iRiver H10 5GB 6GB and 20GB Audio Jukebox Information and Full Review

iriver H10 - what capacity does that sound like to you?

Breaking with normal naming conventions iriver have decided to call their 5GB unit the H10. This is despite the fact that earlier models, e.g. the H140, strove to state the capacity in the name (40 GB in this illustration).

H10 clearly implies 10GB, so why is it 5GB? Or 6GB? Or 20GB? What's wrong with calling it a H5? Or H6? Is that Korean for something nasty?

There is an optical illusion when looking at a picture of the H10. It looks as if it could be the shape of a table tennis bat. Don't let that put you off reading. It is not. That's only the screen and the slide-bar down the centre. The rest of The jukebox is physically there too, albeit in a different colour.

2,500 songs is the number that iRiver is claiming for the H10's capacity. That is just about possible in OGG but not really in MP3, unless every song is less than 2 minutes long.

The real story about this player is the colour screen of course. The iRiver H10 was the first to integrate a colour screen into this "mid section" of MP3 player capacity. No doubt Apple et all will follow suit claiming that they intended to do so all along. Well, iRiver have done it now, so you don't have to wait. 260,000 colours, so they say. We can only name 17 without actually thinking.

The touchpad is nice. It operates on The same principle as the Creative Zen Touch, which has proved popular: you slide the slider up and down and the cursor slides up and down a corresponding menu set on the colour screen. Nice and easy.

This jukebox is also tiny and light, weighing only 96 grams. It's completely pocket-ready. All small and mid range Jukebox models should come with an integrated FM tuner and this model has one. Woohoo! It means you have more options as you can listen to your own music, or radio, depending on your mood. Switch between radio and your own music without taking the headphones off.

"The built-in microphone lets you record up to 45 hours of voice." Once again an odd turn of phrase from The iRiver marketing people. Perhaps it hasn't translated very well from the original Korean, or perhaps the description was written by an American. Either way the 45 hours refers to the total amount of voice recording that will fit on the iRiver H10's hard disk, not the life expectancy of the microphone.

You can also record from the Radio. Mega Bonus. Record the charts, record the new releases, record your favourite DJs. You can even set the H10 to record at a specific time so that it starts and stops itself, just like your Video recorder.

Additional features: as implied by the colour screen The H10 can display photo images (if they are in jpg form). You can also view text (txt) files on screen too.

Battery news:

10 hours is a respectable amount of battery life in a unit this size. The original Nomad creative jukebox models had only 4 hours. The first few generations of iPods, only 8 hours. 10 hours is fine. However, unlike the iPod and plenty of other Jukebox models, the iRiver H10's battery IS replaceable, so that you can stretch the usable time by buying additional batteries, and it also means that if the battery fails the whole unit does not have to be replaced!

That's more than can be said for plenty of other jukebox models. If you want to know whether the H10 is better or worse the simplest way is to see how it does in a FIGHT!

All the standards that should be here are here: ID3, playlists, the lot. On top of that this is a small, light, 5GB unit that can use OGG music and has timers, built in radio, replaceable battery, record features and a colour screen. It has most things you could possibly need in a jukebox of this size so if you like the style then just choose one of the colours below.

6GB Models

5GB Models

20GB Models