Those people who know me
INTRODUCTION
well know that I’m a very heavy user of my iPod and
iTunes setup. I own thousands of songs (legally), many,
many from the iTunes store. When the iPod and iTunes
came out, they were practically the only complete end-to-end
solution in town and far and away had the largest legal
library available. They still have the largest library,
but there are a lot of other choices now. There are
quite a few services and many, many players – both
solid state and hard disk players. The iriver T30 is
an ultra lightweight player that is similar in price
to the iPod Shuffle. How does it rate? Read on to find
out…
The iriver T30 is a small MP3 player with
WHAT’S HOT
excellent audio. It’s about the size of a "D" battery. It’s
capable of playing MP3, WMA, and OGG files music files. It offers
3D audio effects via SRS WOW.The small screen has a pleasant bluish
tint and is surprisingly readable for such a small device. There are
a lot of features in this little device including a 5-band equalizer.
It also includes a voice recorder mode and the ability to loop specific
sections of a song to repeat. The engineers were busy packing a lot
of features into a very small package!
Setup is pretty simple. You put the single
SETUP
AAA battery (regular or rechargeable) into the device (the battery
is good for about 20-24 hours of play at a volume of 20 (40 is the
loudest). You need to have Windows Media Player 10 installed (or other
compatible software). You can get the software from the Microsoft
website or from the disk enclosed with the player. Once the WMP
10 software is installed you can use the included USB cable to connect
the T30 to your computer. Using the WMP 10 "Add To -> Sync
List" feature, you can tell WMP 10 which songs to move to your
iRiver T30 and away you go!
The T30 operates on 1 AAA battery and operates for about 20 hours according to the included instruction manual. The web site puts this figure at about 24 hours. It has a frequency range of 20Hz – 20 KHz with headphone output of 15mW (16 Ohm) max volume and a signal to noise ration of 90dB. The device supports MPEG 1/2/2.5 layer 3 (MP3), WMA, OGG, and ASF files. It supports a bit rate of 8Kbps-320Kbps (for MP3 and WMA files) and OGG:Q1-Q10. It also supports ID3 V1, V 2.2.0, V2.3.0, and V2.4.0 tags. When you use it as a recorder it will support approximately 36 hours of recording (512MB version). It is 60mm wide by 30.4 mm thick by 22.1mm high and weighs just 27 grams (without the battery). The display is a backlit (blue) 4 line graphic display. It operates on any one of 40 languages.
PRODUCT FEATURES
Box
contents include: earbud headphones with extra
foams, battery, USB cable, literature, lanyard,
and the T30.
A friendly
note from iRiver.
On
the side are play controls.
Tilted
a bit, we can see the hold button and battery door.
The T30 sits at an interesting angle.
This
is the now playing screen.
Above is file navigation.
The
user menu has decent graphics for a small monochrome
screen.
As I’ve already mentioned, this product packs a lot of features into a very small space. You can obviously listen to songs you’ve transferred from your PC. It supports subscription services as well (sites that support the Windows "Plays for Sure" DRM model). Transfers are done using a high-speed USB 2.0 connection. You can also use the T30 as a voice recorder or even record from any line in source as well. You can set playback speed, scan speed, gaps between songs, equalization (including a variety or presets or manually setting equalization across 5 bands). There is also SRS WOW audio support. The T30 supports the use of any of 40 languages. It recognizes ID3 tags (in a number of formats). The song/file information will scroll as the song plays. You can have the display scroll horizontally or vertically. You can have the player play a single song, play all songs on the T30, play all songs in only a particular folder, and you can have it repeat within each of these options. You can even set marker points within a single song and repeat between the marker positions!
