Home > Consumer Reviews > iriver iFP-380T 128 MB MP3 Player

In the days of the iPod and other double digit gig MP3 jukeboxes, you'd think that these puny 128MB flash players would be falling out of fashion. Wrong! These things are still popular, and the IFP-300 line is the best out there.

I bought this for several reasons: I wanted a music box a little more discrete than my aging CD player, and I wanted to be able to change my playlist easily and accomidate all the music I would want for a week. At this price, I got all I wanted and more. I can wedge this in my pocket, the batteries last very long, the sound quality is top-notch, and it comes with an FM radio and an excellent voice recorder.

When I encode the songs as 128kbps 44khz MP3s, I can fit about two hours of music on this jewel, which is enough for me. At that quality, my ears cannot discern the difference between that and a CD unless I'm deliberatly looking for the difference, which I never am and you probably won't be. I once fit 4 hours of music at 64kbps (long car ride), but I was able to discern an annoying degragation in quality.

A word of advice: in today's world, this particular MP3 player is taylored for me, but might not be for you. I have a modest CD collection which I can count on my fingures, and I can listen to the same song a hundred times and still enjoy it. If you have fourty CDs and can't bear to listen to the same song twice in one week or demand that your music be uncompressed, spring for an iPod. If you're someone like me but with a larger CD collection, consider this only a model with more memory. Also consider the new 700 line of MP3 players from iRiver. They seem to be basically the same as this one only different aesthetics and twice the battery life, at least according to the ads.

NOTE: When you buy this, download all the firmware updates from the iRiver website. One of the updates will let you mount the MP3 player as a removable drive in Windows as opposed to the third-rate propriatary software they expect you to use. I now just drag and drop my MP3s from iTunes.

The BEST sound quality by far compared to all MP3 players I tested out recently on my visit to BBY. The FM radio reception is crisp and clear - great for tuning into those TV-Radio transmissions in a Gym. The most suprising feature was the voice recording - you can truly get a very clear professional quality sound recording at the touch of a button. My friends who are musicians use my player to critique their practices! I have recorded and downloaded songs from the inbuilt FM radio and they are truly of outstanding quality.
And then there is the line in recording feature. It sounds complex but it is really simple. Just use the supplied cord and convert all CD, LP, tape collection you have into MP3.

The price of course is much better than any other premuim player on the market. Do not confuse this with cheap imports that are marketed under big company names.

I love this player! Mostly because it is so easy to use. It has a USB port for downloading and whatnot, but you don't need a computer to put songs into the player. You will need one if you want to reformat the songs (put them in order or files), but with this player you can record with the line in feature straight from a CD player or the built in tuner. The only way you get four hours of music on this player is if you really decrease the quality of recording, that's the best I can say it. So it really holds around two hours if you want great, ungrainy sound and all. But it's light and pretty tiny so it fits easily into a pocket or crowded purse.
It's great!

I have the iRiver iFP-390T which is very similar. It worked great for a while and could hold around 5 full length CD's. My problem with it is that they fall apart easily. I now have a non-working MP3 player and nothing to show for it. The warranty is only 30 days, I have had mine for around 90 days. The buttons on the top no longer work they are broken. If you push to hard or to often on them they will snap and break very easily. Save your money and get a better made and more durable MP3 player.

I have been the owner of this MP3 player for over a year. I must say that compared to other flash MP3 players, this one is quite antiquated in storage capacity, technology, and sound quality.

128 MB is barely enough for 2 CDs; lacking for today's music collections, especially when compared to similar products with 1 GB and 2 GB storage capacities. Also, this player does not support USB 2.0, which means waiting a relatively long time for file transfer. Luckily, iRiver made a smart move by allowing savvy users to reflash the firmware with experimental UMD support.

Sound quality is decent, but don't expect it to match a certain shuffling competitor's near-perfect square wave reproduction. Frequency response is not flat, and extraneous harmonics are introduced into the output signal.

A third thing I would like to mention is the use of AA batteries. This thing goes through them like nothing, with minimal listening time (2 to 3 hours). If batteries are as hard to come by for you as they are here, you're going to find yourself being without music often.

The durability is sorely lacking. A month after purchase, the buttons and the joystick had lost their responsitivity. You would have to press the same button repeatedly 3-4 times for it to register. The battery case no longer wants to stay shut without tape. The last straw is when the joystick broke off and stopped functioning completely, causing me to write this review.

This is an on-the-go music player. It should be able to hold up to the stresses of being in a backpack. If you are looking for an up-to-date, functional MP3 player, "shuffle" to another brand.