Great alternative to the iPod (Iriver H340 40 GB)

Member Name: Deru

Product:	Iriver H340 40 GB
Date:	16/03/08 (221 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 40GB, Good battery life, Lots of features, Drag and Drop transfer, Use as External HDD

Disadvantages: Bulky design, Expensive

Since the Apple iPod came out, many other companies followed suit and tried to copy and even better the iPod. Eventually, MP3 players with video capabilities started to appear on the market. The iRiver H340 is one of the earlier video capable players. Although the H340 is now quite old now, it still sells for around £100. I originally bought mine for £275 back in 2005. It has a large 40GB of storage. The design looks good from the front but when looking at it from the side, one will notice how chunky it is, which adds to the weight. A hard disk player is generally bigger than flash memory type players but the H340 looks like a mini brick, which isn't particularly good. The 20GB version is lot slimmer.

My player came with a case, headphones, microphone, USB cable, USB host cable, cradle, mains power adapter, CD and user manual. Not all of them come with the cradle and mains adapter as you can charge via USB from your PC but mine did and I prefer it that way since it feels safer to have the player charge on the cradle. The USB host cable is for letting me plug in another USB device to the H340 so I can view the files on the other device on the H340. E.g. I could plug in a digital camera or external hard drive to view the pictures on the H340's screen. I've not really tested this though.

The headphones are nothing special as you would expect with any MP3 player so is better to purchase a better pair. The microphone is just there for convenience if you have lots of dictating to do, as the player has a built in microphone.

One thing I really like about this player is that all you need to do to load files on there is to plug it in, wait for the PC to pick it up, access the H340 drive and drag and drop files in. This means that any computer with Windows 2000 and up can be used to transfer files onto it without requiring any extra software, unlike the iPod. This goes for music, videos as well as any other file that you may have. This is excellent as it let me use the player as a place for backing up and transferring my document files and not just music and videos.

Navigating around the player is very easy. It's done via nine buttons unlike the iPod's click wheel but the menus are very intuitive for moving around but certain functions such as to queue the next song or loading the main program menu can only be discovered by trial and error or by reading the user manual.

When listening to music on the player, the sound quality is crystal clear. It supports the common formats such as MP3, WMA, and ASF. Video quality is also pretty good but the 2" screen makes watching stuff tiring on the eyes if staring at the screen for too long. I've noticed that on playing video with fast action scenes that it's not entirely smooth but it's still watchable unless you're really picky about these things. Getting videos to play haven't been that easy as I've had to convert them using a free program called PocketDivX Encoder, otherwise, I've found that the videos do not play. I've only used it for watching AVI (DivX or XVid) files although it may support other formats.

The player has other functions such as radio, voice recorder, viewing text files, images, much like any other video capable player on the market today. One thing I would have liked to be able to do is to delete files without having to plug the player into the PC but this was not to be as I couldn't find the option or any evidence that it was possible.

The battery life is very good and can give me a good thirteen hours playing music but naturally, it depends on your backlight settings, how often you're pushing the buttons, which turns on the screen after it's gone off. Specifications quote sixteen hours though. I tested how long it can run while playing a video and it managed to run for seven hours, which is very good but this is likely due to the small screen, which isn't ideal for watching movies.

As for robustness, I've dropped mine a few times but only while it was in the case as it's survived fine. With the H340 being a hard disk drive player, the chances of the drive being damaged from a drop is very high so I would recommend not dropping it at all. I know someone who dropped his and it stopped working.

My verdict on the player is that it is a very good MP3 player but not so good as a video player. There are newer players about but my experience with the H340 has given me faith in the iRiver brand. The iRiver brand is a good brand to consider when looking for an MP3 player and excellent for those who want an alternative to the ever-so-popular Apple iPod. Despite the downsides of the player such as the size, small screen, and price, I would still recommend it or a newer player in the iRiver range.

Thanks for reading.

Summary: iRiver H340 Portable Media Player

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