iRiver Lplayer 8GB MP3 player
Small and perfectly formed
Review After the disappointing E100 we're happy to report that iRiver's is getting back into its groove with the second device to hit the UK this year, the tiny Lplayer.
Our first reaction was, 'where the blazes are the controls?' The unit itself is only 60 x 43 x 13mm while the 2in, 320 x 240 screen is, well, small. And you don't need a calculator to work out that the unit is thus only a few millimetres larger than the screen in any given direction.
iRiver's Lplayer: where the blazes are the controls?
The clever thing with the Lplayer is that the entire screen and its bezel is mounted on a four-way pressure pad, so control of the usual iRiver D*Click user interface is accomplished by pushing down on one of the four edges of the screen. OK, at the end of the day it's a sort of a shrunk-in-the-wash version of the Clix, but as a way of maximising the screen:player size ratio it's a tough idea to beat. At 41g, the Lplayer is among the lighter players on the market.
To be honest, the L-Player does have some conventional external controls. Tucked away on the bottom are the on/off switch and the volume control, while around the back is a key-lock slider.
In day-to-day use, the design stands up rather well. To activate the relevant command, a pretty deliberate push is needed to make an adjacent on-screen arrow flash to show the command has been accepted, but this is doubtless a necessary compromise to prevent inadvertent knocks and bumps activating the player.
COMMENTS
iRiver and Cowon
They've always been my two favourite makers of pocket players.
The Apple stuff is too bound to their software to be practical to use for me (I run Linux, sue me). Besides after a year 1/2 with one of their laptops, I don't like their software.
So I'd rather have good sound, support for numerous formats, easy firmware upgrades and a platform agnostic player at the price of an interface that may be a bit quirky at times. Shame that those players are so hard to find. Especially when the Creative ones that are just as quirky and are bound to Windows are ubiquitous, not to mention the Apple ones (which at least have a clean interface).
Currently using a Cowon D2 and happy with it.
Flames because I never agree with anybody
'Snot just the UK
Even here in metric Finland TVs and monitors, shirts and trousers are sold by the inch.
Iriver
@Simon Most people don't know what MB, Mb, GB etc stand for so for a company to say this player is 7.54GB it doesn't sound as good as 8GB.
I like iRiver they make really nice players, i had the iHP-140 back in the day and it's still one of the best mp3 players I've every owned (well helped that i had RockBox on it), currently got the 3rd gen Ipod nano which is, just ok.
Battery Life
Why are manufacturers allowed to lie about battery life? It is about time they all stopped testing thier devices using 64kbs mp3s played at a gnats whisper, and start playing 256K+ files at ear bleeding volume.
Paris as i she will be staring in her own video on the device.
