Some initial impressions of the iRiver iHP-140

Hardware
It’s well-screwed together, but it’s a different approach to the iPod - Apple seem to be taking the streamlined ‘no external protrusions’ approach, whereas the iRiver is much more knobbly and bumpy. At first glance it looks a bit tacky, but once you pick it up, it seems fairly robust. The screen on the remote control is the wrong way up, but a quick fiddle with a screwdriver fixed that - it’s secured by two screws on the inside of the case. It’s pleasantly hand-sized, and not so heavy that it’s a problem keeping it in a pocket.

Operation
The external remote control can do everything that the main control panel can do - in fact I’ve found it easier to drive the iRiver from the remote than to use the main controls. I don’t find the joystick particularly easy to use - it’s shiny enough for your finger to slip off, and I find myself clicking it in when I wanted to move it. As a result, I tend to nudge it from the side.

The start-up time is about 30 seconds - I hadn’t realised that there would be a lag, which was a bit of a pain at first. Now it’s just something you get used to.

And I now understand why shuffle mode is wonderful. It’s made me realise just how damn eclectic my music is - although then again I’ve never really seen the point in getting obsessive about playlists.

PC / Mac integration

Not integrating with iTunes is a bit of a pain, but not so much that it would change my mind about using the thing. I’ve set up a rsync script to duplicate the contents of my iTunes directory direct to the external disk, so it’s not much of an inconvenience. But it’s not something that Great Aunt Agatha would be too keen on doing, I suspect. And the Mac also drops ‘._’ files all over the place, which the iRiver interprets as files, and tries to play, which causes a couple of seconds delay before it skips over onto the next track.

It shows up as a disk drive in Finder with no problem at all, and acts just like a diskdrive. So Chronosync works fine, and I’ve now got me a 40Gb backup drive…

USB 2 seems pretty fast, but no doubt Firewire would be even better.

The DRM on iTunes is now getting in the way of my listening to music that I’ve purchased in the way that I want to, which is annoying. Doubly annoying that Hymn doesn’t work on a Mac without an iPod, so I’ve had to install a copy of iTunes on my server so I can use it there. I’ve bought the damn music, let me listen to it on the box of my choice!

Sound quality
Sound quality is fantastic as far as my ears are concerned, and there’s more EQ settings than I’m ever going to need. I can’t speak for the supplied earbuds, because I’m using my Sonys - but there’s more than adequate thump and tish to be had. Not that I’m going to start waxing lyrical about the chocolatey-velvetness of the midrange being caressed by an aftertaste of raisins and cinnamon as the hifi pseuds are wont to do…

Conclusions

Functionality-wise, it’s way, way ahead of the iPod. It’s a dictaphone / HDD recorder, radio and disk drive as well as being a music player. That’s something that iPods need to catch up on - looks aren’t everything.

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