Jul 07, 2006 12:14 AM
5015 Views
ILL COME STRAIGHT TO POINT FIRST WHY ITS COOL.............. Very good audio quality and photo capabilities. Interesting design. Supports Macromedia Flash games and animation. Good battery life. WHAT NOT COOL Transferring photos requires using included conversion software. Video format requirements are slightly odd, and software isn't included. Video playback is jumpy. Finally, companies that make media players (besides Apple) are thinking different. The iriver U10 represents a leap forward in design—or at least a good attempt at one. It's a flash-based audio player that can also play video on its 2.2-inch LCD screen, albeit with some format restrictions. The real innovation is in the controls: Instead of trying to cram a bunch of navigation buttons next to the screen on the player's faceplate, iriver made the faceplate itself a four-way button that does pretty much all you need. There are a few buttons on the top and side for volume, power, and screen orientation (portrait or landscape), but that's it. You do pay a premium for all this, however: The 1GB version will run you $249.99 list, and the 512MB version is $199.99. The U10 represents a cool hardware concept and has an interesting feature set, but the software/firmware side needs some work, and the price really needs to come down. IN THE END........................ If you're really hot on the design, love silly Flash games, and don't really care about video playback, the U10 is a good, but expensive, choice.
