20GB MP3 PLAYER

List Price:$299.99

You Save:$100.00 (33%) 

Average customer review:  

 

 Product Description

Portable MP3 Player with 20 GB Hard Disk and Color Screen

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41948 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Coby
• Model: MP-C951
• Released on: 2006-06-26
• Platforms: Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows 2000
• Format: CD
• Dimensions: 4.00" h x 1.00" w x 2.00" l, 1.00 pounds
• Hard Disk: 20GB

Features

• Stores up to 10,000 songs/Up to 12 hours of battery life
• 2" TFT Color display/Supports MP3, WMA, OGG Music Files
• Ultra fast USB 2.0 transfers (up to 40 times faster than USB 1.0)
• Supports JPEG image files/Supports AVI Video files
• Built in FM tuner/Built in Voice recorder

3 new or used available from $149.00
Average customer review:

Product Description

25 Days of Muic! iRiver H10 20GB Audio Juke Box. Imagine having enough music in the palm of your hand to play for 25 days! iriver's H10 20GB audio jukebox can play up to 600 hours (25 days) of digital music (using Windows Media format at 64kbps) with its amazing 20GB of internal storage. The elegant iriver H10 features a vivid color display for simple navigation and viewing your digital photos, a rechargeable battery and a digital FM tuner. Its slim, lightweight design makes it easy to take anywhere. Includes integrated voice recorder. Features ultra-fast USB 2.0 data transfers. The iriver H10 20GB Remix audio jukebox supports MP3, WMA, JPEG and TXT files. Enhanced 3D audio supports SRS WOW(tm). Comes with iriver earphones, carrying case with belt clip, USB 2.0 interface cable, installation CD and AC adapter. Requires Windows XP (Service Pack 1 or higher), CD-ROM drive and USB port. Enjoy hours and hours (even days and days) of music with the iriver H10 20GB audio jukebox. The elegant iriver H10 20GB plays up to 600 hours of digital music. It also features a vivid color display for simple navigation and viewing your digital photos, a rechargeable battery and a digital FM tuner.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41923 in Consumer Electronics
• Size: 20GB
• Color: Blue
• Brand: iRiver
• Model: H10 Blue 20GB
• Dimensions: 7.00" h x 3.00" w x 10.00" l, 1.00 pounds

Features

• Digital music player/recorder with a 1.8-inch, 20 GB hard drive for more than 330 hours of audio (128 kbps)
• Compatible with MP3/WMA audio files, JPEG image files, and even TXT documents for light reading
• 1.8-inch full-color TFT LCD supports up to 260,000 colors, rendering your favorite digital photos with breathtaking clarity
• Integrated Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 simplifies media management
• Internal battery gives you about 16 hours of continuous playback between charges

Amazon.com Product Description
The iRiver 20 GB model H10 is the perfect portable digital player/recorder for true music and audio enthusiasts. Hardly bigger than a deck of cards, its 1.8-inch hard drive has space for over 5,000 songs (128 kbps MP3, 4 minutes per song) or more than 330 hours of music. Yet the whole player measures just 2.4 x 4 inches (W x H) and less than an inch deep. Sensibly arranged controls--including an intuitive central touchpad--make it child's play to setup and use, and an internal battery delivers up to 16 hours of non-stop music between charges.
But the H10 is about more than just music. It comes complete with a brilliant, full-color 1.8-inch TFT LCD that supports up to 260,000 colors, rendering your favorite JPEG digital photos with breathtaking clarity. (Yep, it does slide shows, too.) What's more, an integrated text viewer lets you lose yourself in paperless novels, news, essays, short stories--you name it.
A built-in microphone facilitates use as a voice recorder, with 3 quality settings to choose from. The unit also features a built-in FM tuner with a choice of automatic and manual channel-search functions, including 20 station presets for one-touch tuning to your favorites, especially handy for traffic and news updates when you're out and about. An antenna built into the supplied headset ensures crystal-clear sound quality, and a timer lets you set the H10 to record radio programs with real-time MP3 encoding at specific times of your choosing.
The H10 is PlaysForSure compatible and fully integrated with Microsoft Windows Media Player 10, which makes it even easier to enjoy your digital media. In addition to a range of options for managing digital content, you'll enjoy fast access to the H10's "digital media hall," where you can scavenge the virtual shelves of numerous online shops (including Napster To Go) in search of cool songs old and new. With the player/recorder connected to your PC, you'll be able to purchase and download songs straight into the H10. An auto-sync function synchronizes music and image files on the H10 with those stored on your PC, just like a PDA.
Icing on the cake, the H10 also a guaranteed head turner with a high-grade aluminum casing whose purist elegance is as pleasing to the eye as the touch.
What's in the Box
Digital music player/recorder, stereo earphones, a carrying case with belt clip, a USB 2.0 interface cable, an installation CD, an AC adapter, a user's manual, and warranty information.

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Customer Reviews

Great player, lots of features, some annoyances
One of the great things about this player is you do not have to install any special software; just drag a folder of MP3s over to it. The best feature is its future potential; the manufacturer brags 'firmware upgradeable' on the box and an Internet search reveals an active user forum and homebrew software available.

I actually found a use for the text file viewer-- it is a handy way to keep track of a new workout routine. Sound quality is good enough for loud rock music while mowing or working out.

There are some minor annoyances in the software. The equalizer does not have enough frequency ranges and introduces some noise. There is not a clear indication when you disable the EQ and turn on the SRS feature. The picture display is cool, but no zoom and pan - even my cell phone does that. However, these are all minor bugs that could be fixed with new software.

One of the advertised features is line in recording - but you don't get the line input jack unless you buy a cradle. Hmmm, why not just use the line input jack on your computer sound card and save the money. I would rather have had a line input and/or a mic jack on the unit itself than the wired remote control jack - the iriver is about the size of a remote control itself so I am not sure what the logic was here.

Like I mentioned earlier these are minor annoyances and I am generally impressed with the performance and sound on the player.


I'd rather have an H10 over a basic 20 GB iPod, anyday.
Where to start?

Well, feature-wise its far superior to the standard 20 GB. For the same cost as the afore mentioned iPod you can have the same amount of memory, in a slightly smaller and slightly lighter package. It includes a built FM tuner (which is unavailable in iPod's, and unfortunately you need to purchase external adapters for your iPod to even play the radio), voice and FM recording (another feature that the iPod can only obtain via an adapter), a color screen (whihc is now becoming a standard feature and has recently been added to iPods). It also gets a longer battery life than most of the competition, including the iPod. Also, its compatible with a wider range of file formats than the standard iPod, including .jpgs.

My one knock on the H10 is its medicore navigation. While it's touchpad won't cause songs to change, fastfoward, rewind, or pause as it slides around in your pocket (like the iPod tends to), its not very ergonomic. The vertical scroll touchpad gets the job done but its not as cool as the iPod's wheel.

Pros:
-Comaptible with a wider range of files than the standard iPod.
-Picture Display.
-Color Screen.
-Accessories (which can only be ordered from the iRiver website since iPod seems to have a monopoly at stores for shelf space).
-Built in FM tuner.
-Built in voice and FM recorder.
-Smaller and lighter than the standard 20GB iPod.
-Being able to use Real, WinAmp (with plugins), and FooBar (also with plugins) allows the sound files to maintain their quality, which iTunes actually tends to deminish (particularly the bass and treble).
-Better built in equalizer and even SRS Wow features.
-Larger variety of online music stores that you can order music off of.
-Large color variety. It comes in red, blue, platinum, and gray.
-Doesn't get scratched up like the iPod's tend to (because it doesn't have a metallic back).

Cons:
-Inconvenient navigation.
-If you want accessories like cradles, car adapters, boom box and/or stereo adapters, and replacements for lost accessories, you'll have to order them off of the iRiver website. Theres nothing wrong with this, but it requires a wait and the extra charge for shipping and handling. However, you can pretty much use any iPod accessorie that only requires the headphone jack, (since they're universal) including some of the nicer Bose surround sound and sound canceling headphones.
-Not as pleasing to the eyes as the simple, curvy, plain white iPod.
Best you can get
Let me start off by saying that I have owned or used many mp3 players. Iriver h120, h320, rca lyra, ipod(not the color one), Creative zen xtra, the new samsung, and many more. The only mp3 player that beats this one is the h120, and you can't buy that one anymore. No software is needed at all. plug it into your cpu, go to my computer, and drag and drop. it took 35 minutes for me to transfer 3200 songs. has fm, fm recorder, and timer for the fm recorder. Nice if you would like to record a morning show or something while your at work. Turns on instantly, great sound quality, easy navigation. People say the albums are not in order, rename your files via musicmatch or what ever and have the track number first. this will solve that problem. You can search for your music or files with the browser function. Very nice if you like a more computer type of navigation. This is currently the best mp3 player on the market, I've only metioned a few features of this player. If your into electronics, this is the player to get. If your more about being cool and don't mind software that controls your music then I would suggest an ipod. In my eyes this player has the ipod beat in every area, with the exception of acceseries. Not to bash the ipod of coursel. Even I'll admit that the ipod is pretty cool and if it wasn't for all of it's restrictions, I would buy one, if there was no iriver of course.

