IRiver iFP-899 - Digital player / radio - flash 1024 MB - WMA, MP3 - ruby red

Brand: iRiver

Customer Reviews:

Studio in a Box [Posted on 2006-03-25]
I got my iFP 899 from my sister, who couldn't figure out how to work it. She offered it to me, and I grabbed it- and I'm very glad I did.

I didn't need another MP3 player- I have an iPopd that works very well- but the iFP 899 offers something I did want: Simple, portable, direct to MP3 recording. You can record snippets direct from the built-in FM radio, from the built-in microphone, or via the line-in, from high quality microphones of an outboard microphone preamp.

I put together a small field recording kit consisting of the iFP 899, a set of homemade stereo microphones made from modified Panasonic electret cartidges, and a waterpoof box. Now I'm set to make nature recordings, music recordings, any sort of recording anytime, anyplace. With 1GB of flash memory I can record hours and hours of high quality MP3 sound.

Standard MP3 and FM radio playback is very good from 899, too; add an outboard headphone amp, and you've got a first-rate portable music system. The controls are a little non-intuitive, but the manual makes it all very clear.

As delivered, the unit is set up to load songs using a special desktop app, but iRiver offers a simpler driver on their website that allows the iFP 899 to act as an attached drive on your computer, whcih I find more flexible (particularly as I already have iTunes loaded). COnversion was automatic, and took a couple of minutes.

All in all, a great toy with a lot of flexibility.

Very Disappointing [Posted on 2006-06-07]
I had expected to really like iRiver's flash MP3 player. I had owned an older iRiver 256 MB model that looked nearly identical. Unfortunately, the manufacturer made several changes that make this product really a pain.

On the plus side, the sound quality is still good and the basic system for accessing music once you've put it on the player is good.

Beyond that, things go downhill. In no particular order: the battery door cover keeps falling off; when I put the player in "random play" mode to enjoy a variety of different songs, it keeps playing the same 20 or 25 songs over and over; the software that comes with my unit was not user friendly and had adware and/or spyware hidden within; the software that came with my unit would not let me transfer songs from the unit to another computer; the headphones that come with the unit are only adequate and no better.

In sum, because there are so many different flash MP3 players out there, I suspect there's better for the same money. I bought my daughter the iPod 2 GB Nano (slightly more expensive) and she has none of these types of problems.

IRiver 899 [Posted on 2006-10-30]
Excellent choice! Cant say enough about this player. Very versatile to meet all my needs: holds many MP3s for the gym, has a FM radio I use as a transmitter to listen to satellite radio in the yard (via transmitter), a voice recorder to tape college lectures with, and a line in feature that allows you to record from most any format. Have bought several others as gifts.

Best for portable recording, for the price..why don't they still make this? [Posted on 2007-05-19]
I'll say up front that I have a love/hate relationship with our iRiver 899. The menus and joystick are maddeningly bad, and the only thing that kept this device from being my constant companion. I've been podcasting for going on three years now, and we bought this little sucker early on. I fought with it constantly trying to intuit how the menus and controls worked, and could never do it, so I wrote it off as being a lame device and stuck with the much bigger and clunkier and EXPENSIVE Marantz PMD660, which required a bag to lug it and accompanying equipment (laptop, mics, cables) around all across the country. The marantz IS easy to intuit, where the iRiver is not. I would never use the iRiver as an Mp3 player, it's just too hard to use and the software isn't great either.

I finally really sat down with the user guide for the iRiver, and started doing test recordings with the onboard mic and an external cheap lapel mic made by Griffin. Once I mastered the bad interface and figured out the best recording settings for different environments, I really got to love the little recorder. In fact this year at a convention I kept the thing on for nearly 24 hours a day, and captured some really great audio. Because I could keep the thing with me wherever I went I got some great interviews that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten, as I couldn't keep the big recorder with me all the time. If you can find one of these (no smaller than the 1GIG if you're smart) on ebay or through another amazon reseller, I highly recommend you get one and then really learn how to use it. You'll be glad you did.

Sturdy and reliable mp3 player [Posted on 2008-07-02]
I've had this mp3 player for over 3 years now and NEVER had a problem with it. If only all players were like this one!

Considering how far mp3 players have come along in 3 years, this player was great back in 2005. It's definitely not fancy (1 GB, no color), but the sound quality is decent, the screen is tough (only one scratch), and it takes only one AA battery.

The software wasn't the easiest to use, but I managed to make sense of it all and listen to my songs.

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