iRiver H10 6GB

****

Ignore individual complaints: this is an excellent player 3 Feb 2006

I'll get my rant out of the way with now: electronics are very complicated bits of kit, especially ones as sophisticated as a hard disc portable media player like the iriver. Consequently, there will be one or two which don't work as well as you would hope. Is this reason enough to damn the whole range? If, as in the case of the ipod Nano with its flimsy screen, it may be, but if this is a single example which affects one or two users, why wade in with a single star and put everyone off?

The facts about this player are that it is stylishly designed, well manufactured and offers excellent value for money, all of which count for a great deal in this market. It is very easy to use, as all you have to do is drag and drop files from your hard disc onto the player and they will be immediately accessible, no matter what software you're using. To access artist, genre and album information about tracks all you have to do is use Windows Media Player, which is a straightforward and easy to use application.

Iriver products excell in the sound they produce and, although the volume is not ear-splittingly loud, it can be both big and beefy and clear and sophisticated. Through a good pair of headphones I can happily listen to any sort of music. You can fiddle with the sound settings if you like, and there are enough options for anyone to find what they like.

The reason this player doesn't receive 5 stars is that it isn't as powerful or flexible as the older H3xx series by iriver. On the one hand, it does make it much easier to set and use, but for people who want to customise their players there is less scope to do so.

Above all, this is a classy little machine which will set you apart from the legions of ipod users out there and give you hours of great pleasure from your music collection.