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To start, there’s a nice Quick Start Guide that walks you through physically setting up T30 and the basics of getting music transferred to it. There’s a fairly thick instruction manual that comes with the T30. It is written in English and French for the North American market and goes through all of the device options in some detail. The manual is also available on the iriver web site if you happen to lose the copy that comes with the device or want to take a look at the device before you buy one. One thing I really liked was that on top of the documentation pack was a bright orange sheet saying "STOP! Having Trouble?" and telling you to contact iriver for help before returning the unit. It’s kind of like the "Don’t Panic!" on the cover of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and has a bit of humor about it, but it’s still kind of comforting in an odd way and it probably helps iriver avoid some returns! The T30 comes in 2 flavors – a 512MB version (gray) and a 1GB version (red). The 512MB version holds approximately 17 hours of music and the 1GB version holds approximately 24 hours worth. The manual had a large section dedicated to using the FM features available in some models. I saw no reference to FM radio features in any of the T30 models, but it is available in the T10 models, which are a step up from the T30 models. Since the manual specifically says T30 and only T30, I think it should have been limited to features offered in the T30 lineup. Having said that, if you purchased a T10, the FM features looked cool – you can even record from FM with it! I would have liked to have seen AAC support. Even without support for Apple’s FairPlay DRM scheme. AAC is the standards-based successor to MP3 and offer’s better compression/higher quality than MP3. OGG is fine and offers excellent compression/quality and I’m very happy to see it’s inclusion, but for those of us with large AAC libraries, lack of AAC support makes it difficult for us to consider using this device without also undertaking large conversions. Since iTunes/iPod is the most popular offering right now, it would make some sense to offer support for people willing to make a switch or who just want to add this device to their collection. As I mentioned before, it took me a bit to get used to the structure of the menus, but once acclimated I could navigate adequately. While using the player, though, I kept wishing for a few changes in the way the menus were set up. I thought the "Delete file" function should have been part of the "Browse" menu rather than being buried way down in the "Settings" menu. I also wish there was a "Delete Folder" function. Although I’m pretty sure I understand why they chose to do it, I don’t think that the battery adjustment (regular or rechargeable) belonged under the "display" settings area either. Overall, it felt like the menus and labels were most likely designed by an engineer rather than someone familiar with industrial design or user interfaces – they’re functional, but they aren’t necessarily intuitive. There’s a lot of functionality packed into this device and some of the more advanced functions aren’t as easy to get to or use as they could be. As a last point, let me mention that I’m not happy with WMP 10 (and packages based on it). I find the syncing mechanism clumsy to use, utilizing specialized playlists – frequently requiring the installation of a special driver. It’s easy to say that Apple has it all wrapped up because they offer end-to-end solutions (player to desktop software to content) but that oversimplifies the case. Although some feel Apple’s popularity is due to "lemming-like" behavior, I’m more inclined to believe that people like the Apple solution because of ease-of-use (simplicity), seamless integration with content source (iTMS), and most importantly – consistency in all interfaces (the store, the desktop player, the iPod, the Moto Rokr). For others to do well I think they should strive to offer solutions that are as seamless and consistent as possible. If I have to stop to install drivers and worry about how to transition my library, and fuss with my PC working differently than my player, then that creates barriers and I’m less likely to take on the task or purchase the product. Removing the barriers should be a goal of consumer devices. Despite my concerns about WMP 10 and it’s suite of services, I like this player a lot. It’s small, light, has a ton of features, and a pleasant display (the iPod Shuffle has no display). I’d like the music purchase/transfer process to be a little less clumsy and more seamless, I’d like to have AAC support, and I’d like the player’s menus to be laid out a little differently to improve access to the many features, but overall I think this is an excellent value. iriver offers a wide variety of players at a variety of price points and the T30 is a worthy part of that lineup!
HELP SUPPORT
OPTIONS
BUGS AND WISHES
this device is fairly easy to use once you get used
to its interface and menu structure, but there were
a few rough edges. The install disk said I was installing
support files for an H10 instead of the T30 (the manual
shows screen shots that show the same dialog with "T30" in
the dialog instead of "H10"). It wasn’t a
large problem since it was only installing WMP 10,
but this kind of thing makes the overall product feel
a little unfinished or rushed. Adding to this, I noticed
on the web site that the current firmware revision
was 1.04. My player was only up to revision 1.02. Again,
not a big deal – I was able to update the player quickly
and easily – but a brand new player straight from the
manufacturer probably should have already had the latest
update.
PURCHASING
PROS
Small
and lightweight
features
CONS
are laid out a bit oddly, meaning features
aren’t always in the most intuitive location
support
Value
Ease
of Use 
Features
Overall
OVERALL IMPRESSION
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