Freak Enterprises

I was interested to read that PC Pro magazine has this month published a review of the top 18 portable MP3 players. The market leader is by far the Apple iPod so it was a surprise to see the iPod not even making the top 5. Although the iPod generally scores well on looks, style and ease of use, it falls down on price and battery life. Some of the other models now available have a battery life that is around 2 - 3 times as long and cost considerably less. This is in addition to the scare stories that appeared recently about the iPod’s built-in rechargeable battery needing replacement after about 18 months at quite a high cost. People who have iPods absolutely love them but I’m not so sure it would be my first choice and PC Pro have just convinced me even more.

The winner of the PC Pro review was the iRiver iHP-120, it’s a 20GB player (that’s about 4,000 tracks at the bit rates I use) with a built-in FM radio and a reported battery life of up to 16 hours (around 12-13 hours according to actual user reviews). They also make a iHP-140 for not much more money which seems like better deal to me. I’ve seen the iHP-120 for £229 at Novatech and the iHP-140 for around £269 or £245 on ebay (if you don’t mind having it shipped from US).

PC PRO RECOMMENDATIONS
iRiver iHP-100 Series 20GB
Rio Karma 20GB
Rio Nitrus 1.5GB
iRiver iFP-300 Series 128MB
iRiver iFP-500 Series 256MB

iRiver seem to be pushing their machines very heavily on the fact that they support the Ogg Vorbis audio format. Ogg has been around for a while and seems particularly popular with the Linux community (I think it had something to do issues in the early days with MP3 codec licensing). I’m happy to stick with MP3, it works everywhere and is therefore much more convenient, and to me that’s what MP3 is all about – convenience. If I want great quality I put a CD on my Linn (or even an LP on the Axis), if I just want to background music I put the MP3 jukebox on random shuffle.

The built-in battery issue concerns me a lot. I recently purchased a portable GPS receiver purely on the fact that it uses replaceable, Nokia compatible, rechargeable batteries. I looked around for an MP3 Jukebox with a replaceable battery and found the Creative Zen Xtra, but comments about ease of use have turned me off that model too.

So I’m still largely undecided and that’s why there is no Gadet Rating this time. Instead, here’s my list of essential features (in priority order) for an MP3 Jukebox just in case you are considering one too.
* 20-40GB storage
* Good battery life. I’d settle for anything over 10 hours
* USB2 as standard for fast data transfer
* Reputable brand with a web site for downloading the software/drivers/etc
* Easy to use (very subjective I know)
* Cost, less than £250 ideally
* Style, looks (again very subjective)
* MP3 VBR bit rate support.
* Ability to use it as an external hard disk
* Windows software support
* Replaceable battery
* Two way data transfer, from PC to device and vice versa

I think if I had to make a choice today it would be the iRiver iHP-140, but I think I’ll wait a bit longer and see if the prices come down (especially if Novatech start stocking it!).