iRiver E100 MP3 Player Review - Intro

The iRiver E100 is an entry-level media player that looks a bit like a slider-style cell phone. The E100 doesn't have many frills and it does have quite a few issues. The software looks downright dated, especially for a device sharing its market with iPods. The d-pad on the front is also very frustratingly unresponsive: the buttons' click doesn't correspond with the buttons actually registering a press.

The E100s had good audio quality overall that was ruined somewhat by crazy distortion levels. They had an average frequency response, but good cross talk control and virtually no noise. Of course, the packaged-in headphones were abysmal, but we tend to expect that.

The main downside with the E100 is that it's priced at $160, which is far too much for what it offers. Fortunately, its price seems to have fallen somewhat significantly, so if you can pick it up for under $100, it might be worth its quirky (read: terrible) controls.

Section	The Good	The Bad
Tour & Design	Small and portable.	Tends to get dingy-looking easily.
Hardware	Big screen for its size, external memory card slot.	Really bad controls.
Media Interface	Basic layout.	Unintuitive menu system.
Media Management	Media libraries have simple, intuitive layouts.	Navigating the library is annoying.
Other Media Software	N/A	The other media software is very basic, no podcast support.
Performance	Above average frequency response, good noise control, very little crosstalk.	Has a huge problem with distortion, packaged-in headphones are garbage.
Internet & Wireless	Good	Bad
Synchronization	Don't need to use sync software.	The sync software is strictly worse than free options.
Other Software	N/A	N/A