Rating: 
Summary: There is nothing to fear about not getting the Ipod.
Review: Dont get me wrong...the ipod is great. It is by far the best design on the market, but it does fall short in some areas and the iriver picks up that slack.
I decided to look at brands other than the Ipod because most of my files are WMA's and i did not feel like converting all of them. I did a LOT of research and got it down to two players; the Rio Karma and the iRiver iHP-120. I went with the iRiver because it had many features that i was looking for that the Rio did not.
I have had it now for about a month now and let me just put it like this: the Ipod is not the only heavy hitter anymore. If someone were to offer me either right now...free....i would take the iRiver. Here is why:What the Ipod has over the iRiver-
-Cool design
-User friendly interface (scroll wheel)
-Firewire (although iriver does have USB2) What the iRiver has over the Ipod-
-4-line LCD remote so that you can see what is happening
-16 Hour Lithium-poly. battery (Ipod has a 6 hour)
-WMA compatable (for windows users)
-no software needed (shows up as an external hard drive. just drag and drop onto or from ANY computer without drivers. This includes non-music files)
-recording from any source (has optical in/out and comes with an internal AND external mic.
-music is laid out the way you want it to be because you put it on there how you want it
-FM radio tuner built in Bottom line is that it lookes great, sounds great, has a great remote and lots of features that you dont see on most players. This is not a review to say that Apple is no good. I am just saying that too many people seem to go into the search with blinders on and not see what else is out there. In my opinion.....the iRiver iHP-120 is, becuase of all the reasons i listed, the better player for me and i am very glad that i got it instead of the Ipod. If you are a PC user you NEED to check it out before you buy. Hope i helped.
Rating:
Summary: Best one I've seen!
Review: This is by far the best jukebox player/portable hard drive out there. I got it last week, and i'm very impressed with features, quality of contstruction, and fantastic sound. The first thing you notice and really appreciate is that all you need to do is open the box, plug it into your computer, and it's recognized as an external drive immediately. No need to mess with complicated software to updoad-download stuff. Also, doesnt' have the propietary thing that Ipods have that you can only upload stuff into three designated computers. So, just using your Windows Explorer you do all the uploading-downloading-deleting tasks with great ease. It works very well as a portable hard drive, so I don't need to burn disks with data anymore, to carry stuff from work to home. I just put whatever files I need in my IHP, whether it's just a text file, or a huge amount of digital images and videos, the 20 Gig is a lot of space. Talking about space, I put about 70 CDs in there, and only used 1.5 GIG as of now, so no worry about running out of space anytime soon. You can use this device to record from external sources, and you have an internal and external microphone option. This is great to record all those great songs that we still have on cassette tapes, and convert them to MP3s. I was very impressed with the sound quality of the internal microphone. You can use this as a mini recorder to record memos to yourself, meetings, classes, etc, and the sound is excelent. For listening to music, sound quality is excellent too, and you can adjust the equalizer to your liking, for a really great listening experience. The radio tuner is nice, and for stations that you get good reception, works well. I like classical music, and recorded a full concert from my classical music station, and on playback, it sounds very decent. After doing a lot of reading and research about which device to get, I decided on this one, and I'm happy I did.
Overall, an excellent product.
Rating:
Summary: Love it...
Review: I have had this player for over a month now, and I think it's great. No complaints so far........ I don't use the database function, because it doesn't recognize .wma. My folders are organized Artist/album/song. It's pretty easy to navigate wherever I need to go. I use a program called Tag and Rename to rename all of my song files based on info in the file. I rename them song#-title.wma so I can play in album order if I choose to. The internal microphone does pick up noise when the HD spins. Using the included external mic solves this problem and makes pretty good sounding recordings. I've also used it to record audio from the radio (different radio plugged into the iHP-120 input;no direct FM recording), so I can listen to a show later. Pretty handy.
Rating:
Summary: The End of PODs
Review: I've had this player for about 4 months and I absolutely love it!
