x20 first impression, a bit disappointed

[genexk]

I just got mine today and have been playing with it for the last a couple of hours. I have to say I am disappointed in the control scheme and features it offers. Maybe because I also have H10 and U10 and expect too much of this new x20 model. The the UI looks dark and slick, but the control scheme is really terrible. If you are playing music and not on the now playing screen, there is no way you can go back to now playing or change the volume in just a flip of finger. I got a phone call while playing with x20, and had to struggle for 5 seconds trying to stop the music. For h10 or u10 you can change audio options by holding a key for a second, but on x20 you have all 7 buttons and they don't really do much. When the usb cable is connected, it automatically turn on the player assume you probably need to transfer files, but you don't get the option of charging only or play and charge. The player doesn't have a reset button, but I guess one can always take out the battery to do a reset. The biggest thing I hate about x20 is it's lack of text reading feature. Maybe it is just me, I like to put txt files on my mp3 player and read. However x20 doesn't even have this feature. I wouldn't expect too much of getting more features from firmware upgrades, as iriver has never done so in the past. One other concern is the hold switch is really lose, feels like it could fall off any time.
Well sorry it's mostly complaints. It's not a u10/clix, but it doesn't mean it should not be well designed.
I do like the microSD slot and the external speaker, but other than that it's pretty standard. Oh and I do love mr. cable.

update: I found the x20 doesn't work well with Japanese and Chinese tags, only about 10% chinese tags are displayed correctly, 0% japanese, even the player language is set to japanese. Does anyone has a work arround for this?

[Harry the Dirty Dog]

Interesting you say that. I've had by X20 8gb for three weeks now and I'm very pleased with it. I don't have a problem with the navigation of the unit - the scroll wheel works well and I get around the menus without problems.

Sound is great, the video quality is good enough that I can watch tv episodes on the train home.

[genexk]

well, it is not a bad player, but when places side by side with others, it's not good enough. Harry I agree with you that the sound and video is decent. 30 fps is always better than my old u10's 15 fps framerate. However I don't use the video function much as it take a lot of cpu cycles to convert the video format.

Originally Posted by Harry the Dirty Dog

Interesting you say that. I've had by X20 8gb for three weeks now and I'm very pleased with it. I don't have a problem with the navigation of the unit - the scroll wheel works well and I get around the menus without problems.

Sound is great, the video quality is good enough that I can watch tv episodes on the train home.

[matthewcyh]

I can get all my Chinese and Japanese tag to be displayed correctly. The way I did it is to use iriver plus 3 to type the tag again. I have also had a few Japanese songs and their tag do not have any problem. (although I have to retype them)

Sorry for the reflection issue of the screen, just to show you that Japanese tag can be displayed properly. I also update the firmware to 1.04. (Its connection type must be in MTP during update, although I switch it back to MSC after update)

Hope this help.

[kasabian]

I liked it at first, but I am going off it. I dunno if mine is faulty or if it just has tons of quirks.

The menu scroll is really laggy the more you put on it. An external card installed makes it take almost a min to boot, EVERY time. When I set it to play a certain album, odds on when I switch it on again it has reset to playing all tracks on the player. Album Art is hugely hit n miss, it either just works or takes half a dozen add/remove of the .JPG before it appears. The EQ are a total waste of time, good God iRiver, this player is screaming out for some kind of AGC or Volume Normalize whatever they want to call it to remove that break up of bass. Firmware upgrades are few and far between and do nothing when they are released. And it turns off for no reason and at random intervals. The Cowon iAudio D2 updates allowed support for FLAC - Monkey Audio and SDHC cards! Not 100% on Monkey and FLAC, deffo supports SDHC though. All in it just bugs me, I used my old Zen Micro the other day, and the X20 kills it for sound quality, but the Creative "Just Worked". Those new Creative Zens look mighty tempting at this point. Use the X20 for when I am in bed.

[blacksunday]

I personally am pretty satisfied with my new x20 but some of the things genexk mentioned have bothered me too. I used to have an h10 and loved the way that you could go straight to the song that was playing with the press of a button instead of navigating through the menu. Also in the h10, if you were on the artists list and went to do something else and then came back to artists, you didn't have to scroll through the whole list to find where you were. These are the main problems I have with this; nothing major but I'd be a lot more satisfied if the next firmware upgrade addressed these although I really doubt it will.

and had to struggle for 5 seconds trying to stop the music. For h10 or u10 you can change audio options by holding a key for a second, but on x20 you have all 7 buttons and they don't really do much. When the usb cable is connected, it automatically turn on the player assume you probably need to transfer files, but you don't get the option of charging only or play and charge. The player doesn't have a reset button, but I guess one can always take out the battery to do a reset. The biggest thing I hate about x20 is it's lack of text reading feature. Maybe it is just me, I like to put txt files on my mp3 player and read. However x20 doesn't even have this feature. I wouldn't expect too much of getting more features from firmware upgrades, as iriver has never done so in the past. One other concern is the hold switch is really lose, feels like it could fall off any time.
Well sorry it's mostly complaints. It's not a u10/clix, but it doesn't mean it should not be well designed.
I do like the microSD slot and the external speaker, but other than that it's pretty standard. Oh and I do love mr. cable.

update: I found the x20 doesn't work well with Japanese and Chinese tags, only about 10% chinese tags are displayed correctly, 0% japanese, even the player language is set to japanese. Does anyone has a work arround for this?

[sbenno]

hey guys,
ive had mine for about 2 months now and I can't say ive got that much of a problem with it. yer, the load up times are quite long which can be annoying, but it doesn't bother me that much.
as to changing volume, why don't you just leave it on the "now playing" screen while you listen to music? I suppose there would be times when im listening to music that I might not be on that screen, but it sure wouldn't be enough to bother me. I don't find the volume controls to be a problem at all.
the whole USB charging thing is a little annoying, but i found once, when my laptop was on hibernate, that the x20 did charge and play at the same time [EDIT: I haven't been able to replicate this, may be i was dreaming :P] . maybe thats something you can use, maybe not. I haven't tried to configure it in any different way, so i can't tell you how to fix it.
Im pretty sure you can buy wall adaptors for the usb charger, maybe it could work that way. I haven't tried it, but it could work.

[WaterWolf]

I have a standard usb wall adapter. It cost me $0.01 off amazon. When the x20 is plugged into it, it will search for a computer. If it can't find one then it will just go into standard mode and you can play music while it charges.