e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

[Tenderloin]

iRiver New Products

Date : April 24, 2004
Author : Abbas Jaffarali
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=294

iRiver has definitely made a name for itself in the MP3 market with its sleek designs and feature-loaded models. They held a press conference in Dubai on the 20th of April to demonstrate some of their upcoming models. The event was organized by Space Distribution- the official distributors of iRiver products in the UAE while it was presented by Marilyn Chen from iRiver Hong Kong.


After briefly explaining the history of iRiver as well as their current standing and where they’re headed, we were given a presentation on some of their upcoming players. Now iRiver has traditionally been a pure MP3 player manufacturer, however, we see some convergence in their upcoming products. After the conference, we got a chance to play with four of their upcoming models. These were all pre-production samples and were only made available to us for a couple of hours. We decided to play with them and let you know about our experience.


Starting off, we have the iFP-1000 which looks almost identical to the recently reviewed iFP-700 MP3 player. The additions that iRiver has made include a 1.2” LCD color screen and a 0.3 MP (640x480 resolution) digital camera. We must say that the color screen adds a great touch to the unit while the digital camera improves the “wow” factor. Like some of the Samsung mobile phones, the camera can be rotated so you can take your own picture.


The next model that we got a chance to test out is the iMP-1100 which is a CD based player with a twist. Unlike previous iRiver CD-MP3 players, this model features a 2.0 inch color screen and can play MPEG4/DivX encoded movies! We weren’t able to play all of the movies we tested (five out of six worked) but that could just be a pre-production problem.

The player has also lets you listen to the FM and standard/MP3 CDs. We wish that iRiver had equipped the unit with a DVD drive and allowed DVD playback as that would’ve been a pretty cool option and allowed you to carry more storage per disc. The unit has an A/V output jack, however, we weren’t provided with a cable to test this functionality. A slider at the back of the unit allows you to switch between the onboard LCD and TV modes. It automatically recognizes between an audio and video file so you can have a combination of files on a single CD. One thing that’s very cool is that while you’re watching a video and try to access any setting, the video fades but continues in the background while you make your selection.

The third model that we got a chance to play with was the PMC-100 which is based on Microsoft’s Operating System for portable video that looks almost identical to the Media Center Edition of Windows. The unit looks very sleek and has a 4-way pad on both the sides of the 3.5 inch TFT screen allowing you to navigate and select things.

Unfortunately, the device wasn’t recognized when connected to a PC (USB 2.0) and thus we could not transfer any files to it to test it out. We’re not sure if a driver will be needed or if the retail model will work driver-less. It came preloaded with one funny video clip along with some pictures and audio files stored on it which worked and played fine. Since we couldnt do much with the PMC-100, we took a couple of short movies- one for the startup of the device and the other for its navigation/operation. According to iRiver, the PMC-100 should be available in a couple of months with 20-40GB drives.

The last unit that we looked at was the most impressive one- features wise. The PMP-100 is somewhat similar to the PMC-100 except that its powered by Linux and plays DivX encoded videos. Although we couldn’t get it to play everything we tried, it did play most of the things without any problem. This is much better than the Archos Jukebox we reviewed some time back as on that unit, you had to re-encode files to watch it on the LCD screen. No such problems with the PMP-100.

The screen is 3.5 inches and gorgeous. We did face some problems with audio/video synchronization during DivX playback- but again, that is simply because the unit is in pre-production. Besides the Audio and Video modes, the unit will also feature an FM radio and a voice recorder although the later option was not implemented as of yet. The unit also features USB-OTG (On the Go) which means that you can directly connect USB devices with OTG options to it and transfer files- for example, pictures from your digital camera.

What we didn’t like is that the unit doesn’t look/feel upto iRiver standards. The buttons are very flimsy and scattered all over and the device does not look as classy as other iRiver models. Thats about all we have for now and hope you enjoyed the preview of these upcoming exciting products from iRiver. We'll have an in-depth review once these devices hit the retail channel and before we sign out, we would like to thank iRiver/Space Distribution for letting us check these deives out.