Excellent portability and sound MP3.WMA.FM player
Written: Mar 18 '04 (Updated Mar 20 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Portability: |
|
|
| Battery Life: |
|
|
|
Pros: Portabilty given minuscule size, sound quality astonishing with the right headphones
Cons: Some software limitations with included software, other minor SW quibbles
The Bottom Line: I can't claim to be a great portable player market expert, but this device has turned me from early skeptic into a convert
|
|
|
| pablo_lie's Full Review: FID Irock 860 (256 MB) MP3 Player |
First of all, this is not only an MP3 player - it plays WMA and FM radio stations as well.
There are quite a few (very positive) reviews on the 830, the 128MB cousin of the irock! 860 which I'd encourage the reader to also browse through, since as far as I can tell the devices are functionally identical with the only difference being the memory capacity, which goes up to a respectable (and not upgradeable) 256MB on this device. Some might think that a limitation, since some people carry their entire music collection and music history on their portable device (typically opting for several GB on Apple products, it seems). My goal is to simply upload a variety of songs from my extensive and treasured CD library for entertainment during business trips. I have also recently started to buy some tracks online using MusicNow. For that purpose, my key requirements are
(a) portability
(b) decent (not excellent) sound quality
(c) a price range that makes me feel like I can knock the device around a little, just throwing it into my briefcase without worrying about it
(d) plug and play operation with Windows Media Player (WMP)
At $129 (and I am told you can get even better deals these days, but don't care to check since it's too late for me), the irock is in the right price range for me. I don't feel I have to look after it like my eyeball, and if it breaks or I lose it, oh well, I just buy another one.
From a sound quality point of view, this device went beyond my wildest expectations. The included ear-buds don't do it any justice, hook up good quality headphones (I have Grado's from the audiophile home stereo setup, and good sounding Aiwa's with noise cancelling that I use on business trips) and the irock! well, uhm, it rocks indeed. There are different listening modes that basically inject different levels of bass and treble boost, and while I am sure the [rock] mode will find many fans, I leave the boost on [flat]. Accuracy in that mode is great. And I don't say this lightly - I fancy myself a bit of an audiophile, with an Accuphase home set-up and an extensive music collection that includes Latin, Jazz, R&B and classical. The irock! performs excellently. The other boost modes are pop, jazz and classical, all injecting varying degrees of sound enhancement which -personally, matter of taste- I can do without.
Controls are so easy even a baby will master them. The on-off button doubles as a play button, you have a song forward/back control, a lock button that prevents any button from operating until you unclick the lock (good if you're carrying this loosely in your pocket with other stuff), a volume control and a loop A-B control (I have little use for the latter, personally). The package includes a leatherette pouch that looks cool, fits very neatly and still allows for great button control (it obliterates the lock button, however), forgettable earbuds (get aftermarket stuff) and a strap so you can carry this around your neck. And CD and documentation, of course.
Installation is a breeze. They include 2 different tools on the CDROM to manage music on your device, namely the aptly named "irock music download manager" (which I chose to install, and I'll call IMDM henceforth) and the Musicmatch Jukebox, which I didn't install.
The IMDM is very simple and works well, it allows you to upload music very quickly. However there were 2 issues that have prevented me from using it much:
(1) Digital rights management with wma files doesn't seem to work reliably. I am a Musicnow subscriber and have bought some tunes, which gives me the right to burn them to CD or upload them to my personal device. However, the IMDM doesn't detect that, and leaves them unplayable. But there's ways around it, and it's -oh surprise- Windows Media Player (WMP). More on that later.
(2) The other problem is that IMDM will refuse to copy directly from CDs to the device, at least on my computers (a very vanilla Sony with WindowsXP HE desktop, and a Sony Picturebook portable).
Thus, I am using WMP to upload songs. Early on WMP would not quite detect the irock! device correctly, having a red question mark on it and refusing to copy songs to the device. But a renewed restart after updating the firmware (to version 2.0.7, I seem to recall) on the irock! lead to things working alright. WMP of course detects I own the songs rightfully and proceeds to copy them to the 860 quite quickly and effectively.
Not all is alright, though: I have defined the 860 as a device that wants its wma files converted to 48kbps sound quality, but WMP just copies the files over in whatever quality they happen to be available on the PC, which typically is 128kbps (stereo hifi quality). Since the files sound very good at 48kbps to my ear on the irock! (there are so many distractions when listening to music on a portable device I don't need the quality to rival an audiophile system), this is somewhat wasteful, but I assume it'll get eventually fixed. Whether it's a WMO or 860 issue I don't know. Henceforth, I shall copy sings from CD as 48kbps onto my computer. But the issue with the songs purchased online, which come at 128kbps, will persist until a fix or I find out if there's something I can do about it.
I mentioned upgrading the firmware, and it's very easy, although not very well documented. You basically have to download the firmware to the right directory yourself, replace the files in there with whatever you downloaded, and then go for "recovery mode", which means holding the "on" button and keeping it held while you connect the USB port, counting to 5, and do as the system henceforth prompts you (with WinXP).
At 48kbps with WMA and the 256MB memory capacity, you get *many* hours of listening. A 4 min song is about 1MB roughly, so you do the math. 200 songs are likely to keep you entertained on long flights, which is exactly what I want. I paired this device up with portable Sony noise canceling MDR-NC11 headphones, and despite the latter's quite extreme sound limitations it is a great roadwarrior combo. I fly to Europe and Japan twice a quarter, and this setup is a friend. Battery life is great, by the way. Haven't made exact caluclations, but they'll last several days of very heavy use, typically a whole 1 week business trip. And that's just from 1 AA battery.
A word about FM reception: it's brilliant in many cases, but has some irritating momentary lapses with less powerful stations, tilting your head might introduce white noise, odd. Overall, it's a revelation, though.
All in all, this is my first forray into a wma and mp3 device, and given the utter ultra-portability of the package I already love it. Forget putting it in your pocket, you can basically clip it behind your ear (OK, I am exaggerating). I am still looking for the best headphones to do this device justice, since the quality of the music coming out of the device truly deserves the best little headphones you can throw at it, then again it'd be silly to defeat portability by carrying around huge headphones.
All in all, despite some minor quibbles with digital music rights management I greatly recommend the 860 as a great combination tat works smoothly with WMP.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 129
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
pablo_lie
|
|
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 1 member
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.