As many people do, I had to decide between the Rio Karma and H120 (iHP-120).
After a brutal research, I've made my decision.
And here are the Pros and Cons. Pros:
-Light (as light as 3gen iPODs) and pocketable
-Carrying case and an excellent in-line Remote which does everything but recording -> those two things will make you keep your player safe since you will never have to take it out!
-Works without a driver -> recognized as an external HDD -> perfect for backing up data
-Long battery life
-More than good FM (in NYC it's clear)
-Digital in/out (never tried but heard only positive feedbacks)
-Recording features (I never needed them but I would have bought this player even without those features anyway... this player is too good to miss!)
-Very good sound quality (subjective, but much better than iPOD for sure. if you are deciding between a Karma and this, it's hard to decide but H120 seems to give out more punchy bass)
-Excellent support (mine broke once and I got a new player in a week) Cons
-Expensive compared to other great player, Karma
= Remote, carrying case, recording feature, and warranty should do more than balancing that out
-No gapless
= will be fixed soon (announced by iRiver)
-No on-the-fly playlist, file delete support
= will be fixed soon (announced by iRiver)
-Weird shuffle algorithm
= will be fixed soon (announced by iRiver)
-Poor quality stock earbuds -Non support for flac and aac Well that's it. Hope that helped many people who's deciding between this player and others.
Rating: 
Summary: Lacks On the Fly Functionality
Review: After reading the glowing reviews posted on this site, I decided to purchase the iRiver ihp 120 instead of the iPod. I am not certain that I made the right decision. On the plus side, I prefer the iRiver's compatibility with mp3 files (vs. having to use iTunes and the .aac format), and I like the fully-functional remote, even if it is a bit cumbersome with all the wires. On the negative side, I am very disappointed in the iRiver's "on the fly" performance and its very limited ability to recognize and properly play playlists. The iRiver only recognizes playlists created with WinAmp, and cannot read those saved in, for example, MusicMatch or RealOne -- even though the file extension and all other relevant file information are the same. Likewise, the iRiver cannot create playlists on its own. A feature permitting the user to queue up one song while another is playing -- which is casually dropped as a "tip" at the back of the users manual -- is a far cry from being able to create a 5 or 10 or however many song playlist as the mood may strike. Moreover, the iRiver is very picky in terms of what files its proprietary database decides to recognize, which further complicates making playlists. An unknown universe of characters will cause the database not to recognize a song, as will any song file with over 52 characters (a threshold easily reached under basic tagging formats). If the database doesn't recognize a particular song, it will not appear in any of the iRiver-created browsing groups (band, album title, song tile) and iRiver will not recognize that song in a playlist. It's frustrating, to say the least. That said, iRiver's support people are great, and I am not giving up on the chance that firmware or new software will become available improving iRiver's on the go performance.
Rating:
Summary: Very happy with my player
Review: Let me start by saying that I have been apprehensive about purchasing a portable mp3 player. I did not want to buy an iPod, but wanted most of the feature it had to offer. I came across a few brands, this being one of them. After comparing and contrasting, I decided to buy this player, and here is what I have to say about it after using it for 3 weeks. Coming out of the box, it took me only 10 minutes to load up the software and have it playing some mp3's. The simple drag and drop interface works seamlessly, and creating an index of the mp3's takes only seconds. When the unit starts up, it only takes 15 seconds with about 10 gigs of music on it. Note that this is with everything indexed so that you can search by artist, song name, album, genre, or just the file structure. The remote for the unit is beautiful. Now only is it easy to use, but it is small and stylish. Actual battery life is just around 16 hours of continuous play. I take this to the gym and to work, and when selecting different songs and turning it on and off, I get about 12 hours of play. The built in voice recording also works well to record lectures from class. The build in mic is sensitive enough to catch almost every word, even when sitting in the back of the class. Here are the Pros and Cons for the iRiver iHP120: Pros - Long battery life (12-16 hours)
Built in voice recording
Wonderful remote
Easy drag and drop interface
Fast load time
USB 2.0 connection (transfered 10 gigs in less than 7 minutes)
The case it comes with is nice
Easy to find songs
Plays winamp playlists
Firmwire upgradeable Cons - Cannot buy replacement batteries
Price is in the upper range for similar mp3 players Overall, I think this is easily the best portable mp3 player on the market at this time. iRiver has always made reliable, sturdy, and stylish products. This one is all those, and possibly more.
