No, this isn't an ipod (Iriver H140 40 GB)

Member Name: Benjiboo

Product:	Iriver H140 40 GB
Date:	29/07/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can record from any source, works as an external hard drive

Disadvantages: Only plays music, no search feature, bulkier than an ipod

This device comes with a charger, usb cable, headphones, a headphone remote control, single point transfer cable, brown leather case and software CD (necessary for people with an earlier version of Windows).

I got this back in August 2004 so have been using it regularly for nearly 5 years now. iRiver is an affiliate of Toshiba so these are good quality electronics with great sound quality. In this five years the device has crashed only twice, both times the simple switching off and on again resolved the problem. Battery life is great and will stay play for hours - even after 5 years of use.

Although this is a digital music player this device also acts as a hard drive storage device meaning you can save anything on here from your computer. The way the music is sorted on here is by files (just as on your computer) and you decide which songs go in which files and how to title them. If you have Windows XP or better you will not even need to install any software to use this - just plug it in and put your music on or off.

This not only plays music but can also record it from almost any source. It comes with a cable that allows you to record from any source with a headphone output. You can also record from any other source with an aux output e.g. tv, dvd/blu-ray players, hi-fi etc (You will need to buy you own aux cable for this, but this same cable is the one you will use to plug it into a hi-fi to listen to your music out loud). You can also record with the built in microphone, as well as with an optical input for greater quality. The recordings can be made in mp3 or wav format and you can record in varying quality from 40kbps - 320kbps.

The device is also very easy to use - there are only 5 buttons you need plus the locking button.

There are three main downisdes to this device. Firstly the music is only sorted by folders you cannot search and play by song, artist, genre etc like on the ipod. The other disadvantage of this is that it's not an ipod - and by this I mean most accessories and docking stations are designed solely for the ipod and so this will not be compatible. The third is that it is a little slow to boot up. I don't consider any of these major drawbacks though.

Summary: To this day I'm glad I bought this rather than an ipod. I love it

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