iriver IFP-790T 256 MB Portable MP3 Player

• Plays MP3, WMA & OGG music files
• Plays up to 8 hours of music
• Transfers music up to 3X faster
• Record music from any audio source (no PC required)
• Up to 40 hours of battery life

I've owned this player for about three weeks now and am very happy with it. Very nice sound quality and fairly easy to use. There are a few things that put it over other 256MB players in my opinion...

1. UMS FIRMWARE UPGRADE. This is probably the most important thing I'll list. I did this as soon as I got the player and it made it that much better. Contrary to what some other reviewers may say here, you CAN make this device (as well as ANY products in the IFP-700 or 800 series) function as a regular flash drive, and not have to use the included IRiver software to transfer songs. Just go to the IRiver site and/or Google search for the UMS firmware update for this device (currently it is at version 1.28). Once you upgrade the firmware (the instructions are easy to follow on the site) it will operate not only as an MP3 player, but as a portable storage device for ANY type of file you need to transfer. This also makes it MUCH easier to transfer/arrange/rename/delete your files around on the player, as you can do it in Windows Explorer instead of doing it through the onboard player menus.

2. OGG FILE SUPPORT ALLOWS YOU MORE SPACE FOR SONGS WHILE STILL RETAINING HIGH QUALITY SOUND. For those not aware, OGG is a file type similar to MP3, but with better quality and smaller file size IE, a 128kbps OGG file will sound better than an 128kbps MP3 file. Although it's unfortunate that it won't support any bitrate of OGG, it's a very minor issue. The lowest it will accept is 112kbps, but considering that's practically on par with a 160 kbps MP3, you can fit a lot more songs on here than you could with MP3s of an equivalent quality. I've encoded all my songs at 112kbps in OGG format and it's less than half-full with 32 songs on it and they all sound very good. Should be able to fit about 70 songs on here no problem, which is more than enough for me since I mainly use this as a workout music player. If you're unfamiliar with OGG files just go to vorbis.com and check out the oggdrop program. Very simple to use, set the bitrate and then just drag and drop wavs to encode them.

3. QUALITY HEADPHONES. While they certainly aren't the best money can buy, they certainly ARE better than most pack-in headphones you get with CD or MP3 players. I see no reason to buy seperate ones. (note the ones included with this model are the ear-bud type, I'd recommend putting the included foam-ish covers over them to avoid them becoming uncomfortable)

4. BATTERY LIFE. The fact that it uses a AA battery instead of a AAA battery makes it last longer than many other MP3 players. It won't quite reach the 40 hours advertised, but it's certainly well upwards of 30.

5. EXTRAS. Although the included arm-band won't win any awards, and the only bicep I could see it fitting around would be...oh, maybe Rick Moranis', it fits fine around just about anyone's forearm and the headphones are long enough to accomodate just about anyone...I'm 6'6 and it was plenty long enough for me while running. There is also a neck band included if you want to wear it around your neck instead. The documentation with the product is fairly well written, although there are so many menus and little features that some people may feel a bit overwhelmed at first. It also comes with a protective plastic-ish cover which slips over it and attaches to the armband. I just leave the cover on most of the time so the screen doesn't get scratched. Also includes an FM radio and voice recorder which I don't have much use for but will definitely appeal to most people. Finally, it also has a connector cord included if you need to do any direct line-in recording which is another nice feature, but something I don't think I'll ever use.

MY MAIN PROBLEM with this product is the joystick control. The little joystick is...LITTLE. I often find myself hitting up when I want to hit right, or hitting right when I want to push the stick in. Occasionally I'll be trying to turn the volume up and end up skipping to the next track instead. You'll probably want to be sitting still when you are using it, otherwise it may become a baffling ordeal for even the most brilliant among us.

I'd definitely recommend this if 256MB of space is large enough for you. If you encode your files properly like I talked about above you can fit quite a few songs on this. This is mainly used by me as a music player during workouts and so far it has worked great. I may upgrade to the 512MB version someday, but for now this serves me fine. If it weren't for the annoying controls/interface, this would be 5 stars easily.

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I recently purchased this mp3 player, and I am definitely satisfied with my choice. I used to have a 15 gb dell dj, which is the equivalent to an ipod. I didn't need all that storage space, so I sold it. I bought this so that I would have an mp3 player with just enough storage to put some of my favorite songs at the moment on, and carry it around with me so that I did not need to carry a cd player and cds all the time. I have 25 songs on it at the moment, and it still has plenty of space left. It can probably hold over 60. The reason i picked this over the others was because of the fact that it has a 40 hour battery life. Most have only 20! This is because it uses an AA battery, and not an AAA like most mp3 players. I also liked the fact that it had an FM transmitter. Other reviews said it was kind of scratchy, but I think it's pretty good for a little unit like this. I can receive stations better on this than on my stereo! It also is capable of recording FM broadcasts, and has a microphone for voice recording as well, although i don't think i'll use those features much. Everything is easy to figure out, and I didn't even have to consult the manual until i wanted to preset FM stations, but that was easy too, i just didn't know what to hit. The only con is the small control button, but it works just fine. The sound on this unit is excellent as well, and the earbuds that come with it are great too! I usually get tired of them though, and when I plugged in my headphones, it was even better. You can customize the EQ and bass and stuff like that very easily in the menu too. Overall, this is an awesome mp3 player. I haven't had it for long, but I already like it better than my Dell DJ and if you don't need an mp3 player to hold 2,000+ songs and just to hold between 25-60, then this is the one.

