iRiver iHP-120 and iHP-140 Audio Jukebox Information and Full Review

This range of MP3 players has been superceded by the iriver H10 series.

The iRiver range. People have been asking us for a while now when we plan to get iRiver products. We did look at them a year ago, but in truth they were too expensive to be worth selling. They were more expensive than iPods for pity's sake. In the end, iRiver have slashed their price so that they have become one of the most attractive Jukeboxes available in the UK. In fact unless a better all round jukebox is launched, or there is some movement on the other players prices, the iHP iRiver clan will sweep the board in 2004.

Is there anything missing from this range? Yes: Digital Video and photography. You can carry video files around with you, but not play or record video. That is the only thing that is missing from either the iHP-120 or the iHP-140. If you want a portable video jukebox then you should check out some of the Archos Video Jukebox models. If all you want is music, then have a look at what an iRiver Jukebox can offer you.

Music Files - iRiver describe their Jukeboxes as Multi-Codec. In layman's terms that means that they can play more types of music file than almost any other portable jukebox.

They are

• MP3 The original music compression that started the whole Jukebox phenomenon
• WMA The best compression type by a major manufacturer (Microsoft) - better compression than MP3 by about 10%
• Plain old WAV (uncompressed) - huge, gargantuan music files. 100MB for 10 seconds of music not unusually large.
• ASF - Advanced Streaming Format. Microsoft again. Not entirely sure why a jukebox supports a format meant for streaming only, but its not a bad compression format..
• Ogg Vorbis - All hail the Ogg. Super compression, super clarity, open license.

All very nice so far. What else? The iRiver jukeboxes have an extra capability that was a big factor in one of our old favourites: they have a built in FM radio. You need never get bored again! more than 300 hours of your fav music (600+ hours on the 40GB model), or if you fancy a change you can listen to the radio instead, or if the radio gets dull and repetitive, you can change channels, or if you get bored with that there is always more than 300 hours of your fav music to fall back on! That's entertainment. As with the rest of the iRiver package the FM tuner comes as standard and is included in the price.

The LCD is a GUI (Graphic User Interface - i.e. pretty pictures as well as words) model. Navigation is based around very few buttons that have multiple functions, and as with most modern jukebox types its really easy. The tracks can be chosen by: Playlist, album, artist etc. ID3 tags take care of most of the behind-the-scenes organisation, as has been the case for years now.

Like the Creative range before it, the iRiver jukebox has a welter of playback settings so that you can alter the sound output for various effects, including virtual surround sound.

Battery News

The all important battery news section - the highlight of any jukebox page! As per norm the iRiver's batteries are internal, rechargeable and included. iRiver boast a very respectable 16 hours of playback for their batteries - that's not too shabby at all. Compare that to the iPod's paltry 8 hours if you need a bench mark. Its also not too shabby when a full charge up only takes about 3 hours.

Is that it?

No. Not for iRiver. Record is a feature that was sorely missing from some other jukeboxes but not this one. Did you ever have a tape player that didn't record too? So annoying. Anyway, this jukebox does record. Record from your stereo; record your thoughts (requires speaking them aloud - brain interface cables not included or available) or your conversations or interviews with other people if you have a professional capacity that requires it - or the conversations of others if you are sneaky.

You cannot record from the built-in radio - even though that doesn't seem to make any sense it's unfortunately true. If you want to record using the iHP iRiver you have to use 2 Jukeboxes. Select the radio function on one and the record function on a second unit in order to accomplish something that should be built into every single unit. This paragraph may seem out of place. In fact it is. We initially missed that these units were incapable of recording their own radio!

There are 2 types of external music recording option available: Line-in (analogue) or optical (digital). A lot of other manufacturers would do well to take note of this. Most would do well to include a line-in! Not since the Creative JB3 have we had a jukebox with optical external connections. Anyway, what this means is that you should be able to record from almost any kind of Audio external source via these connections. Guitar amps to stereos to CD players to whatever.

Connectivity is a 2 way street as the iRiver's have line-out and of course the digital optical equivalent. This means that you can play your Jukebox tunes via guitar amps, stereos, whatever. As long as there is an appropriately sized socket, or an adapter, any audio system can be hijacked for your own musical ends.

Included in the price too is everyone's favourite accessory, the Jukebox Remote Control. Turn it up, turn it down, change tracks, etc., all from the comfort of your semi-comatose bed.

Additional nice touches are what round out any model and the iRiver iHP-120 has some good ones including the ability to read (i.e. display) text files on the large LCD screen.

Style may well be a factor in what you decide to purchase and these jukeboxes are class. They are very slim, very light and as we said at the start it will take something amazing by the other manufacturers to better this range. We don't sell any lemons, but we do have the occasional peach, and this is one.