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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 19 reviews
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Product summary
The good: Supports subscription WMA files; small and light; solid audio quality; voice and line-in recording.
The bad: No FM radio; occasional glitches in playing subscription downloads.
The bottom line: The T30 is a basic player by iRiver standards, but Janus support makes it an attractive flash-based device.
Specifications: Device type: Digital player ; Flash memory installed: 512 MB ; Digital player supported digital audio standards: ASF , MP3 , WMA , Ogg Vorbis ; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 10/19/2005
At 2.4 by 1.2 by 1.9 inches and weighing 1 ounce, the iRiver T30 is ideal for using while working out. Slip it into a shirt pocket, and you'll hardly notice it's there. The dull black and silver plastic case of our 512MB test model isn't particularly striking--the 1GB version is a little more stunning in red--and the player lacks the joystick controls found on other flash-based iRiver devices. But the T30's simplicity will appeal to MP3 novices.
The most common compliant regarding iRiver's players has been the abstruse, techie user interface. Operating the T30, however, is fairly straightforward: Press and hold the Menu button to access the Browser (the music directory), the recording settings, and the system settings. Some users, though, will still balk at having to decode the process of setting up shuffle/repeat modes.
The iRiver T30 plays MP3, OGG, and DRM-protected WMA files, including those downloaded from subscription services such as Napster To Go and Yahoo Music Unlimited. Although we had no trouble transferring Janus files using Napster and Windows Media Player, we experienced occasional dropouts during playback of those tracks. The company just released some Janus-related firmware, however, which may address this problem; it explicitly applies to Rhapsody To Go content.
Otherwise, the iRiver T30 is a pretty basic player. You get voice and line-in recording, though unlike the more advanced T10, it has no FM tuner. This is a little strange to us, as an FM tuner seems like the more basic feature to have. The T30 also offers SRS effects, a five-band user-defined EQ, and the ability to control playback speed.
Although the 90dB signal-to-noise ratio is the norm for this type of device, music sounds very good with a set of decent headphones. The included earbuds are above average, offering better-than-expected bass response, but they're a bit uncomfortable. At 18mW per channel, playback is plenty loud with a pair of full-size Koss UR-40 headphones. In CNET Labs' tests, the iRiver T30 reached 21.67 hours of continuous playback on an AAA battery--not bad but short of iRiver's claims of 24 hours. The player scored an average transfer speed of 1.67MB per second over a USB 2.0 connection.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 19 reviews
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 3 of 19 user reviewsSee all 19 user reviews
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16 out of 17 people found this review helpful
"I compared Ipod Shuffle/Creative Zen Nano and iRiver T30 side by side"
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4 out of 5 people found this review helpful
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
"Decent player with problematic Audible file implementation"
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