PMP Today

A Trip Down the iRiver Stream
By Blaise Morita

Korean-based iRiver has claims to a strong share of Portable Media Player (PMP) market in large part because of its streamlined focus on the evolution of their PMP line. Of their two recent introductions, the MPEG-4 friendly PMC-120 is more affordable. Yet the versatility and functionality of the Microsoft Window Mobile-based PMC-120 make it the “big brother” of these streaming siblings. And yes, the PMC-120 is the box sporting Jenna Jameson. Enter raunchy analogy here.

Previous iRiver releases like the H120 and H320 were met with enthusiasm by fans of their simple design and interface, but gave a bitter taste to casual media enthusiasts who found the actual navigation and file management process far from intuitive and left an awful lot of room of improvement.

What is initially amazing about the new PMC-120 that avid portable users will notice immediately is its simplicity, both aesthetically and with navigation. A frontal view of the iRiver cleanly lays out the volume buttons and play/skip track buttons on the right, with power, menu, back and select pads laid out on the left.

Your hold button, TV jack and docking connector slot are all on bottom, earphones and DC jack up top, along with a strap cord lock, which I’ll never use…not my style for this big a device. For desktop accompaniment, though, the kickstand on the backside underneath one of the rubber footies was a nice touch. Your basic accessories are all there: logo-adorned case, USB cord, TV cord, headphones, and charger. But extra ear bud covers and no strap? Told you I’ll never use it! The Lithium-ion hooks up on back but no battery backups included.

The PMC-120 supports Windows Media Video (versions 7, 8 and 9) and MP3, WMA and JPEG formats. It comes with an installation disk, and transfer and recognition on my Dell Inspiron went smoothly. All the same video and audio formats work here, including WMV, AVI, MPEG, MPG, MPE, MIV, MP2V, MPEG2…basically, all those that work on your Windows Media Player. iRiver touts the sync feature, which essentially syncs your media library with Window Media Player. If you’re a multiple laptop user like myself, you won’t find much use for this feature, but it will help those with one single shifting media library.

The 20 GB of storage is satisfactory, but will be looking continually up as other 40 and 60 GB models flood the market. Data hounds will wail when they find out there’s no souping up this model. After reformatting the PMC-120 should hold in the neighborhood of 25 movies, 2,000 songs, innumerable photos or a mix of the three. Even though iRiver claims the capacity for 80 hours of video OR 600 hours of music, the inability to increase capacity on the PMC-120 will definitely land it in the doghouse with some.

In terms of what’s out there in the PMC aisle, the iRiver PMC-120 is what we affectionately deem tweener…not too big, not too small. It’s in-between with dimensions of 5.6” x 3.3” x 1.2” and at 10.2 ounces, not too heavy to make unbearable but not too lightweight to make you think cheap. The display size measures 3,5 inches, and the color display is above average, although not impressively overwhelming. The screen, however, is pleasantly sharp and the brightness controls are a plus.

Cell phone and video game users will find all the comforts of home navigating this iRiver. But a clear negative, without having even powered on, is the speaker placement. Stationed in the top left corner, the tendency to cover up with your thumb while firmly gripping the controls happens too much for my taste. Of course, could be just my unique yet clutching grip…but I tend to think not. We’ll save sound issues for later.

So, in order to begin a stable sound and picture quality evaluation on the media involved, I’ve gone all scientific and loaded up a roster of media that I use as my testing guide. On the movie side, I’ve got this steady tester lineup:

• Standard action movie previews with Jaws first headshot and the great Lou Ferrigno Hulk, proving retro is better.

• Soccer highlights of great goals…truly the world’s most beautiful game. Nice because of varying video quality, but also good to have a sports clip on the roster.

• The harmonious integration of animation and music of Animusic…so 2004, but still dazzles. Great for evaluating sound and screen quality simultaneously.

My music list…well, too long to go into, as it changes daily, but I consistently favor underground indie music across all genres. Today’s favorite for all you listening: Tokyo Police Club. For techies with similar or dissimilar interests, supplant one of my roster regulars with your suggestions! Music and clip debates are always welcome.

Those who demanded improved menus will be happy…picking up on the menu will make you feel like the Magellan of the iRiver. With so few buttons to choose, reading the user’s manual becomes an afterthought to curiosity coupled with immediacy. The transfer rate of 4.3 MB per second was fair.

