I-River IFP 380-T Mp3 Player Review

I-River IFP 380-T Mp3 Player Review

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Today on review is the I-Rivers IFP 380T mp3 player based on flash memory. The 380T has 128Mb of memory and can play mp3 and wma’s and has FM tuning facility. The player is made by I-river corp. who are one of the world leaders in audio devices. Although a very nascent company Iriver has captured the hearts of many a consumers and audiophiles with their good quality products and excellent support.
Although the review is for IFP-380T, it holds the same for the whole of the 300 series players including the 390 and 395T.
About I-River:
Iriver released the world's first multi-codec MP3 CD player in 2000 and has grown into an internationally renowned brand in the portable digital device markets all over the world.

Iriver's leadership in the global portable digital device markets began with SlimX - the thinnest MP3 CD player in the world, followed by continuous release of new innovative products such as iFP-300 Series - flash memory MP3 players that recorded the highest sales numbers in the world - and PMP-100 Series - the most advanced portable video player on the market today.

As Microsoft's strategic partner in the development of their next-generation digital portable player, PMC, and as a global partner of other major electronics companies such as Phillips, Samsung Electronics, Hitachi and Texas Instruments, iriver has already established itself as a leading global brand.

In order to go beyond the portable digital devices to also become a leader in the digital content space, iriver has established a sister company, Yurion, Inc., and is working closely with Yurion to develop hardware and software solutions for digital content development and delivery. Through continuous innovation and expansion into synergistic businesses, iriver is making a steady progress toward becoming a world class brand that brings fun and enjoyment to all.

Source: iriver Global Home
 
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Player Specs:

The player sports the following specs!

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Accessories:
With the 380T the accessory bundle is decent enough. You get the following when you purchase the IFP 380T:
• IFP 380T Mp3 player with 128Mb memory
• Neck strap
• Ear-phones
• Instruction manual
• USB cable
• Stereo jack for line in recording
• CD with software bundle (Drivers and manager software)

First Look:

The Craft as Iriver loves to call its player is really good. Let’s get to the build quality. The player fells quite good in the hands, good overall build quality. The battery cover felt flimsy though; it can easily snap if u apply some pressure on it. The blue backlit LCD is crisp and you won’t have any problems when reading the display.
My initial grouch was the shape of the player; it’s shaped like a bone. However with all the features that come with the player it’s easy to forget the visual shortcoming. Also the shape is purely a subjective matter, so you might like it even though I don’t. The neck strap dint come in handy for me since the player is small enough to be tucked into a pocket and also because I didn’t want the player banging against my chest while walking. I tried it once and believe me its plain irritating.
 
Performance:

The sound quality of the mp3s is awesome and I am not even exaggerating. You have to experience it yourself once. One advice here would be to loose the earphones supplied with the player and get some good quality headphones. This helps in improving the audio experience. The player has a lot of inbuilt presets along with a custom preset. Users can adjust the equalizer settings easily through the players menu. With a small firmware upgrade the player plays ogg vorbis files and wma 9 encoded files easily. Currently I can store around 35-40 (3Min duration) songs encoded at VBR 64-96 Kbps without significant loss in quality with WMA9. Although I have had my share of problems with the WMA9 format; some of the files started skipping badly. After a re-encode of the files the problem was solved. The LCD display shows quite a lot of info. When a song is playing the following details are displayed on the LCD: The song info (artists name etc), format name (wma, mp3 etc), the bit rate, the sampling frequency, playtime, mode, Folder name, Battery level etc. The menu is a quite detailed and takes a while to get used to. The menu has the settings for the following:
1) General settings
2) Display settings
3) Timer settings
4) Control settings
5) Mode settings
6) Sound settings

The FM tuner is an added advantage and the quality of reception is good enough. However since it uses the earphones as antenna for the FM reception you lose out on the reception when moving in a car or train. The stations can be auto-scanned or can be preset using the Iriver manager software. I found the latter easy. The player can also record the FM reception which adds to it impressive list of features! However the quality of this recording depends on the quality of reception. Also make sure you have space left on the player since 128Mb is used up quite easily.

The player can also be used to record voice or as a voice recorder. I found the quality to be good enough for everyday use. Professionals please look elsewhere since 128Mb is not too much for their recording needs. The inbuilt Mp3 encoder encodes the recordings from the mic and the line-in as well on the fly. So there is no need to have a PC for transferring the songs to the player. . Although it’s a time-consuming process, it’s good to know that at least an alternative exists. Also those with huge collections of old songs on cassettes will benefit since they can convert their collection to a digital format. The encoding can be done within 8-160Kbps and within the 11 KHz – 44 KHz frequency range.

A single AA battery powers the IFP 380T. A single alkaline lasts up to 14-15 hours which is very good in my opinion. The menu has a setting which lets u select whether the battery being used is a alkaline/re-chargeable so that it can predict the charge on the battery precisely. This is a pretty nifty function if you ask me but there is no setting for the normal R6 AA battery.
The player uses USB 1.1 which is an old standard and it shows its age when transferring the files. However for transferring 128Mb worth of files it doesn’t matter too much.
 
Software:

The Software CD that comes with the player contains the manager software called “Iriver Manager†and system drivers. After connecting the USB cable and plugging the player in, the LCD screen displays a “USB connected†message complete with icons. Once you install the provided drivers the manager recognizes the player instantly. Zero hassles here and no special expertise needed to work with the manager too.
The manager is used for the following purposes:
1. Adding/Removing media files to the player
2. Adding FM stations to the player (Tuner Settings).
3. Updating the player’s firware.
Earlier the player was manageable only through the Iriver Manager software but with the new firmware update it’s possible to use the player as a USB drive also. This enables drag and drop functionality through the supported OS.



Rating and Conclusion: The Player has a solid list of features and great sound quality. A sub 120$ price also helps this player get brownie points. Overall I’d rate this player 8/10.

PROS:
1. Support for Mp3, wma9, oog vorbis, asf.
2. Inbuilt mp3 encoder for on the fly recording.
3. FM tuner.
4. Works as a voice recorder.
5. Requires a single AA battery.
6. Detailed menu with lots of options.
7. 6 Presets EQ with a custom preset.
8. Good battery life (with AA alkaline battery)
9. Easy to use media manager
10. Firmware upgrades from iriver to add functionality to the player.

CONS:
1) No support for USB 2.0
2) The menu and navigation takes some time to get used to.
3) No support for mp3pro.
4) Using the USB drive firmware upgrades causes loss of the WMA playback function.
5) Design may not appeal to everyone
 
Here are some pics of the player !
 

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blade_runner said:
@Quick: See if can move drgrudge's comment after my review ends.
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nope..its not possible..the best i can do is delete drgrudge's post if he agrees to post that again :p lemme know..
 
@Blade: Hm.. are the supplied earbuds bad? I thought the irivers came with sennheiser MX300 earbuds... the best in the business :S.
 
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