in the future.

In conclusion, I would recommend this player to anyone who has a large mp3/WMA collection and a CD burner. It is effective on the most part, and in all likelihood, you won't have any noticeable problems. But if you have a lot of money to spend, you might want to look for something else (I believe the 'SlimX' player by the same company works better than this one, but it costs ... more).

NOTE: I haven't gotten the chance to upgrade the firmware, however, so that might fix some of the problems.

Before I begin my review, let me say up front that I am an audiophile and a headphone geek. I prefer listening to music with headphones and a portable device than on my home theatre set-up although I will engage in some casual listening from time to time on it. I will not review this item based on its portability in a physical activity setting because I do not listen to music while engaging in such activities. I will not review this item based on its ability to play music while being bumped and shaken, even though I did shake it vigorously for several seconds with no skipping. I only purchased this for the sake of music reproduction.

IRiver currently has 3 CD/MP3 portable players in their product line with the ChromeX iMP-150 being the least costly. The other two models are the SlimX iMP-350 and iMP-400, both units being slimmer and slightly more feature-ladened. One of the unique features of these units is the remote control. These aren't just your basic playback/stop devices. They actually control virtually all functions of the unit. Unlike the other two iMP models, you can also control all your functions from the various buttons on the unit itself which makes it nice in the event of remote failure (The remote for the other two units have a screen on the remote itself which is actually pretty cool!). The view screen is large and clear with a nice blue background and the fonts are legible and clear.

How does it sound? For a portable, fantastic! Let me say that I do not use the supplied headphones. Unfortunately, manufacturers don't place an emphasis on high quality headphones and for most people, that's fine, especially if one is using them to listen to music while working out or performing other activities, but I cannot emphasize enough the importance of a good pair of headphone to make the music more engaging and involving. I do all my listening with a set of Grado SR-125 and a RCA portable integrated amplifier and while the amp isn't exactly high-end, the sound is SO clean and rich. Bass is outstanding and the treble simply sings accompanied by a very liquid midrange, although sudden transient attacks tend to peter out too soon (a characteristic of the amp, not the player), but since most people will not listen to the 150 in this manner, I will comment about its sound via a direct connection to the player.

I did try out the supplied headphone (in-the-ear buds) they actually did a fairly good job at reproducing the frequency range although they, and all cheap supplied headphones, tend to grossly over-emphasis bass and lower midrange frequencies as well as boost treble frequencies so badly, it fools many people into thinking that what they hear is great sound, when, in fact, it's overly distorted and focused on a rather narrow bandwidth which is why you can hear the sound leaking out quite loudly when you hear someone else listening to cheap portables. With that said, the enclosed headphones with this unit are good for use when listening to music is not a priority. Some of this sibilant noise can be controlled with the built-in equalizer, unique to this unit. Most portable CD players give you one or two 'bass' settings that do add punch but at the sake of lower midrange blur. The iMP-150 gives you not only its 5 preset EQ settings, but it has a user EQ that allows you to adjust your own settings from 50Hz-2kHz although you can't, for some reason, adjust the range from about 200-500Hz, which is only slightly annoying, but does not detract from the overall sound. You can also adjust individual bass and treble settings up to 12+ db. The sound will be better from a higher quality pair of headphones. I recommend Grado's but Sennheiser is a very good brand too.

This unit plays audio CD's, MP3's (at all bit rates), and WMA files. It runs on 2 AA batteries and while many people complain about the amount of power it drains from them, this unit is no exception. Battery life for audio CD's is only 7 hours with MP3 playback coming in at 12 hours. Keep in mind this is CONTINUOUS playback. If you play only, say, two hours of music a day, the batteries will last you a lot longer. I keep two batteries in my unit but I run it almost exclusively from an AC adaptor, which is not included, by the way. I happen to have had an extra one so I lucked out but you should definitely purchase one if you plan on having some lengthy listening sessions.

