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iRiver description: Prism Style MP3 player based on iriver ifp100 series |
I decided on an MP3 player for my solo trips, particularly for the winter months with long dark evenings. This was my first player and I was faced with a bewildering choice, made all the more difficult by a near total lack of experience with portable electronics (the only devices we have are basic mobile phones and we hardly ever use those).
I wanted a Flash-memory based player that supported drag-and-drop of music files via USB without additional software, and which had radio reception. That narrowed down the list of contenders and I chose the T60 because of its (claimed) long battery life on a normal AAA.
The first thing to point out is standard for this type of device: the supplied earbuds are crap. I ordered a pair of Ultimate Ears earbuds to give the T60 a fair chance to show its best.
The USB port on the T60 has a tiny plastic cover that seemed determined not to come off: I eventually resorted to a jewellers screwdriver, the only thing small enough and strong enough to lever it free. Once that was done I connected the supplied USB cable and plugged it into the PC, whereupon it appeared as a new removable drive in Windows Explorer as expected, and I copied a few folders of MP3 tracks to the memory by drag-and-drop.
This rest of this review is brief and truncated: it boils down to the interface, which eclipses all other aspects of the player and renders them irrelevant. You see that small recessed ball next to the screen in this picture?. That is a joystick control for the T60 navigation system and is operated by one finger. It has the usual 4 directional movements (Up/Down/Left/Right) and a 'vertical' movement perpendicular to those, i.e. downwards into the face of the player. That joystick is the downfall of the whole player, it is absolutely appalling and makes the T60 almost unusable.
The real problem is the vertical movement where the ball is pushed downwards: the slightest deviation from true vertical and it misregisters - it produces a directional movement instead. I thought there might be a knack to it, but after practising it for some time it was no better, and it misregistered far more often than not. The same kind of problem also happens less often with the direction movements themselves, you have to be pretty accurate and concentrate on nudging the ball in exactly the right direction which is not easy when it's smaller than a fingertip.
The first real job I tried was to set the current time: it took me about 15 minutes, with the blasted joystick misregistering almost every time no matter how carefully I pressed it, which frequently meant I had to start over. It was already obvious that this would be totally useless for backpacking and I was on the point of throwing it in the bin, but I thought I would persevere a bit longer if only to test the earbuds. I did eventually navigate to a particular track and play it, but by that time I was in no mood for music.
This navigation disaster is a real pity because the sound quality is pretty good (well, insofar as any of these devices can sound good). Heaven knows what the designers were thinking, but if this is their idea of a slick way to control a device they ought to be summarily shot. I've since noticed descriptions of other players with 'novel' navigation controls like 'gestures', but I'm forewarned about these things now: I'll look for one with simple honest-to-goodness buttons.
Another point was the size of the text on the tiny screen: I couldn't read it without optical aid and I don't take my reading glasses on backpacking trips, I rely on the magnifier on my compass. Unfortunately with the T60 this would require three hands to work effectively: one to hold the T60, one for the joystick and one to hold the compass. Buying online was not a good idea in this case, next time I'll test the player myself in a shop.
The claimed life of 19 hours on the AAA battery must be a maximum figure for continuous playback with the screen off, the actual life when interacting with the navigation periodically will be much less. In my frustrating attempts to use it the screen was on most of the time and a brand new Duracell lasted around 4 to 5 hours.
The joystick navigation system of the T60 is by far the worst man-machine interface I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen some stinkers. It makes the player virtually unusable, and the audio performance - which is actually quite good with decent earbuds - is therefore academic. I'm afraid I don't have enough patience to pursue any of the other features, this player is useless to me.