Exactly one year ago today I bought an iRiver E150 MP3 player to replace my beloved E100 which had a cracked LCD screen. I’m fairly hard on technology in general, so over the years I’ve owned quite a few MP3 players, twelve devices total, of seven different models at last count, but none has ever frustrated em the way the iRiver E150 does. Up until now I have always really liked iRiver gear, it was always my first preference in MP3 hardware. The T10 was my favourite MP3 player ever: small, very rugged, played just about any format (at the time), and it would get over 50 hours from a single AA battery – if your rechargeable battery ran out you could get an AA from anywhere to keep you going. Even Voldemort couldn’t stop the rock.
The E150 changed everything. The main problem is the player firmware. Sure, it still plays lots of formats but it is by far the slowest interface on any device I’ve owned. Even the $20 Aldi specials we got the kids perform better. So here are my pet peeves:
- Slow Interface. Pressing a button and holding it takes forever to scroll through menus, folders etc. The ones that fit on the screen are OK, but as soon as you have to scroll off the bottom of the screen it takes almost a second per line. I subscribe to 64 podcasts, each of which goes into a subdirectory. Scrolling through this list is frustrating. Its also half the speed of the previous model, the E100.
- Folder management. While we are on the subject of folders, I can’t find a setting anywhere to go to the next folder once it is finished the current one. Pain in the having to go back up a folder then select the next one.
- Slow Fast-forward/Rewind. Even though there is a setting to allow you to set the Scan Speed up to “32X” it doesn’t work very well. It seems to Skip about 15 seconds of audio, then play half a second, then skip forward another 15 seconds. When you have a 3 hour podcast to get through you end up with a severely cramped thumb.
- It forgets part of it’s state after power-off, or when attaching the charger. Sure, it remembers what file you were playing at the time, but if you want to navigate to a different file you have to start from the root directory again – you can’t just go up one folder from your current position to find the next one.
- Stupid controls. This is annoying. On every other MP3 player the left and right buttons move you forward and back. On the E150 the Up button is “Previous track / Scan backward”, the Down button is “Next track / scan forward”.
- Pointless Video feature. If you have to re-encode your video into a very specific video format, then what is the point?
- Physical buttons. This is hard to explain without a photo. The Up/Down/Left/Right buttons are hidden under the front plate of the case. In order to register a button press you need to push hard enough to deform the front of the player. This makes for a completely smooth front on the player, but you sacrifice some functionality for this style.
- Slow boot. 14 seconds from pressing the power button. FOURTEEN SECONDS! Sit down with your watch and time that – it’s a long time for an MP3 player. I have songs shorter than that.
- No “auto resume” feature. If it’s going to take FOURTEEN SECONDS to boot, it would be nice to have a feature to automatically resume playback after powering on. There isn’t. In fact it takes two additional button presses to get back to the last track you were playing.
On the plus side, it’s well constructed, sounds good, and plays everything the advertising says it says it will. iRiver has upgraded the firmware regularly to fix known problems (though not to enhance the user experience).
Sansa hardware is far shonkier – I don’t think I’ve had one that has lasted more than 8 months. I’m sure I can hear the Sansa player explode as I walk past them in the shop, simply from my physical proximity. However, they have now become my preferred player. Why? Simple – the ones I buy support the Rockbox third party open source firmware. Basically this is an MP3 player operating system developed by enthusiasts. The usability issues are all solved. All the problem above (with the exception of the buttons) have all been solved long, long ago. Some old “H series” iRiver MP3 players can use Rockbox, but nothing for the last few years.
If only I could get the best of the iRiver world (solid hardware) with the Sansa world (Rockbox comparability), I would be a happy boy.
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