irock! 730i Digital Audio Player

Reviews: Multimedia

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Kurtis Kronk
Brian
FID
Jan. 1, 2004

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Quality Check

The headphones included are ear buds, and they are of okay quality. They sound just fine until you try to listen to anything with lots of bass. When playing techno or hip hop, you may find that the bass is not what you might hope. To make sure this was a problem with the headphones, I plugged in my Sennheiser HD497's and everything sounded great.

The audio quality could have been better on this player if the equalizer was customizable. I mentioned this earlier, but I just can not stress enough how frustrating it is to not be able to customize settings on a player as expensive as this one.

As far as construction quality goes, this player is quite nice. I haven't once felt that this player was the least bit fragile or that I might break it if I wasn't careful. Who knows, maybe I could run it over with my car and it would still work, but probably not. The buttons are also very nice. They are all shiny chrome, and have a great "clicky' feel to them.

The LCD screen is very easy to read, as I noted on the second page. The contrast is adjustable and the backlight makes the screen even easier to read.

As promised, I will now give my little spiel on the MP3i feature. Although I found it to work perfectly as it should, I also found it to be perfectly useless. If it were a standard, I wouldn't have any problem with it. But the fact is that MP3i files aren't easy to come by, and most often you will have to make your own for all your favorite songs. And perhaps if it were worthwhile, I would permit doing so, but I can not. MP3i is merely a gimmick.

Conclusion

I was a bit disappointed in this player. While it sounds pretty decent, there aren't many options or accessories. The iAudio CW300 I reviewed not too long ago costs about the same as this player and is better than it in almost every way. If I hadn't already seen how great the competition is, perhaps I could recommend this product. But fortunately for you, I have, and I can not fully recommend the ir0ck 730i MP3 player.

With that said, I would like to make a few suggestions to ir0ck on how to make their product better. The most important thing is that for ~$140.00 the player should have many more features and options. An FM tuner would be nice, as would a customizable equalizer, and advanced display options. As for the MP3i feature, if you want to see images with your music, you would be better off getting a portable movie player. I don't think FID should focus on their MP3i file format with future players, as it is not a standard format and isn't widely accepted. Battery life is yet another problem with the 730i, 8 hours is just not long enough. The player should use one or more AA batteries for extended life. My last suggestion would be to go the extra step and include some higher quality headphones (ear buds) with the player.

Pros

Stylish
Expandable memory
Easy to use software
Large LCD
Decent sound

Cons

8 hour battery life
Limited options
Tedious menu system
Relatively useless MP3i feature
Not a great value

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Page 4 of 4

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Impressions, Closer Look & LCD Display
Page 3: Using the 730i
Page 4: Quality Check & Conclusion

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