Iriver 512MB MP3 Player With Tuner And Direct Recording
Average Customer Rating
(4.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
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(3 out of 5)Mmmmm....
The iRiver iFP-395T promises a lot but fails to deliver. The first thing you will notice is the construction - yes it's small, but it's made totally of plastic, and that includes the loop for the neck strap!
Delve a little further and actually load it with some mp3s and you'll probably, like me, suffer a major disappointment - there's a distinct lack of bass from this beast, despite the 5-band equaliser ranging up +12dB. The sound is thin and shallow, totally uninspiring. At over £300 I expect better.
The menu system however, is extremely comprehensive, allowing you to change almost everything on the player, even the length of time the backlight stays on after a keypress. Full marks to iRiver for these extensive options.
Despite the flexibility of the options, the bottom line is that this player sounds (and feels) cheap, and that's even using the supplied Sennheiser earphones.
(5 out of 5)Amazing bit of kit
The sound if very good, using the User EQ you can adjust bass and treble to your needs. As for storage I have 100 songs at cd quality (192 kbps) and still have 100mb free. It looks good, some people don't like the black plastic but I do, having it too shiny and silver (like the others in the range) makes it too easy to get stolen, the black makes it less 'showy'.
Battery time is great, an AA battery lasts five days at five hours of listening each day. I like the fact that you can use AA batteries, available the world over an no need to recharge if you don't want to, that's something I like over the ipod, apple made it so that you cannot remove the battery so when it begins to loose is charge capacity you have had it.
The FM radio is a bonus, very easy to tune in, you can record the radio at good quality. The voice recorder is very good for taking notes. Navigation of the menu systems takes a little getting used to but is clear and easy after a short while. The upgrades available via the web are easy to use, they contain new features and compatibility.
The software that comes with the 395 is easy to use, you can drag and drop your files very quickly via USB. You cannot take .mp3 files from the player to your pc due to copyright reasons (common with most new mp3 players).
I would say it's well worth the extra cash for the 512mb, you can have lots of music on the player and still be able to record the radio or voice. It is good for me not to have a hard drive based mp3 player as this keeps the size right down and it will never skip!
The extras that come with it are a bonus, the carry case, neck holder and so on.
All in - It's a very good MP3 Player!
(5 out of 5)Super Cool
Truly groovy piece of kit. Dont be fooled by pic of black plastic, mine is gold/silver very nice and slightly changed shape. Nice accessories, great sound although probably more like 10 cds worth of space.
Batteries are eaten up but then dont need to woryy about charging kit when Im travelling. First class iriver.
(5 out of 5)sounds great
all these portables really need a good set of earphones to make the most of them. this is a superb bit of kit, i just spent 2 weeks on holiday and had plenty of different music to choose. battery life is great, up to 24 hours. great to run with. expensive of course, but solid state means it should last longer than an ipod - and who needs 10000 hours of music on a device anyway? i dont have that sort of free time.
(5 out of 5)Very nice bit of kit!
This player is very small, well built, and can take a fair few knocks without a problem. The 512mb storage is more then enough for most uses!
The recording facility is neat, and if you pair this up with a nice sony directional mic it makes a very small dictaphone (i use it to record my uni lectures).
The firmware out of the box requires its own software, however iriver provide a free upgraded firmware which lets you plug-and-play, so you can use the player like a portable hard-disk.
With only one AA battery to power the player its performance is better than i expected. A duracell battery usually lasts me 3-4 days of heavy playing (12-16 hr a day).
I havent really found a use for the fm radio, but it does work ok, and you can record from radio should you wish.
The manual is quite detailed, and is written in clear english, not that you really need it, most of the features are fairly intuative. The menu layout takes a little bit of getting used to, but after a day or two its no problem.
The only issue with the design is that the batteries are used when the player is hooked to a PC transferring data. This seems to eat batteries, and i would have hoped that the usb power source would have been used. Apart from this one little issue the design is very high quality.
Iriver make some quality products, and the sheer size of this player is amazing, considering the features it includes. Unfortunately it has a price to match its coolness, and is a little on the expensive side.
I would recommend this to everyone who prioritises functionality over cost, but if your looking for a budget player you definately need to look elsewhere!