iRiver PMP-120
Product Rating 
The iRiver PMP-120 is a new breed of portable media player. It plays your movies, music, photos and more.20GB of internal storage.
Features of the iRiver PMP-120 include:
- Storage Capacity - 20 GB
- Main Storage Type - Hard Drive
- Audio Format - MP3 / WAV / WMA / ASF / Ogg Vorbis
- MP3 Bit-Rate - 8 kbps - 320 kbps
- Frequency Respone - 20 Hz - 20,000 Hz
- Signal to Noise Ratio - 90 dB
- Video Format - MPEG-4 / MPEG-1
- Video Bit-Rate - 1,500 kbps
- Max Video Resolution - 640 x 480
- On Screen Display - ID3 Tag Info / Battery Level / Mono / Stereo / USB Connection / Play Mode / Elapsed Time / Recharging / FM Frequency
- Screen Size - 3.5 inch
- Interface - USB 2.0
- Additional Features - FM Stereo Tuner
- Power Source - Rechargeable via USB cable / Internal Battery / AC/DC Adapter
- Battery Type - Rechargeable Lithium Battery
- Battery Life - 16 hrs.
- Dimensions:
- Width - 5.47 in.
- Depth - 1.25 in.
- Height - 3.31 in.
- Weight - 9.88 oz.
iRiver PMP-120 Consumer Reviews
(1 review)
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Reviewed by Matt on 02-14-2007
If you are willing to play with this thing for a while it is a most rewarding Personal Media Player. Every review I've read complains about the Interface of this device. The interface is, admittedly a little confusing at first, but after you figure out that holding a button does something a bit different than just tapping it, you'll be fine. Just use your brain for fifteen minutes and you'll never have another problem using the device.
The player is a bit heavy and large, but it seems quite sturdy, not at all flimsy.
You hold it much like a high-end video game, in two hands. You'll find that your fingers naturally grip the back of the device quite comfortably; there are two bumps on the back that allow this natural grip. One bump is the removable battery pack, the other contains an interesting and useful feature, a two-position kickstand that allows the player to stand up for hands free viewing. The centerpiece to this device is the 3-inch TFT screen; I can attest that this screen looks simply amazing.
(It has better resolution than my CRT television!)
If you want a player to run with, buy a smaller cheaper player; this one is too big for running.
Another thing that many people complain about with this player is that it does not sync up with Windows Media player and doesn't play "playsforsure" songs. If you have a problem with this, don't buy it.
However, if you are a reasonably organized individual you'll find that adding MP3's to the player is as simple as dragging them into a folder and dropping them in. You can also, VERY EASILY use Winamp to create playlists. Simply add all the songs you want to the player in a folder, then, on your computer, select them all and enqueue them in Winamp. After that simply save the playlist to the same folder (on the player) and you're done. When you go to the folder all you have to do is press play, the player finds the playlist automatically and plays the songs. Mp3's seem to work great, even WMA files work well.
Playback sounds nice on ear bud headphones as well as on full frame headphones. You have five Equalizers to choose from including one user that is user definable.
The player has a mono speaker built in, it sounds ok in a QUIET room, but if there is any noise, it gets drowned out.
The system runs Linux, which is nice because other people can make their own firmware for it. The fact that it can hold twenty Gigabytes of data is simply amazing. [(There is another version of this player, the PMP-140, which holds TWICE as much. If you want a version of this player that uses Windows Media Player get the PMC-120 or PMC-140. (Personally I find them to be uglier than sin but that’s just my opinion from Net pics)]
I put four half-hour episodes of Anime and more than three hundred songs on my player and it barely touched the capacity! Here again lies another issue with this device; getting things converted correctly to play.
I'LL SAVE YOU A LOT OF TROUBLE RIGHT NOW!
Go to
http://divx.ppccool.com/langue.php?lang=EN
The program there, PocketDivXEncoder, is simply the best one I've found.
(The program from iRiver sucks.)
Positive notes, the device can output video and sound to a Television, allowing you to store movies on it and then present them on a larger screen with very little loss of resolution.
The PMP-120 has the best FM tuner I've ever used. Just plug in some headphones (it uses them as an antenna) and it auto tunes all the stations in the area for you. Simply click back and forth between them.
The player comes with all the accessories you need, A case to keep it from getting scratched up, an ac adapter, all the cables to hook it to your computer or to another device, a LINE IN cable for recording audio from another device. (Note, the player cannot record video, don't know why?) Also included with the player is an output cable for hooking it to a television. Headphones are included. All I can say is this; IPods don't even come with a charger. Oh, and you can't remove an IPod's battery.
The iRiver's battery can be easily removed by moving a switch on the back of the device. Additional batteries are not all that expensive; I've found them for around $15 on Ebay and other sites. (A new battery for Ipod costs a whole lot more because it is not USER replaceable) Battery life is decent, about four and a half hours on all video, over eleven if just music. The player has a useful user adjustable feature that turns off the screen when listening to music or radio this helps save the batteries.
I bought my player on Ebay for a total of $85. It was used but I was able to find all the stuff it didn't have online for about $12 more.
Is it worth over five hundred dollars, as I've seen at other sites, no.
Is it worth two hundred? Maybe.
Is it worth one fifty? Definitely.
While this player does have some downsides, and they can be daunting to the uninitiated, the end result for those who stick to it through the learning curve is a very satisfying and powerful Media Player.
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