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As some previous reviews claimed, the iRiver is great in that it:

(a) is small and lightweight, with a very convenient arm band for when I do my 5-mile runs.

(b) lasts a long, long time on a regular battery.

(c) is fairly easy to use for downloading, as long as you stick to the WMA format and use the CD software that comes with it.

(d) holds a decent number of songs, although I find that I have to switch my playlists at least once a month.

(e) doesn't skip.

However, figuring out the bells and whistles is surprisingly complicated (even for someone like me who tends to intuit gadgets fairly well). If you download *folders* of music and play straight from those, it's easy enough to figure out how to shuffle tracks and switch between folders, but I've given up on trying to actually program any *playlists*.

Other small nuisances include:

(a) the player occasionally switches songs when I try to adjust the volume while running, because the same small joystick controls both functions.

(b) the included ear buds are no good for running, because they'll fall out.

(c) the radio feature is nice, but I don't get nearly as good or reliable reception as I do with my car stereo.

(d) **** this one is my worst pet peeve **** the "random shuffle" mode doesn't randomly shuffle through all the songs in a folder in any true *random* fashion. Unless I keep my folders small, I find that some of the same tracks come up in the same order every time I run, and what's worse, some songs never get played at all, even if I try to skip ahead to all of them--instead, the player goes back to the beginning of the "random" list and plays the same songs in the same order again. (For those out there who know that random doesn't always *appear* to be random, trust me--this feature doesn't work correctly with more than a couple of dozen tracks.)

Nuisances aside, I am pretty happy with the purchase.

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I bought this unit to replace my Rio, which failed me after three years of faithful service. I am very impressed with the features, the size, and the sound quality of the iRiver.

The navigation leaves a bit to be desired, however. iRiver has done a remarkable job in providing access to lots of features with only a few buttons, but the little joystick is prone to jumping to the wrong thing. With so many functions on such a small device, I suppose it is a necessary evil, but it can be frustrating when you try to push the stick one way and the unit recognizes it differently.

My only other complaints are minor. You have to use the iRiver software (which is actually pretty darn good) or Windows Media Player to move files to the unit. I would prefer to see the unit as a removable drive, like many flash mp3 players. The earbuds sound great, but they hurt my ears after about 30 minutes. I typically don't like in-the-ear earbuds, so your experience may be different. The arm strap that came with the unit is useless; as it is too small, too bulky and ugly as the day is long. There is no belt clip included. I will probably buy the sport arm strap/belt clip to go with it, but I wish they had included that with the unit.

I have had a fair amount of experience with mp3 players, and I think this one rates near the top of the heap. It's a nice little unit with an amazing number of features and only a few small complaints.

I got this MP3 player for christmas. It was not long before I had the Iriver hooked up to my PC via the USB 2.0 link cable. I quickly installed the file managment software included with the MP3 player and moved a song to the Iriver. Let me stop here and tell you how easy this was. I didn't have to do anything with the Iriver itself but turn it on. The managment software was incredibly easy to use. You simply open the folder containing the subfolder or files you want to use and drag them to a screen that represents what is on your Iriver. Once I had the song on, I plugged my Sony studio moniter headphones into the headphone jack and began to jam. (Vertigo rules!!!) Yes, I am a U2 fan. Back to the story. After the novelty of playing Vertigo over and over again wore off, I checked out the FM tuner. It was pretty scratchy on most stations. I don't really listen to FM radio that much so I can't really give an opinion on this feature though. Eventually, I got tired of not having control of what songs I listened too. I decided to turn off the FM and check out the rest of the IFP 790 interface. To access the main menu, I had to hold down the enter button. This took me a little to figure out but never the less, I did not have to disgrace myself by using the manual. You can do several things on the main menu. You can make small sound adjustments, set the clock and alarm, goof around with recording and radio options I did not really understand. I even found a way to get the Iriver to automatically record a radio station at a certain time. Now that I had my Iriver totally figured out, It was time to load er' up and listen to some tunes. The capacity suprised me. I guess I didn't really know how much 256 megabytes could hold. I was expecting to be able to put 2-3 albums on but it can hold much more than that. Right now I have fifty songs on it and I think I have around a quarter of the space left.

All in all I would give this MP3 player a 4.5 out of five.

Pros

Downloading music was quick and exeptionally easy

small size makes it easy to hold in pocket

the fact that it takes AA batteries and still last about 40 hours on one makes it easy to juice up.

Easy interface with several extra features.

Easy recording.

Cons

Battery cover seemed easy to break.

Does not hold a lot of music, but if you want a lot of storage buy a hard drive player, not a flash player.

there wasn't anything to clip it to my belt loops :( At least it can fit in my pocket