Rating:
Summary: Forget the iPod and get this instead!
Review: It's cheaper than the iPod and plays more formats. Okay so it won't play AAC's from iTMS but if you want a (...) regime controlling how you listen to music that you've paid for then you're going to be happier with the iPod.
The controls are so easy that a child could operate this player. Note that a USB 2.0 port on your PC is very useful or the time to copy data is going to be huge.
I've had this for 3 months now and use it in my car with a wireless transmitter, in the gym and have travelled to India and back with it and I can honestly say that it's the best money I have ever spent.
You will not be disappointed with this player!
Rating: 
Summary: IPod killer
Review: I bought my iHP 120 in November and it turned out to be a great investment. I live in NYC and knew that I needed an MP3 player that had an FM radio feature. The FM Stations are clear and i can always find a good signal. It comes with 20 GB of space and I've only used 10GB so far with a combination of MP3, WMA, and WAV files. The only reason i give this player 4 out of 5 stars is because I really want to get into downloading music from Napster or Buy Music. The iHP doesn't support protected WMA files yet, so there's this whole process you have to go through to get them to play on your player. The other thing is that you can't record from the FM station. These are things that I hope get solved in the next iteration of this device. Other than that, this player is solid.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely pleased after one month
Review: Inevitably compared to the iPod, and with good reason. The iPod is a great product, and just about every person I know who has one loves it. However... The iRiver has so some stuff that the iPod doesn't. If those things are important to you, get an iRiver. If not, get an iPod. You'll like it. Those features are: FM Radio - this was very important to me, since I switch between mp3's and radio when I'm out walking/jogging. The iRiver's radio is okay, nothing special. Battery Life - I'm getting real life usage of 14-16 hours, with the volome on high, mp3's at 128kps. Ipods typically get 8 max. For a lot of people, that's enough, but I'm forgetful about charging and the iRiver lets me go several days on a single charge. Complete Data Control - No screwing around with my data. If I load mp3's from any computer, they're available on my iRiver. The iPod can also be used as a mass storage device, but you can only upload music from iTunes on your 'home' computer. This is a way of curtailing file-swapping. I don't even do this, but I don't like the fact that Apple won't let me use my hard drive as I see fit. Also makes it difficult if you don't have a computer all your own, like me. Cheaper - currently about $100 less for a 20gb iRiver vs a 20gb iPod. In iPod's defense, the iRiver doesn't have nearly as good a user interface, there are problems with the 'random play' mode (supposedly to be fixed with the next firmware upgrade), and the joystick thing feels cheap. Also, it doesn't look as sleek or cool as the iPod. It doesn't have a docking station, which would be cool for external speaker hook-ups, but not really necessary. Still, after a few days with my iRiver, I got used to the user interface, and realized I always kept it in it's case, so I didn't really care what it looked like inside. It's sound is great, I've dropped it on cement from a height of about 4 feet with no ill effects, I jog with it and have never had it skip. I really like it and would probably buy another one immediately if it were lost or stolen.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: First of all, what they neglect to tell you is that they haven't incorporated a feature to migrate your license for protected content. So if you've copied your albums with the Window's standard feature of "Copy Protect" you cannot play them on the iRiver. Further, this means that music downloaded and paid for legitimately, which also has content protection, will be unable to play on this device. Finally, the menu system and controls are needlessly confusing and inefficient. I advise that you keep shopping.
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