Truely portable, built like a rock

First of all, I'm not really a kid, I'm just lazy and didn't want to register. Anyhow, this is about the T10 not me.

When I got the T10 on Christmas a year ago I was a little disappointed, it only had 512mb of storage on it and I was pretty sure that wouldn't hold all my music. Well, it doesn't, but after more than a year of using and abusing this player I respect it.

First off, this thing is rock solid. I fell on it heavily while skating and was suprised when it wasn't broken. Friends of mine have iPods and are always extoling their virtues but when we go skiing no one brings their iPod for fear it will break. I have no fears, except that I'll get a T10 sized bruise if I fall on it.

The interface is also amazing. I can keep it in my pocket and easily skip tracks and turn up the volume with out looking at it. Some times I press the wrong buttons but my fingers are fat. The sound quaility, even with the head phones the T10 comes with, is amazing.

All in all, the only thing I don't like is the lack of storage space, but now that there is a 2gig T10, I'm going to get one asap. Forget the iPod, get one of these.

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In Some Ways Better Than An iPod - 3.5 Stars Actually

Actually, in one way it's far superior to the iPod: a AA battery lasts about 35 hours, and then you toss it. (My iPod just "lost" it's second battery in 18 months, and I won't replace it, nor will I buy another iPod for just that reason.)

I probably should have gotten the 1 gb version, but at the time I thought 180 songs would be sufficient, especially with shuffle play. FM works well enough, but I live in a hilly area where FM is difficult to get under the best of circumstances ... although in summer, even the iRiver picks up FM from San Francisco.

The controls are not intuitive, and if I haven't used it in a while, I'll forget how to set Shuffle on. And I can't always remember how to get to the playlists or even FM, so my own short-cut cheat sheet handy (instead of the user manual).

I'm not crazy about using a lanyard, but it does clip on to a belt loop, and the earbud cord is long enough for me to tuck it into a pocket. It doesn't need a case to protect it, and I sometimes wonder what other people think the purpose of an MP3 player is. In other words, I don't care about scratches so long as I can read the display periodically.

Still the sound (using Sony earbuds) is more than decent; the EQ works well; the display is good enough; and the price was right. If something happens to this, I guess the highest praise I can give it is that I'll replace it with the 1 gb version if the company stays in business. Hey, I really liked my Rio and look what happened to them.

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Very good unit, but Firmware update was troublesome

Main purpose of my iRiver is to listen to books from [...] To do so, the unit has to have a Firmware update. While the instructions for updating the firmware are simple (I am computer literate) it did not work properly. After troubleshooting it for two days, I found the firmware updater placed two update files on my iRiver. This caused it to fail on audio books. My fix was to delete the second update file, on the iRiver, before it initiated the firmware update. Then everything worked good.

Other then the above, the iRiver works very good and I would have rated it a 5. Sound is awesome, battery life is extremly good and the menu screen is very user friendly. FM radio has very good reception. One benefit of the iRiver vs an iPod, is that it uses a AA battery, which lasts for over 40 hours. Eventually an iPod battery will wear out and has to be replaced. The iRiver can go on forever. Also, I travel a lot and can not always charge the battery. With the iRiver I simply pop in a new AA battery, whether it is on a plane to London or a train to Rome.

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