BIg momma brings da house down! (Iriver H340 40 GB)

Member Name: cheesycal

Product:	Iriver H340 40 GB
Date:	06/12/05 (440 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: has everything! .ogg support, plays videos, used as hard disk, usb controller!

Disadvantages: chunky....controls take time to get used to

(This review is really long so if you can't be bothered, just skip to the bottom paragraph! Sorry!)



Now, I haven't written a review for a long time due to other commitments. I wasn't in the habit of writing reviews anyway...I've written three and all of them in my first month of joining. I guess the novelty wears off a little.. :P but anyway, I digress. The three reviews that I had written were all on gadgets (SonyEricsson K750i, Samsung SM173P, Samsung YP-T7) and it shows that I love my electronic toys. That is why when the Apple iPod came out (the one with video playback capabilities), I was one of the first to get it in the hope that it would replace my aged iriver H340. I can't write a review on the apple iPod yet since it isn't listed in dooyoo but I thought I would instead write my thoughts on this Iriver model.

I bought the Iriver H340 around 6-8 months ago namely because I wanted to carry more songs than my flash-based mp3 player could offer. And inevitably, I was faced with the dilemma of choosing between Apple's iPod and a competitor's equivalent. The three major players in the hard-disk audio players are Apple (iPod), Creative (Zen) and Iriver. There are other ones but you'd probably find only these three in your average electronics retailer.

Around that time (6-8 months ago), I chose the Iriver H340 over the iPod and Zen purely because it had better features, despite it being not as pretty or small as the others. since then, things have changed...both apple and creative have got their acts together and produced newer and better models. I mentioned that I was one of the first people to buy the apple ipod video 5th generation whatever...Now I tell you, I returned it and decided to stick with the chunky brick that is the iriver h340. And the reasons are still the same...the Iriver h340 has more features and functions, despite being a bit less pretty..

I realise I've talked about nonsense for a while now and will try to be brief in my description of this model..


Looks+Design

The Iriver is a brick in comparison to the new Apple iPod. There wasn't too much discrepancy with the 4th gen iPod, but 5th generation iPods are very very slim. At 61 by 25 by 104mm, the Iriver is approximately twice as thick as the new iPod but surprisingly shorter by 1mm. The lengths are the same. It is also a bit heavier. Looks-wise, the Iriver looks exactly like the photo provided by dooyoo and is, obviously, not as nice as the iPod.

The H340 is dominated by a large screen that is capable of displaying 260K colours. Below the screen is the main menu button (in blue) surrounded by the buttons for skip tracks, volume and another 4 buttons. On the side are the microphone and the hold button.

In all the H340 is by no means ugly and looks nice by itself; when it stands next to the 5th gen iPod, its looks are rather plain. But what it lacks in design, it makes up for in features!

Features+Performance

Firstly the screen. The 5th gen iPod (from now on, when I say iPod, take it to mean the 5th gen.) has a colour screen unlike it's predecessors and is also capable of displaying 260K colours, as the H340. Admittedly, the screen on the Ipod is ever so slightly larger. However, the H340's screen performs a lot better than that on the iPod. The images are clearer and colours are more vibrant and bright. The user interface takes full advantage of this and the menus are so nice to look at.

H340 supports MP3 and WMA playback which will cover most of the music out there. In addition to these, it also supports the .ogg format which is far superior to the previous two in terms of quality-for-size. Another less well known format that is supported is the .asf which is usally found in streamed media. In creative or Apple, you will not find support for .ogg files let alone .asf as well.

The sound quality is excellent. When comparing with the iPod and Zen, iriver had the clearest and most distinct sound. You get sennheiser earphones with the iriver which is always a good thing. Plus if you are really fussy with sound quality you can play .ogg files! There are 5 preset equalisers and also a user controlled equaliser.

The firmware is upgradeable and with the suitable upgrade, you will be able to watch films! the iPod is meant to do this, but I found that only videos bought from iTunes worked and this was very frustrating. With the iRiver, you can stick in any films you'd like. As with the photos, the videos came out very well and colours were very accurate on the screen.

Other features include voice recording and direct encoding which were both very good (you can record with MP3 bit rate of 320!).

There are both USB1 and USB2 interfaces on the unit and also two headphone sockets (kinda useful when watching a film with a friend on train etc). There is also a socket for a remote if you choose to buy one.

You can also back up your photos from your digital camera directly without a computer. There is a USB slot at the bottom for this so you can store lots of photos and view them instead of forking out to buy a larger memory card for the camera. THis feature is very useful. You can even steal MP3's from your friend's players directly!

There are the customary repeat, shuffle play in order settings and fade in etc.

Other plus points include a very good FM radio and battery life of 16 hours (around 10 if i mix with video)

The buttons have different functions in each menu and instead of navigating around an extra menu to change different settings, you can simply hold a specific button down for a few seconds. With the iPod, effectively you have only 5 buttons all the time and it becomes fiddly!
the buttons do need a bit of getting used to but after a few hours, you will appreciate them: it's a lot quicker and you dont have to fiddle around as much with the iriver than with the iPod.

With 40Gb of space, you wont be running short for a while and just now i have around 14 full length films (10Gb) and about 20 gb of music and files.



SUMMARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Im really sorry that I've written so much..but here's the summary!

Against the iPod (5th gen), Iriver H340 stands its ground with authority. It is packed with features that certainly make up for the less appealing exterior and more! I would recommend the iriver H340 if you care more about sound quality, value for money and function than about looks and trend. Everyone seems to think the iPod is the best but for functionality, it doesnt come close to the H340, even now. (Admittedly, the iPod does look really nice and i really like that click wheel!)

The H340 still performs as well as, if not better than, the new iPods and Zens. In the end, I returned the 5th gen video ipod and decided to keep my "big momma" until a better offering is made...

oh and another thing, especially with all the worries over the fragility of the iPod.....i've dropped the H340 so many times and it's still working! Solid as a brick!

(it should be really really cheap now as well!)

the end..honestly.

Summary: All the features that you'll ever need and a lot more!

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Features:
Sound quality:
Download speed: