iRiver : great products, poor ergonomy, NO support.

[Tetedeiench]

Hello everybody. I hope i'm using the right section to post this.

I'm a *unhappy* iHP-140 (H140 ) owner. English is not my native language so please excuse all the spelling mistakes i'll certainly do.

Unhappy because of what ? Well, not because of the product itself. Looking good, effective, has good autonomy, and alot of advantages i'll not cover here again and again. I'll just talk about the company ho built it, iRiver, and about ergonomy on their product.

I mean, is iRiver really professionnal ? Look at all their firmware promises they did : end of May => Nothing . End of july/Beginning of october : only the iFp one was released ( grrr ). and i'm REAL TIRED of waiting.

Why am i so impatient about this firmware ? I'm not interested in the gapless function, so... why ? Well, for the ergonomy. i'd like a iRiver fan explain me some points :

-What is the point is changing the equalizer in just ONE click ? The ones among us that changes equalizers with every song must be real rare... so why did they put a shortcut for it, shortcut that can be TOO EASILY trigger and thus is a real pain in the ass ?
-What is the point of this "Total : xxx" screen ? None. I mean, who really cares about the # of songs they have on their recorder... ah, ah. vital to know. Actually, this screen shouldn't even have been implemented. It is just a HUGE mistake in ergonomy. Why ?
-i want to change songs. But not while playing another one. I have to press Stop then the browse button again : Yeeeeeeeeha. that's ease of use.
-if i am at the root directory and press stop by mistake POOF i go to this fucking screen again and start over : cool.
They definitly could have removed this screen. Then you startup in the browsing mode, and stay into it whatever you do around ( that's rather obvious for me). Why is it not for them ?
-Why can i jump from directory to directory while playing using the easy REC button on the remote, and NOT while browsing ?????? how frustrating !!!
-Why do i have to be on this USELESS "Total" screen to be able to view my playlists ?? and not browsing nor playing another song ? Ah, call that ergonomy.

So yes, my opinion is, the H series are a great product. But, when you add it overall, it is REALLY not that great. It has NO ERGONOMY. Period. it was thought by a programmer, a guy which thought "is it easy enough to program ?", which was lazy to death "oh god, why bother implementing the jump-to-directory button in browsing mode...". Why would someone buy something which is a pain in the ass to control ? Why ? I basically have no idea...

Worse, iRiver is annoncing firmwares again and again, with astonishing new great features... but what are they going to do to the "unfinished" bad flavour that are tasting all of their current users ?

Why are they so INCOMPETANT that they cannot respect their own delays, and seems like they're gonna do it twice ? No matter how they call it. it's incompetence. Period. They may have excuses. But hey, when i got something to do at work, and when i put a deadline, i am taking those imperatives into account. And my boss doesn't care about them : he wants me to do it in time. period. Same here is happening for this "company". Arf. What a SHAME !

Worse ! They haven't communicated yet about what changes they did to browsing. Will they finally fix the SERIOUS FLAWS that prevent users from FULLY ENJOYING their products ? Did they fire the guy who dared present us with such a crappy way of controlling the iHp ? I hope they will. Oh yes. I hate this guy.

Anyway, yes, i am an unhappy customer. Yes, because of all these i regret i've bought an iHp. Yes, next time i won't do the same mitake. Because it is a mistake. What is the point of buying a product that's not easy to use, or even CONSISTANT in its OWN way of handling it and dealing with it ? Blah.

Anyway, if you've read it that far, thanks, and i have to say i'm impressed. I don't think much people will read this post entirely. So well...

Tetedeiench

[austonia]

Now this is my kind of thread. heh.

Have to agree with you on the support issue. Obviously, they shouldn't have made promises they can't keep. And the features they are promising are vital to keep the iHP current among a sea of other players that are getting more advanced. I'm sure some people even bought thier H100 player assuming that the new features would be added as iRiver promised. No one's even sure at this point if there will be any update. The delay, I'm sure, is because of thier new product rollout. They have so many new things coming out this year, taking up the time of thier engineers.

But still nothing like the H100. The H300 doesn't really count IMO because it's not being sold worldwide and it's mode multimedia-focused.

About ergonomy, yeah, it's no secret that there's many, many things that could be better implemented on the H100 to make it easier and more efficient to use. Your gripes aren't all the same as mine, but not far off either.
- For me, the one thing that just bugs the living hell outa me, is the File/Folder Browsing screen. Fully 30% of the screen is wasted on stupid File icons, reducing the amount of space left to display text.
- Then there's the 52-character limit on importing tracks into its iD3 tag database, effectively rendering it useless for me.
- The iHP should be able to scan the tracks and build its own database anyway, that's how I thought it worked till I got it and found out you had to use a PC app to build the database. Even RCA has managed this feature, and new Rio products will have it as well.
- The play control buttons should remain play control buttons in all screens, it's dumb that they change function in the Browser since they are only duplicating navigation control that's allready handled by the Joystick.
- on-the-fly playlisting. Hello, iRiver, this is a basic feature.
- etc etc etc I've said it all before

I do like the H140, much more now than when I first got it, in part due to it being one of the only 40gb players of its size. Adding some foam on the top of the joystick greatly improved its ease of use for me, but it's baffling how it got by iRiver in its default state. The File/Folder browsing is a nice change (though less efficient) from my other players that use iD3-tag databasing. The recording features are nice to have on tap, but not often useful. Voice recording is the best of 4 DAPs I tested. Mass Storage Complience is useful as always. And I like the black design with chrome accents, although I would have preferred a matching black case.

The H100 is a hugely mixed bag. It's fairly impressive for thier first player, but it's aging now, and I know they can do better...

[Arm_The_Homeless]

Okay, where to start...

First of all, what exactly does ergonomy mean or refer to? Sorry if that's a dumb question, but I can't honestly say I've ever even heard of that word before. Now onto the complaints:

-What is the point is changing the equalizer in just ONE click ? The ones among us that changes equalizers with every song must be real rare... so why did they put a shortcut for it, shortcut that can be TOO EASILY trigger and thus is a real pain in the ass ?

Well, turns out I'm one of those people. Unless I'm doing something that completely takes my attention away from the music, I'm changing equalizer settings every 1-5 songs probably. Especially if I have the player on shuffle. If I'm listening to an awesome album that just flows on its own then maybe not, but there are very few albums that I don't find myself changing equalizer settings every few songs.

-What is the point of this "Total : xxx" screen ? None. I mean, who really cares about the # of songs they have on their recorder... ah, ah. vital to know. Actually, this screen shouldn't even have been implemented. It is just a HUGE mistake in ergonomy. Why ?

I like it...I'd rather look at that as a main screen than the root menu. I think it's refreshing after trolling through your music collection.

-i want to change songs. But not while playing another one. I have to press Stop then the browse button again : Yeeeeeeeeha. that's ease of use.

If I understand this question correctly, you can queue a song while another song is playing without stopping the song currently playing. Just click the navi button, browse to the file you want, and press the A/B button. The selected song will play when the song currently playing finishes, or as soon as you pres right on the joystick.

[quote]
-if i am at the root directory and press stop by mistake POOF i go to this farking screen again and start over : cool.
[/qoute]
As I said before, I like that screen. I (and others) like to see how many songs are on my player every once in a while.

-Why can i jump from directory to directory while playing using the easy REC button on the remote, and NOT while browsing ?????? how frustrating !!!

No comment. I rarely use the remote.

-Why do i have to be on this USELESS "Total" screen to be able to view my playlists ?? and not browsing nor playing another song ? Ah, call that ergonomy.

Maybe that'll change with the new firmware with the OTF playlists. Who knows.

Why would someone buy something which is a pain in the ass to control ? Why ? I basically have no idea...

I happen to like the controls...sure, there could be some minor adjustments made, but nothing that would change my decision to buy my H140. If you hate it that much, then go buy an iPod. Enjoy their simplistic controls and menus, because the H1xx is just SOOOOO hard to control.

At this point, I don't think there are many people who don't want the firmware. Sh*t happens. Sure the progress updates could've been better, but iRiver especially have many things to worry about other than H series firmware. I'm not implying that it's not important or anything, but it will eventually show up. It'll improve the players, but it's not anything absolutely vital that no one will be able to live without. That's where I'm at now. I was mad at the beginning, but at this point I've just sat back and relaxed. I look for it every time I open up my browser to the Mistic home page, and one day it'll be there and I'll install it and I'll be that much happier with my player. But until that day, I'll live with how it functions now, and I'm still certain I have the best mp3 player on the market.

I'm done my rant (I assume this will be moved over to Rants & Raves very shortly). Just relax, listen to some reggae or ska or something else you enjoy, and everything will be fine...

[winty]

Originally Posted by Arm_The_Homeless

First of all, what exactly does ergonomy mean or refer to?

AFAIK the word doesn't exist. The intended word is ergonomics, which is the state of being easy to use or well designed. e.g. the iHP is a very ergonomic machine.

IMHO the iHP is better than the Creative Zen in terms of this. However, the king of all DAPs I've used in terms of ergonomics is the PJB100. You just can't argue with 4 huge buttons and an enormous screen.

[Arm_The_Homeless]

Whoops, my bad...shoulda figured that was what it referred to, but that went right over my head. Once I got into the groove of ranting, I didn't even look back on it.

I think the best example of iRiver's troubles is the stock chart that seadzz has posted a few times. "If you invested $1 back in March, you'd have 35 cents now." Well, they seem to be doing well :P

[danielo]

Well if you can't manage using the H 140, then sell it to someone who likes music and go buy an easy ipod! Even Babies like you can use them

I find the H serie great, and easy to use. It could be better, ok, but everything on world could be better...

[nelliep]

[quote] Even Babies like you can use them [quote]

I don't see the point in calling someone a baby when you don't agree with them, even if it is followed with a smiley. Navigation preferences are always going to differ but if everyone liked exactly the same thing then we would only need one player.

Personally, I wish firmware for the H series was open source then users could be proactive in the changes and ergonomics. I had rockbox on my archos and the list of features was amazing when compared to the original. It even catered for the blind with "talkbox" which, as a sighted user, was very useful when driving.

[kero]

I agree with most of Tetedeiench's points. Some of the navigation could be slightly improved, but it's no reason to hate probably the best mp3 player on the market. I would like to see a few more options in the new firmware that allow you to customize the navigation a bit more. If you truly hate the startup screen showing the # of files and folders, then it would be a good thing to have the option to boot straight to the filetree. Or what would be better is if the filetree could be viewed fullscreen without the bar on the left that occupies 30% of the screen. Of course these things aren't really necessary and I would much rather have the ability to make OTF playlists and gapless playback. Soon enough iRiver will deliver.

[seadzz]

Overall there is nothing wrong with the current H100 series player that could not be resolved with good firmware and a redesigned remote control.

I have to agree that it is argueable the most potentially full featured HD player out there today. Yes the lack of a colour lcd screen may be some minor point to some but I purchased a music player...not a music or picture viewer.

For support, after sale service by iRiver has been outstanding. I have yet to hear someone post that iRiver refused to fix or replace a player even if kicked, dropped, frozen or otherwise buggered by the user. They have replaced or fixed 100% of units no questions asked.

If you are a lyrics fan you should be thrilled out of your undies with iRiver...they have had at least three firmware or software upgrades in the last year. The only problem with iRiver is they are seeming to lose sight of their target market and are trying to make the product do all things for all people.

I would not be shocked to see a built in coffee maker being added into the next firmware upgrade if someone asked for it.

jmho,

sdz

[rob_rd]

Oh dear. I would think that in buying a music player you would be more concerned with the sound quality etc. rather than the... "ergonomy" of the player. If your so annoyed with it go and buy a shiny i-pod, which will enable you to play a track with one button rather than two etc., yet with the knowledge you are buying a player designed for the sort of person who cares more about "ergonomy" than the sound, build, and overall quality of the i-river.

[pomegranate]

These are all more or less fair points regarding the iHP...but I think you're making far more of a fuss about them than is necessary...they are minor issues that don't really effect the core operation of the player. The only thing "preventing (you) from FULLY ENJOYING" what is, overall, a quality player is a need to chill the hell out.

Just to point out, I'm pretty certain that if you asked people if they wanted one-click equalizer switching, more people would say, "yeah" or "not bothered either way", than would say "no". Just my guess.

[RobS]

I have owned my HP120 for about 3 weeks and although I have only used it to actually play music for half a dozen sessions (too busy recording stuff on to it at the moment) I have to say that whilst initially difficult to learn each of the remote button's 4-5 functions...I have got the hang of it. Being able to do EVERYTHING from the remote can only be a good thing....it will allow you to wrap the main unit in the safest case money can buy and protect it from harm permanently......per haps the only time you will ever see the unit is when you want to charge it up...such is the versatility of the remote. iRiver should be applauded for this.

With regard to the EQ setting being easy to change accidentally, yes I noticed that too.......it's a shame that iRiver didn't offer the same thing with the EQ settings menu page what they do with the shuffle/repeat settings menu.....namely that you can highlight which ones you want to appear everytime you press the relevant selection button. At the moment if you accidently knock the EQ changer you have to press it about 10 times to get back to the setting you had it on.....by implementing the same feature as the shuffle/repeat setting menu you could reduce this down to as few as 1 or 2 eq settings to toggle between.

[y0da]

Just because he has gripes with the player doesn't mean you guys should be screaming at him to take it or leave it a little civility would be welcome here...lets not turn this inot the ipod lounge or the izoo...........

tetediench... i feel your frustration hopefully the firmware will address your concerns...but even if it doesn't your going to have to decide if these are deal breaker issues to you...there are going to be some things that are fixed and somethings that aren't and every player is going to have something you don't like about it..i suggest forgeting about it for the time being and seeing what the firmware will do for you ...and worse case scenerio research to see if there is a player with an interface that suits your needs

[Tetedeiench]

Sorry for the delays : i was at work, and then watching... well, you know what it is

By ergonomy i was talking about ergonomics yes, how easy the thing is to manipulate, handle in a day to day use.

That's real important for me. Why ? There's alot of MP3 players out there that can play MP3 with high quality. More : i'm almost deaf ( na not really, but don't ask me to find ANY difference between a MP3 64Kbit and a 128Kbit... can't do anything about it), so well, i don't care about noise being added by the remote to the sound etc... i just can't tell wether it is great or not.

Even if you're listening to your player... how do you choose your music ? You're not using the interface built in, maybe ? Arf. Have the most wonderful thing, with the best sound quality around, and which is a pain in the ass to handle : is it still great ? nah, i don't think so. When i'm using my player, i want it to do what i want and with the less pain possible. Is it doing it ? No !

I mean, come on. Even by thinking, let's say, 2 minutes, the dumbest guy on the world can realize the "Total : XXX" screen is totally pointless. yes it might be useful to know every now and then how many MP3 files you got. Ok, i can understand. But, is it a reason to show it everyday ? It's a MP3 player, not a removable hard disk with statistics.

What is the point of this screen ? None. Basically none. It's part of the ergonomy : they could get rid of it easily and it would be great for us users just to do it. Will they do it ? most likely not. Is there going to be a firmware upgrade soon ? Are there still people out there who can possibly BELIEVE this ? bah.

Lemme demonstrate 2 ( only two, there's more ) points in what i call "ease-of-use problems" :

1st :
-you are in directory CD1, playing a song. You wanna go to the directory CD2. You press the great button A-B, poof, you jump to the other directory.
-You are in directory CD1, not playing a song, just browsing. You wanna go to directory CD2. YOu HAVE TO press "stop", then go right, then press "PLAY". WOOHOO that's what i call being consistant.

2nd :
-you are playing a song, using a Playlist. You wanna change your playlist, let's say, jump from playlist "Rock" to "Techno". You have to stop playing ( press stop), then press the playlist button, choose your playlist, then validate. Wanna see your playlist while playing a song ? Are you dreaming ? bah

I reported alot of those inconsistencies. The fact that the "Total" screen is pointless is evident for everybody i guess, except for the guy who like having always shown how many MP3 files he's got... arf. Hopefully, we're not all like this

Anyway. That's what separate a good product from a "average" product : it's called "professionalism ". Do you think, truly think iRiver has any ? By daring release such a good product with such a NON-FINISHED firmware ? By making promises every now and then about a fake, non-existant fiormware, and by justifying these delays by "boohoohoo, sorry, we have alot of things to do, ya know, so well..." . hey guys, i don't care how many products you're launching, personally. I really don't care. That's none of my business, that's YOURS. So well, when you make a promise, when you release a date, please, take EVERY FACTOR into account ( it is not that hard...) and make a REALISTIC one, or at least, fix a goal you're going to get. Otherwise... well. I won't tell you what i think. Better this way. Newbies.

For those who tell me to buy an iPod : i tested one for 2 weeks before buying an iRiver. In terms of ease-of-use, professionalism, and all terms you can find : iPod wins. Period. In terms of features : iRiver wins. Period. I couldn't keep the iPod due to its weak compatibility, in terms of USB recognition as a hard disk... i needed that for work, so well, as i was going to replace my (crappy) archos...

They could so easily beat the ipod on this part. They already got more features. A better product in terms of hardware in my opinion. Even more buttons globally speaking, and a great remote control. But that's just hardware. Think about a pentium 4 3Ghz EE with a X800Pro running under... windows31+dos6.0. That 's how i see the iHP. God, i developped quite an interface, it is not that hard to make things easy for the user. What the user is gonna use BEFORE listening to any music he's got, is using your interface to choose which music he wants.

Oh yes, you can still day "blah we are going to implement "on-the-fly" playlist blabla". Why don't you first do the basic work CORRECTLY ? Why don't you, iRiver, put some CONSISTENCY into the way the iHP is interfaced ? Tell me ? Why ?

I don't understand that.

I don't think that windows would have been a success if, in order to launch, let's say, Internet explorer, you had to type in a command line window : "Start Internet Explorer", and in a case sensitive way. Same thing here.

Anyway, i'm doubtful, sceptic about what will happen next. Time will tell. But i wonder how people can say the iHP is really easy to use. I really don't know.

[Arm_The_Homeless]

The total screen... let's all just hate iRiver for creating it because it's just such a gargantuan hassle to click the joystick once to get into the root menu. It shows battery life, equalizer settings, and all the info about the song that's currently playing. From what I've read that's one of your biggest complaints. If you can seriously go on complaining about things like that then don't buy an mp3 player. Actually, don't buy any kind of device that uses any kind of explorable interface. Someone will always find something wrong with it. If they got rid of the total screen, I'd be mad. So if iRiver do that, how about I start a thread complaining about how iRiver removed that screen?

The firmware: you are definitely not the only person who owns an iRiver and feels this way. But it's not going to help to b*tch and complain until it's finally released. H owners aren't the only thing iRiver as a company has to worry about. So I completely understand that they really screwed up on the whole firmware issue. It will come, whether it be from iRiver or from third party sources with hacked firmware.

I couldn't keep the iPod due to its weak compatibility, in terms of USB recognition as a hard disk... i needed that for work

If you only needed the recognition at work, the just install whatever driver and/or software need to be installed for it to be recognized. If that's the only complaint you have about the iPod then I'd suggest selling you iRiver and buying another one of those. I haven't heard any mention of you needing recording, radio, or support for music formats other than mp3, so then why does it matter to you that iRiver has more features? You obviously want the most simple stripped down player on the market.

Anyway. That's what separate a good product from a "average" product : it's called "professionalism ". Do you think, truly think iRiver has any ? By daring release such a good product with such a NON-FINISHED firmware ?

Yes I do think they have profesionalism (I'll refrain from talking further about "professionalism " here). The firmware is finished. I'd rather have useful features like gapless and on-the-fly than a more simplistic user interface (which will appear soon with all the recent developments in regards to stripwax and his reversed firmware). The only problem that I have with the current display is the folders on the left side of the menu that take up a lot of room on the screen. And I'n not even that worried about that, because I use the player to listen to music, not as something that I stare at in my free time or tell my friends about the ease of use of the interface. Features that enhance the music are more important to me than add ons that enhance the interface.

I don't think that windows would have been a success if, in order to launch, let's say, Internet explorer, you had to type in a command line window : "Start Internet Explorer", and in a case sensitive way. Same thing here.

It's be more like Microsoft putting the "forward" and "back" buttons into the file menu or something. There is no way that much of a hassle to use.

And just for the record: my H140 is easy to use.

[pomegranate]

1st :
-you are in directory CD1, playing a song. You wanna go to the directory CD2. You press the great button A-B, poof, you jump to the other directory.
-You are in directory CD1, not playing a song, just browsing. You wanna go to directory CD2. YOu HAVE TO press "stop", then go right, then press "PLAY". WOOHOO that's what i call being consistant.

Er, what? Perhaps I'm missing something... The A-B button is for queueing songs to be played. When press the button, it queues up the song that is selected, and it goes back to the front screen. In the second instance: I'm in a directory, browsing. I want to go to the next directory. I press back (left), scroll down the list, then press the joystick button in to enter the folder. This IS consistent.

Please note: I like to be polite, but I can't think of anything more appropriate to say than READ THE GODDAMN MANUAL!

2nd :
-you are playing a song, using a Playlist. You wanna change your playlist, let's say, jump from playlist "Rock" to "Techno". You have to stop playing ( press stop), then press the playlist button, choose your playlist, then validate. Wanna see your playlist while playing a song ? Are you dreaming ? bah

Admittedly, this is a bit of an oversight, but I hardly think it's as fatal as you're making out. I think it's a fair assumption that if you're choosing a playlist, you don't want to listen to the current music anymore....

Sure, the iHP has some interface...errors, eccentricities, call them what you want. But if you actually take the care to figure out how to use it, you'll find they're insignificant. It's not an iPod, but it's not a nuclear power station either.

Call me whimsical, but I kind of like the file count at the front, only because it's a nice reminder of what I've got in my hand. It doesn't really add anything to the "ergonomy" of the player, but it doesn't actively take anything away either.
A further note, I don't think (in the six months I've owned it), I have once pressed the equalizer button unintentionally. How often has this tragedy befallen you? Do you have six fingers? If so, I apologise for my insensitivity.

rant over

[pokecapn]

You're mentioning all of your instructions to do things as if you were using the remote. Keep in mind that the iRiver is the only music player with a remote that you can use to browse for songs when you say that iRiver has no concern for ease of use!

Also, there's no "next directory" function for the iPod, so I don't see how you can even say that you'd rather have the iPod's interface if you wanted to skip directories all the time. Have you even used an iPod before? Hopping around from track to track is very awkward on the iPod because of the way they both structure the browsing method and organize the files.

[Tetedeiench]

Originally Posted by pomegranate