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iRiver iFP-899

After a little research and weighing the pros/cons of a hard disk based player like an iPod, I ordered a 1 GB flash-based iRiver iFP-899 from Best Buy for $169 + tax - $20 rebate.

During my reasearch, I had a hard time figuring out the differences between the iFP-7xx series and the iFP-8xx series. They were priced pretty much the same, but the 8xx series was harder to find. I'm happy to say iRiver America was quick to reply to a query on the issue even though their web site fell short of explaining things:

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Your Question/Problem:
Email Date:06/06/2005 10:52 pm
Sent to:support@iriveramerica.com
From:xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject:iFP-799 vs iFP-899 Whats the difference?

What is the difference between the 700 and 800 series players? Ive looked at the info on both the iFP-799 and the iFP-899 and I cant figure out what the difference is between them. What gives?

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iriver Response: (06/07/2005 08:56)
Hello,

The iFP-800 series and iFP-700 series have a different cosmetic design. The iFP-800 series is available exclusively at Best Buy, BestBuy.com, and the iRiver America eStore. The iFP-700 series is available at a variety of locations including Circuit City, Sears, Amazon.com, and the iRiver America eStore.

Both series of players offer the same features, options, etc.The only difference is only in design, and where the series are sold.

Thank you,
Tech Support

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Cool, thanks for the response. Newegg had the 799 cheaper than the 899 at Best Buy (and no tax), but Best Buy had the $20 rebate which made it cheaper and I could have it the same day.

I picked it up on the way home from work that night. Mostly I getting it to use as a player and perhaps recorder for our upcoming trip to Alaska and perhaps a podcast if I can scrape an idea together. I'm sure it'll also replace my Discman for lawnmowing duty.

Like others, I'm finding the little nav button to be 'quirky,' to put it nicely. I'm getting used to navigating the menus, though. It starts to make sense after a while. The biggest gripe is that it's just tough to get a direct downward press on the joysick button instead of inadvertantly pressing it in one direction or another.

I replaced the firmware with the UMS version so I can use it as a jump drive instead of being tied to the iRiver music manager (Windows) and not being able to download things back off the player. That's working fairly well, but what I hear is that transfer via UMS is slower than the default protocol. Also, and of minor importance to me, the UMS firmware loses the ability to set FM tuner presets on the PC. Oh darn.

I was hoping it would happily work with my linux box, but while moving some large files, the connection hung. I'm not blaming the iRiver just yet, I've seen some similar wonk on the linux side of things before. We'll see if I can work that out.

The recording features seem decent, though admittedly I haven't really tested those out yet. Though that's how most people seem to use the device, so it must be pretty good. I have done a few test recordings off FM and it's pretty cool if not entirely practical for me.

So far, the best feature for blazing though a backlog of podcasts it the ability to speed up audio playback. Cranked all the way up to a setting of "9", it seems to shave about 10 seconds off every minute. Most podcasts are still intelligible at this rate (unless they weren't intelligible to start with) unless they're group casts like Urban Family Night. Even a bantering duo like Dawn and Drew gets a little tough at that rate, so for them, I back it down to "5".

I pretty much squeezed out the advertised 40 hours of playback from the included Duracell AA bettery. And that was with a lot of file transfer and song jogging (and the assiciated backlighting). I'm currently burning through a heavily used 1850 mAh NiMH battery and I should get around 30 or so hours from this.

So far, I like. This thing is tiny, functional, and the earbuds are pretty decent.

Posted by oblivion at June 11, 2005 10:37 AM | Technorati Tags: