Greetings THG readers...
Thought I'd throw this out to the group...for those that may have similar experience, or just for those that are considering the iGP.
Got an iGP100 back in January 2004, loved it...took it to the gym three days a week. Snowboarded with it half a dozen times...very sweet little unit.
I especially liked the USB2.0 transfer (filled it in almost no time, compared to my old USB1.0 RCA Lyra). Though, I do wish there was a plug-in to something to reformat my MP3's bit rate, as I do my VBR so they play well on my home stereo. I used MusicMatch Jukebox for my RCA Lyra, and it was slick. End result was I ended up not getting quite as many tunes on the iGP as I had hoped...but not a big deal...I'll devise a method to resample them later (lazy at the moment).
Around 3/1/04, the unit ended up having a hard drive failure. Tried to call iRiver, got their voice mail system the first day I tried...so I just left a message. They called back when I wasn't available and told me to call back in...*sigh*
So, I emailed them...got a response in a couple days, had to ship them the defective unit (has a one year warranty, which was a selling point for me). About 5-6 business days later, had the new unit in my hand.
Charged it up (I like the rechargeable battery, as long as I remember to do it...benefit of my Lyra was it used AA batteries, which I just kept a spare set charged up handy in case I forgot to keep them charged. This is not an option with the iGP). I tried to load songs to it, and on power-up, had the same error. HD failure. Ugh...
Emailed them again (gave up on phone) on 3/21...no response. Sent an "unhappy" email to them on 4/11, got an apologetic email back, they next day shipped me a replacement with a pickup-ticket (which I thought was nice). Thankfully, this one is working...haven't taken it to the gym yet, been using my old 5 year old Lyra, but will be taking it starting tomorrow. Will post any updates.
Summary of the unit:
- Two failures is not a good sign, hope this is not indicitive of the future for this unit
- Support was so-so, couldn't believe it took over 2 days for response on first email. Then, no response on the second failure, until I prodded. They recovered gracefully, and covered shipping on the other unit...so I'm not soured yet.
- Plug-in support would be nice to have...I did send a request to MusicMatch to see if they will support it, not sure what will happen. Kind of surprised they didn't write one for Windows Media player or others. I know it's a removable USB HD, but I like the resampling feature...plus I have lots of different "mood" play lists built in MM JB. Boardin', walking, working out, chilling, etc...
- Battery - Rechargeable is nice, but when it dies...you are SOL. Very similar issues to cameras that have rechargeables inside of them instead of standard batteries. When you are somewhere that doesn't have power (outdoors, etc, or if you just forget like me) you can't use the unit when it dies. I like being able to pop in standard batteries to get more juice. Plus, I just buy a set of rechargeable AA batteries, and they work great...just my $0.02, and your mileage may vary.
- Size and Shape - LIke the small compact size, wish there was some sort of clip, or arm band or ? that would provide me a place to put the unit on my person, especially while working out. Minor, but still a PITA.
That's it...hope this helped someone...sorry for the book, not sure what got into me.
Pop
Thought I'd throw this out to the group...for those that may have similar experience, or just for those that are considering the iGP.
Got an iGP100 back in January 2004, loved it...took it to the gym three days a week. Snowboarded with it half a dozen times...very sweet little unit.
I especially liked the USB2.0 transfer (filled it in almost no time, compared to my old USB1.0 RCA Lyra). Though, I do wish there was a plug-in to something to reformat my MP3's bit rate, as I do my VBR so they play well on my home stereo. I used MusicMatch Jukebox for my RCA Lyra, and it was slick. End result was I ended up not getting quite as many tunes on the iGP as I had hoped...but not a big deal...I'll devise a method to resample them later (lazy at the moment).
Around 3/1/04, the unit ended up having a hard drive failure. Tried to call iRiver, got their voice mail system the first day I tried...so I just left a message. They called back when I wasn't available and told me to call back in...*sigh*
So, I emailed them...got a response in a couple days, had to ship them the defective unit (has a one year warranty, which was a selling point for me). About 5-6 business days later, had the new unit in my hand.
Charged it up (I like the rechargeable battery, as long as I remember to do it...benefit of my Lyra was it used AA batteries, which I just kept a spare set charged up handy in case I forgot to keep them charged. This is not an option with the iGP). I tried to load songs to it, and on power-up, had the same error. HD failure. Ugh...
Emailed them again (gave up on phone) on 3/21...no response. Sent an "unhappy" email to them on 4/11, got an apologetic email back, they next day shipped me a replacement with a pickup-ticket (which I thought was nice). Thankfully, this one is working...haven't taken it to the gym yet, been using my old 5 year old Lyra, but will be taking it starting tomorrow. Will post any updates.
Summary of the unit:
- Two failures is not a good sign, hope this is not indicitive of the future for this unit
- Support was so-so, couldn't believe it took over 2 days for response on first email. Then, no response on the second failure, until I prodded. They recovered gracefully, and covered shipping on the other unit...so I'm not soured yet.
- Plug-in support would be nice to have...I did send a request to MusicMatch to see if they will support it, not sure what will happen. Kind of surprised they didn't write one for Windows Media player or others. I know it's a removable USB HD, but I like the resampling feature...plus I have lots of different "mood" play lists built in MM JB. Boardin', walking, working out, chilling, etc...
- Battery - Rechargeable is nice, but when it dies...you are SOL. Very similar issues to cameras that have rechargeables inside of them instead of standard batteries. When you are somewhere that doesn't have power (outdoors, etc, or if you just forget like me) you can't use the unit when it dies. I like being able to pop in standard batteries to get more juice. Plus, I just buy a set of rechargeable AA batteries, and they work great...just my $0.02, and your mileage may vary.
- Size and Shape - LIke the small compact size, wish there was some sort of clip, or arm band or ? that would provide me a place to put the unit on my person, especially while working out. Minor, but still a PITA.
That's it...hope this helped someone...sorry for the book, not sure what got into me.
Pop
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