iRiver H10

This small and colourful audio player is clearly inspired by the iPod Mini, from the choice of colours to the compact size. It has a slightly larger capacity at 5Gb, compared with the iPod Mini's 4Gb, and it can display pictures and text as well as play digital music files.

Unlike most digital audio players, it also comes with the ability to record straight to its hard disk (in MP3 format) and to listen to and record FM radio. Sound quality is very good, and it plays MP3 and protected and unprotected WMA files, so you can listen to your legally downloaded songs.

It's also one of the few players to support the new Napster To Go service, which allows you to subscribe and download as much music as you like and play it on the H10 for a monthly subscription.

Using the player is quite simple. Turn it on and you are presented with a colourful menu, from which you can select music, pictures, text and so on. It's then a case of finding the song and playing it, which can all be done with the two front panel buttons and the vertical scroll pad. The scroll pad is clever, and another nod to the iPod's jog wheel, although it's not quite as intuitive.

It's simple to charge, since you can just plug it in to the PC's USB 2 port and it will charge and transfer songs at the same time. It falls down a little at this stage, because you have to use iRiver's unwieldy software to shift songs onto the player.

It was a little slow on our test computer but fairly simple to use. Once you have set up your media library by scanning the computer for files, you can simply drag and drop onto the player.

The small screen is not particularly great for viewing pictures and text but it's nice to have the option, and the audio recording quality is very good. The box also contains a good quality pair of Sennheiser headphones and a protective rubber case for the player.

That said, with the recent round of Apple price cuts, the iPod Mini at £140 could be a better bet.

Contact:
iRiver (no UK number)
www.iriver.com/eu

Also Consider:
iPod Mini