 

1 new or used available from $175.00
  Average customer review:
 (328 customer reviews)

 

Product Description

Creative ZEN Touch 20GB MP3 Player - Includes Creative Zen Touch Player / Pair of Stereo Earphones / Power Adapter / Travel Pouch / USB 2.0 Cable / Installation CD / Quick Start Guide. This palm-size unit can be used to store MP3 and WMA music files or you can download all sorts of data and use it as a portable hard-drive. It's easy to use and a pleasure to own. Simply use an Up-Down movement on the touch pad to navigate the files. The upper and lower portion of the touch pad will enable rapid scrolling of files. The middle portion can be used for normal scrolling speed. Simply press the OK button or tap on the touch pad to open the selected file. Uses USB 2.0 for faster transfer capabilities 4-band custom equalizer and advanced EQ presets let you customize your music playback AudioSync lets you seamlessly update your Creative Zen Touch with your latest music on your PC at the touch of a button FM radio, voice and FM recording via optional wired remote control (available separately) Transfer your CDs - Creative MediaSource (included) converts your CD collection to MP3s or WMAs with the simple touch of a button Store Data Files - Included software lets you drag-and-drop data and music files to and from your Creative Zen Touch inside Windows Explorer Creative's support for WMA and Windows Media Player 9 Series offers you access to the widest selection of music download services on the Internet Size WxHxD - 4.12 x 2.7 x 0.866 / Weight - 7.05 oz with battery Blue backlit LCD

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Customer Reviews

A few things less frequently mentioned
After using the Zen Touch for a few weeks, here are my observations:
1. Most reviewers fail to mention that this is truly an international machine. I have many songs whose ID3 tag uses Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (BIG5, GB) language codes, and the player has no problem recognizing and displaying them--a huge plus for those who carry multilingual music.
2. The player feels very solid on your palm and is smaller (but a bit thicker) than almost all PDA's; it's just a bit wider than a deck of cards.
3. The buttons are neatly placed and faciliates navigation/browsing for music. The menu system is very intuitive and incredibly easy to learn.
4. On the downside, a 3-bar battery indicator can at times be frustrating. When there's 1 bar left, you're not sure whether there's an hour left or 8 hours left (1/3 of the full battery life).
5. Also no drive-letter support and no support, so far, for Windows Explorer.
6. Limited ID3 tag display info for the songs in your player. For instance, an MP3 file's ID3 tag was supposed to tell me the album year; but there's no way to tell once the music is in your player.

If I were to judge:

Design: A- (great form, size, just a bit heavier than ipod)

Performance: A (superb sound for a portable; amazing battery; convenient+fast music transfer)

Features: B (no recording, no line-in, no radio, but again those are not the reasons to get an MP3 player... also no remote)

Service/support: A (responded to my question within couple of hours, friendly support staff, plus 1 year warranty)

Value: A- (there are cheaper players--ie the older Nomads; but for the features/quality this device offers, it's worth it)
Great unit for a Great Price
First off let me say that I'm tired of every MP3 player review always comparing the product in question to the Ipod. The Ipod is NOT the best MP3 Player on the market, and the only reason I would ever recommend the Ipod to someone is if they were using Apple's propietary Itunes and AAC files, in which case you have no choice for what to get, your stuck with the Ipod.

Now back to the Zen Touch. First the size and weight of the player is perfect for just about anyone who uses the MP3 for travel or in thier car. The sound quality is supurb, after you get some new headphones of course. Even though the headphones supplied are kinda junkie, and sound like garbage, that's no reason to judge the Zen badly because if you really love music in the first place your going to get new headphones anyways. The only thing that botherd me for a while was the touch pad, but after messing with the sensitivity settings, I found it to be a great innovation for the unit, as well as making the unit more enjoyable to use. The buttons are placed convienetly enough to make this an easy one handed unit.I also really liked how Creative decided to put a "Random" button instead of having to go though the units settings and choose "Random/Play All" like most of their previous models. The battery life is great, I really don't know about the 24 hour playback since I've only had this unit for 2 days, but I know for a fact that I have played it for almost 18 hours now and the battery still has 2 cells left. Loading your music is a breeze, as well as being able to just hit the "Auto Sync" button to add all your new MP3's/WAV's later on.

All in all I say the Zen Touch is a great unit for just about everyone looking to dump their music collection into an easy to use and navigate MP3 player for a very reasonable price.
"What you really want to know" guide
I bought this item about 2 weeks ago. Here's my Q/A guide. If you have already read other reviews then some of this stuff will not be new. Here it is:

Q: How much did you pay for this item?
A: 200$ for zen touch + 10$ for sennheiser headphones

Q: Is it bigger than Ipod?
A: Yes

Q: Is it big?
A: No, it is small, can easily fit your pocket

Q: Does it look good?
A: Yes, indeed. It does kind of look like an Ipod though.