Going a round with the videos, there was no skipping of audio tracks and load times were expectable, even when fast-forwarding or backtracking. The light skipping wasn’t very noticeable, as the color was vivid. The bookmark feature earns its stripes here, as you can pick up right from where you left off. Now if I want to ring my buddy, drive over to his place ten minutes later, and show him an awesome clip or commercial I just Tivo’ed…doable. The hibernation mode is on point as well, picking up right where you left off. On the audio side, some annoying sticking occurred when quickly scrolling through your music selection, occasionally skipping a song or two.

The Photo slideshow isn’t a luxury but almost necessary feature for making the picture function interesting. Simultaneous photo viewing and music listening, however, can be pretty entertaining way to pass the time. For those with A.D.D., skip functions include 30 second increments and 9 second backtracks.

Another issue, sound volume. Now, I know nobody wants a portable media device that projects at such thunderous levels that it distorts and crunches the quality. But in an empty room with the only constant background noise was my ceiling fan, you couldn’t make out the lyrics from three feet away until Bar 10 on the volume meter. That’s halfway on the iRiver scale, people. 90 dB never sounded smaller.

Yet it’s a wonder what a proper speaker or headphone system will do for a device. Sound quality, or at least volume level, vastly improves. I noticed when testing my iRiver set at full volume was not much louder with iPod ear bud headphones plugged in. This speaks to either the high quality of standard iPod headphones, or poor speaker volume of the PMC-120.

In truth, the paltry sound is no doubt due to the sad single speaker setup, which can only deliver so much. For entertaining crowds of more than three, your iRiver isn’t going to get the job done. Better to plug it into an available computer, TV, or even car deck with adapter to show this baby’s true colors. Even more disappointing is the playlist function, or difficulty therein. You can’t make video playlists and importing a pre-existing playlist for music will be difficult for novice handheld users. And remember that left thumbgrip covering up your speaker? This is when silence, and muted movies, are not always so golden.

Honestly, when I first picked it up, I was not impressed with the possible durability of the black and silver plastic casing, which hearkened back to the days of Nintendo’s Gameboy. Yet those gray coated behemoths lasted forever, and a few rounds on the treadmill with iRiver in hand convinced me of its solidity. Incidentally, I used my iPod headphones in the jog test, and could rarely max out the volume without getting my ear drums blasted.

So of course we had to give our iRiver its battery life stress-test. The company boasted claims of 14 hours of audio battery life, or five hours of battery life for video. Somewhat imbalanced claims…surely most consumers will use both functions. Our test ended up shooting for the longer target…would the iRiver endure mightily or dry out meekly?

We set the iRiver up blasting, mostly through headphones, my playlist of about a hundred indie tunes on shuffle and repeat and set the stopwatch. Within two hours, we were down a bar. I think iRiver is hoping this isn’t a marathon. And true to form, iRiver’s shuffling melody petered out in the neighborhood of seven hours plus. The video playtime was more acceptable in the sense that, at four hours, got closer to its mark.

Ultimately, the battery life was won over by portability, usability, and durability. But I will say I was as about as won over as a Lance Armstrong long distance marathon opponent…you certainly impressed while going the distance…but you can’t win everything. Although Sheryl Crow was as good a cheerleader as Jenna. Rivstrong, anyone? Anyone?

Ok, leaving the bad cycling analogies aside, the movie claim also passed the battery evaluation with flying colors, clocking in the vicinity of 6 hours and change. Also a thumbs up was iRiver’s recharge time, which seemed relatively fast, full charge in the hour or two hour range. The front indicator light goes from yellow while charging to fully charged green.

Overall this market for the PMC-120 has been tapped for quite awhile, so you can find one used or much lower than original retail cost, which soars to $400 plus. Keep in mind, low is a relative term.

• Amazon.com $199.95
• eBay $250.00 with Buy it Now
• Mpire.com $235.00
• Grabcart.com $278.90

Conclusion: the market is gearing up towards the omnipresent tech goal: smaller is better. But the iRiver PMC-120 does more than its share in laying a solid foundation for devices of tomorrow. If you think of it as a portable Windows Media Player, or basically an extension of your computer, you’ll no doubt be pleased that you’re not lugging your laptop around simply for its invaluable playlist that took you hours to craft.

On the other hand, better pack kickin’ speakers if you expect a gathering. The iRiver PMC-120 is a quality PMP, but in the end seems little more than a dam temporarily stemming the eventual flood of new product. But don’t count on the iRiver brand drying up just quite yet; new model Clix waiting in the wings for a chance to ride the digital tide.

Visit the company homepage at www.iriver.com. The US site address is www.iriveramerica.com.