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iriver E100 MP3 Player
Conclusion
As a fan of iriver's products in general, I have to say I expected something a bit different from the E100. When I first spied this player on their website a few months back I was anticipating a slightly more capable unit. However, it appears that iriver has positioned this PMP as a budget alternative in hopes of garnering a few dollar conscious customers. The E100 is almost a case of you get what you pay for. In fact, iriver's own website divulges the unit's low budget roots. Where most other products have slick looking tech specs and info pages; the E100's page looks rudimentary and a bit haphazard. Maybe iriver has rushed the E100 into the market and their web department hasn't quite caught up. In any case, the lower cost theme is repeated in nearly all aspects of the player. When viewed from a budget-minded standpoint, the E100 is more a hit than miss. The $99 price tag is extremely attractive. For $99 I would not expect a crisp, bright 2.4" screen, 4GB of storage or reasonable sound quality. But the E100 delivers all of those features and more. The E100's design is a bit dated and clunky when compared to higher priced options such as the iPod nano. And the interface and randomly responsive buttons can get downright annoying. But the feature set is nearly identical to the higher priced iriver Clix2 and other products. As I said above, it's almost a case of you get what you pay for. So who needs an E100? Sure there are plenty of other smaller, better designed PMPs out there in the flooded market. But sometimes simple and cheap is just what you are looking for. As with any purchase consumers are willing to forgo a few bells and whistles for a good deal. I mean, just look at Kia automobiles. So if you are an uber tech geek or design snob turn your nose elsewhere. But if you are searching for a cheap birthday gift, a low cost, capable media player or if you're simply a stingy bastard the E100 might fit the bill. Do you own an iriver E100? Think I'm way off the mark or right on the money? Leave a comment and let us know or feel free to add your own user review! Pros Cheap! Impressive sound quality Loaded with features Quality screen and video playback Good battery life Cons Unintuitive interface Poor button response Dated, clunky design
Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Testing - Navigation, Music Playback & Software Page 3: Testing - Video, Pictures, Text, Recording & FM Radio Page 4: Conclusion 
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Add Comment
2 User Comments 1 - Posted by
sci_fianime
on August 6, 2008 - 1:32 am Love the review - puts into words the experience I have with my black E100... However, I do find the video viewing angle range very limited, they look washed out once you are slightly off... Otherwise, I am very happy with the feature set which cannot be found in any other player around the same price range.... 2 - Posted by
SixString
on April 23, 2009 - 2:34 am I just got the iRiver and I'm VERY impressed. You *can* manually tune the FM stations, contrary to this review, tho' it's not real intuitive. In FM mode, pressing the Select button toggles between Preset and Manual modes. Thus, you can manually tune and set the presets however you like them.
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