iRiver E100 MP3 Player Review - Features
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The E100 is packed with just the essentials: the MP3 player, cheap and uncomfortable earbuds, a USB cable, and a software package. The software includes the proprietary iRiver media player and the capability to convert audio and video. One great feature of the MP3 player is its ability to play a wide variety of sound files (mp3, wma, ogg, asf, flac) and display several image file types (jpg, bmp, png, gif). Although iRiver advertises that the E100 can play wmv, mpeg4, and xvid, the reality is that you will have to run almost any video file through the bundled video converter.
Fortunately for Mac users, the E100 will operate on any operating system. It does offer specific functions for the upper-end Windows operating systems (XP SP2 and Vista) though, such as the ability to drag-and-drop files straight onto your MP3 player. You are also able to add to your storage capability through the use of the memory card expansion slot. Unlike many of the modern MP3 players, the E100 does not automatically combine its built-in storage with any memory card that you install. This means that you have to go back and forth between your player’s storage and the memory card storage to have access to all of your data.
The player comes with built-in speakers which work decently, but aren’t really a great option for any kind of clarity. The speakers also don’t work in conjunction with the FM radio; for whatever reason, you have to have the headphones plugged in to use the radio. The FM tuner itself comes through crystal clear and offers a good addition to the typical feature set of a low-end MP3 player.
A couple of extra features that the E100 features which go beyond the typical are the text viewer and voice recorder. The text viewer does much of what you might expect: it allows you to view text files on your MP3 player. Personally, I find this feature somewhat unnecessary, but you might find some uses for it that I can’t. The voice recorder works well, but again, I can’t see much use coming from it. In short, these features do add value to the E100, but unless you can think of a specific use for either of them, I wouldn’t give them too much weight in my decision to buy the player or not.
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