Other neat things that you can do this is set the power-off timer. It lets you program the number of minutes (max: 60) you want the player to play music before shutting itself off, a great feature if you might be listening to a 10-hour MP3 disc while in bed and fall asleep. You can choose from 35 languages, as well as backlighting, lcd contrast, visualizations, esp settings, selectable MP3 buffering, adjustable skip and scan speeds, and many, many more things that would take up too much time to explain. You can even adjust the volume of the ubiquitous 'beep' that occurs every time you push a button. Or simply take it out all together.

Highs:
* Seemingly endless frequency adjustments.
* Many rich, feature-laden unit adjustment to suit every individual.
* Clear, dynamic sound (with proper headphones).
* Remote with full unit functions
* Nice stylish design
* Line-out input for connection to external power source
* Comprehensive user's manual
* Upgradable via (present and future) iRiver's Firmware software
* Quick (for an MP3 player) access to any track and relatively fast load times.

Lows:
* No AC adaptor included
* Low battery life (to be fair most units like this typically use a lot of power)
* Unadjustable frequency dip between 200-500 Hz.

I highly recommend this unit for everyone. It has all the features that technoheads can enjoy as well as those who seriously listen to their. One important thing! This player comes loaded with iRiver's Firmware iMP-150 v1.03 (US/EU) which does have some glitches like skipping tracks and pausing for no reason. Simply go to iRiver's website...and download the latest Firmware, which is iMP-150 v1.20 (US/EU), on to a CD-RW or R and upload it to your iMP-150 player. Fixes everything and it will work perfectly.

This is my first mp3 player but definately the last in a long list of audio/electronic toys that I love to own. I made a survey before buying this player and price was an important factor for me (bought it for $$$ from Amazon), and now I'm writing this review while I'm listening to it, hope it would help someone out there. Now for the important part,
Pros:
1. Looks pretty cool with the dark blue/silver top.
2. Nice LCD (configurable contrast/clear fonts).
3. Excellent sound (pretty loud too, I'm a fan of loud music, had to turn it down on this one because my ears were hurting).
4. Almost every and each function/feature of this player can be customized to suit you.
5. Although I've been using it for the last hour or so, I tried shaking it pretty hard (even play it with the top facing down!)with the Enhanced Anti Skip mechanism turned on and it didn't skip once!! However, I personally intend to use it in the office environment.
6. Plays MP3/ASF/WMA/WinAmp playlists !!
7. Upgradeable firmware is a very powerful feature, as I know that modern electronics are NEVER 100% bug free.
8. Lots of modes for playing songs (shuffling & such and user equaliser features).

Cons:
1. With Anti Skip turned on(for MP3 songs) it takes around ~ 7/8 seconds in between songs. With no anti skip takes no more than 2 seconds.
2. Body (plastic) doesn't seem to be that durable (if you want to keep the cool look you'll definately need to handle it with care such that it doesn't get scratched, I'd recommend a case for it).
3. To fully disable Anti Skip one has to use the "mode" button on the cd player and not the "mode" on the remote which I find stupid as they're supposed to be aliases.
4. A bit heavy with batteries too.
And of course the missing rechargeable batts & AC are a minus too however they were to be sacrificed for the price.
5. The finishing/glueing of the plastic casing/plastic segments (near the edges and curves) is NOT that perfect, I'd grade it as 70-80% of what it should be.

All In all, I'm personally thinking of buying another one to use at home, now that I intend to keep this one at work.

This is the 3rd MP3 player I've owned, and it is by far the best. I looked at several different MP3/CD players, and for the money this one can't be beat.

Here's what I like about the iRiver IMP-150
- Easy Navigation
- Fantastic no skip system
- Superb sound
- Plays multiple formats
- "Cool" look and feel
- multi-function remote
- even the included earbuds are high quality

Here's what could be improved
- the earbuds need a longer cord
- that's it

Here's what not to believe
- The top of the player is flimsy. This is just not true. The top is thin, but certainly not flimsy. It feels sturdy as a rock to me.
- Low volume. I suppose the volume could go a little louder, but this is true for almost all portable devices
- Short battery life. It is true that the Panasonic may have a longer battery life, but if you use rechargeables, it shouldn't be any problem

All in all, I highly recommend this player!!!
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