iRiver S100
A simple design of minimal but sensible controls and a vibrant 2.8in display leaves a positive impression of the S100, boosted even further by a better-than-average battery life and broad range of supported formats. The S100’s radio functionality soars above the rest with the inclusion of a DAB tuner. It can tricky to find a radio signal, but you do have the ability to record the programmes you can find.
There are some dull games built in too, and the sound's not all that impressive either. Various EQ settings boost the audio well, but despite changing the supplied headphones for beastlier alternatives, the S100’s output remained uninspiring. Not to say it was bad, just not special either. Other than that, it ticks every box and although on the expensive side, remains a dignified choice.
Reg Rating 75%
Price £130 (4GB) £150 (8GB)
Audio Support MP3, WMA, Ogg, ASF, Flac, Ape
Video Support Avi, MP4, WMV
More Info iRiver
Philips Go Gear Muse
Philips’ GoGear Muse instantly impresses with a stainless-steel body of substantial, but reassuring, weight, and its slick-looking 3.2in, 480 x 320 touchscreen. But dig deeper and the Muse begins to disappoint. Button actions feel clunky, the software lags and long videos are sometimes stuck loading until the device is reset.
Any fresh wallpaper you've set is reset when the gadget is powered off. A minor bug, yes, but still an annoying one that shows a lack of care on the part of Philips.
Nevertheless, the GoGear's audio quality is superb, even with the supplied headphones, which are better than most. The vast file support helps to justify the price though and with the inclusion of a touchscreen, HDMI output and Micro SD expansion up to 32GB, the Muse remains a likeable device.
Reg Rating 80%
Price £100 (8GB) £130 (16GB) £180 (32GB)
Format Support WMA, MP3, Wav, AAC, Ogg, Flac, APE
Format Support MPEG4, H.264, RMVB, WMV
More Info Philips
Next page: Samsung YP-R1
COMMENTS
But...
"However, without the distraction of ringtones and txt msgs, they have space to focus on getting the rest right and your phone doesn't suffer from a low battery life."
But now you have twice as many things to carry around and clutter up the house with chargers for. Also, the reason I've not had a PMP or MP3 player since I got a phone which could play music (I still have a Neuros III in the basement somewhere, my last one) - if you're using a separate player, when your phone rings, you have to get player out of pocket, pause player, remove earphones, get phone out of pocket, answer phone, finish conversation, hang up phone, put phone in pocket, put earphones back in ears, unpause player, return player to pocket.
If you use a phone with a headset, your music pauses, you press a button on the headset, finish your call, and your music unpauses.
I'm really not dealing with that bloody faffing about.
Someone once very briefly made a range of PMPs with bluetooth support so you could pair them with your phone and get the convenience you get if you just use your phone to listen to music. But then you lose battery life on both phone and player by having Bluetooth turned on all the time.
Really, it's a lot less hassle to just use a phone with good music/video (if you care about video) capabilities.
Re: "There is no such NDA."
Second clause of the Apple NDA: "Always deny the existence of the NDA".
FLAC
Agreed - I was thinking of upgrading my excellent and cheap Fuze at some point and the Sony looked good, but lack of FLAC support kills it for me.
The old version of the Fuze is better than the new one - that's why I was conidering jumping ship - that crappy 'touch' interface bandwagon is one I want no part of: with my Fuze's mechanical wheel, I leave it in my pocket and can navigate next and previous tracks, pause/play and adjust the volume with a single thumb. None of the touch-screen/touch button interfaces allow this.
Sometimes older and crappier is much better!
whats the point?
seriously, whats the oint with these devices? they are mobile phone form factor/size and yet they can just play video and audio.
my smartphone does that - and a whoel lot more too. AND it was less than 150 quid.
I really cant see the future for these devices - as i said, smartphones do all of this - and have 3.5 or 4 inch screens, OMLED , can play all kinds of formats.... or you get an App installed which does more. and he prices of such devices are coming down. eg ZTE Blade - under 100 quid for Android phone
All these toys
doing more or less the same thing - pmp, phone, ipad
What I want is to pay for my portable PC once, only once and not have to pay two or three times for the same drm'ed music to be copied amongst them and listed by the same ears.
One Life, One Pocket!