Q: Is the screen big?
A: Yes, big enough for anybody.

Q: Some people say contrast is too low, is that true?
A: No, you can read the screen without any problem during the day or night.

Q: Are the earphones really `that` bad?
A: Yes, they are really bad.

Q: So should I really buy new ones?(because i'm feeling lazy)
A: Yes, you should. If you pay 220$ for Creative Zen Touch, you really need to pay 10 more bucks for the earphones to get the most out of your player.

Q: One of the biggest problems seems to be the Touchpad - is it hard to use?
A: It's not as easy to get used to as the Ipod. But, you will not go crazy because you cannot stop on one song or menu item. The most that can happen is that you will have to try twice to reach something - which really shouldn't drive you mad. You can get used to it in 1 week after which you will have no problem navigating. You can also try 'high/medium/low' sensitivity settings to see which is best for you.

Q: Does the software really suck?
A: I only use it for moving files from my computer to zen touch and that is basically dragging and dropping. If that is what you are planning to do then I must say it doesn't. I play my music in Windows Media Player so I don't know anything else about Creative Software. Again, if you only use it to transfer music, it will not cause you any trouble.


Q: How is the sound quality?
A: Incredible. and I mean that. just make sure you pay extra 10 bucks for those good earphones.

Q: Can you make playlists, shuffle music, etc?
A: Yes, you can make all those in the player, just add songs to `Now playing` and then select `save as playlist` and you're done. You can choose to shuffle the songs in a playlist, repeat, play normally etc. The random button on the outside shuffles all the songs in your player. If you want to shuffle a playlist, then you just go through a few menus and select. Some people say random button is useless (i was one of these people) but then I started using it a lot. so no, it is not useless.

Q: Do I have to make playlist for every album
A: No, if two songs are in an album, the player automatically puts them together. You can select them by choosing the album. The same applies for artists - if you only want to listen to `coldplay` just select the artist and all of their songs will be in your `now playing` list.

Q: Is there a clock?
A: Yes, but you will need to go through a few menus.

Q: How about the battery, does it go for 24 hours?
A: You need to understand this: the battery goes for 24 hours if you start playing music and don't touch your player for 24 hours. But you will probably use `next` `play/stop` `back` etc. These bring it down to 20 hours if you're an average user. But believe me, 20 hours is still a lot. This player will go on for hours and days.

Q: How long does it take to charge?
A: Around 3 hours.

Q: I own a MAC computer, should I go with Zen touch or Ipod?
A: Ipod.

Q: I own a PC, should I go with Zen touch or Ipod?
A: First, check to see how many .WMA files you have. If you have a lot of these you should go with Zen touch because Ipod does not support .WMA. If you have .mp3 files - both support this common format - then it comes down to other things...

Q: ...which are?
A: Money: Zen touch costs less. You will save a minimum amount of 50$ if you choose zen touch. If you are a student, money is important.
If you DO NOT care about the money, I have to say that you should consider Ipod as an important option. The Zen touch has a higher potential to cause problems which you have to deal with. For example my touch pad sometimes stops working and i have to either use my thumb or put fabric(my tshirt) between the touchpad and my finger. Once, the software took five minutes to recognize the player after I connected it. Also I had to restart the Zen touch once - you don't lose any music and nothing happens but I lost a minute restarting it. As you can guess, these are not big issues, they will make you lose couple of minutes though. I'm not saying Ipod is perfect - probably has little problems like these from time to time BUT I think zen touch seems to have a little more potential to cause problems like these. The warranty is 1 year, not 90 days as some claim, so you can feel comfortable about that. Small problems can sometimes make you angry - for example the touchpad - but just remember that you payed 70 dolars less for 12 more hours of music (i can't even think of charging for 3 hours and then using it for 8-9 hours in return) and a higher sound quality. You do not get any games with your player, but I did not feel their absence yet.

So it will all come down to your decision. If money is an important factor, then don't even consider Ipod, go for the Zen Touch. It is also more suitable to a PC and has great sound quality and incredible battery. Now, you might face a few problems - the player might stop a few times and you'll have to restart it. The touchpad may take a while to get used to or as in my case it might not always work properly. But similar problems could always occur with an ipod, and if you don't like it or there's a problem, you have a 1 year warranty.

You make the last choice. I chose Zen touch and I am happy with it. This player is not perfect, but the fact is there is no perfect player out there yet. so overall, i would recommend this player.