iRiver S10

IRiver have been a little quiet since CES and we decided to take this opportunity to get hold of a previous release that until recently has been unavailable in the UK, the iRiver S10. Our review sample arrived and we have to admit to being quite surprised by its size, we knew it was small but it was only when we held it next to a 5G iPod that you really see just how tiny it is.

Measuring 42 x 30 x 10.8mm and weighing 17.5 grams the front of the iRiver S10 is dominated by a full colour 1.5" screen which is in turn mounted of a kind of tilting platform which is part of the D Pad navigation system. Build quality is of a very high standard despite being an all plastic construction, when sat in the hand the S10 feels good and of sufficient weight, our only concern is that the screen may scratch if you keep the unit in a pocket with loose change or keys.

iRiver have enabled the S10 to play MP3, WMA, ASF, and OGG Q10 which is a fairly complete range of codecs only missing Apples ACC and Sony's lesser known Atrac. The model on review here is the 2gb flash memory version which should be good for about 35 hours of 128kbit MP3 tracks. There is a smaller 1gb model for those who are really on a budget but the bigger one is much better value. Getting tracks onto the S10 is accomplished via a 3.5mm conversion where the earphone socket doubles up as a data socket rather than use USB, the cable supplied converts USB to 3.5mm and is vital so make sure you don't lose it as it also charges the player.

Transfer of media can be simple us9ing widows drag and drop or you can opt to install the iRiver Plus 3 software which does a nice job of showing what is loaded and letting you send play lists and delete media from the player. It can also rip music for you although weirdly it will not rip MP3 files! only Ogg and WMA and this is a first for us.


Driving the S10 is a joy and almost identical to the U10 and Clix which we have already reviewed. The navigation is logical whereby the right hand edge takes you deeper into the menus and the left hand edge brings you back up again, all of these have labels to help which makes for a remarkably simple interface as we previously saw on the U10. There are contextual menus if you hold the right-hand edge which makes for a speedy way of hacking through both album listings and settings alike. It is not an iPod interface although we'd go as far as to say that after a few days use it is as easy to operate even without a click wheel.

Replay quality was a mixed bag with the standard earphones sound frankly awful with nasty distortion and they are uncomfortable as hell too. However switch to something a bit better (we were swamped with Cresyn units at the time of testing) and the audio quality improves to a level where the distortion is gone and it is more than passable. Ogg tracks sound really tight with an average amount of bass and MP3 sound pretty good too.

We were disappointed that the small 1.5" screen is not used to best effect, in that album art is not supported and the only picture format that can be displayed is bitmap. This leaves the screen looking quite basic and rather ruins any idea of it being a lanyard type player. Quite why iRiver have gone to the trouble and expense of an OLED screen when they then let it show a bitmap background or bouncing equalizer is beyond us.

After a few days playing with the S10 its Achilles heel started to show. When we say started it was apparent from the first day when after being played with by everyone in the office the battery died on the way home. No problem an overnight charge using the special lead and we were all set for the commute and another day of MP3 replay, sadly it didn't make it past mid afternoon petering out at just under 8 hours. This was with the display set to switch off when not in use, heaven knows what the performance would be like if you selected always on!

Despite having a screen there is no video playback on the S10 and for extras you'll have to play with the FM radio and voice recorder, perhaps even the digital clock and equalizer. It sounds like we are being a bit harsh on the iRiver but in the face of competition like the new iPod shuffle it does square up quite well. A unit of this size with a screen and mutlicodec support is worth having.

Our dislikes are really the poor battery life and annoying things like the way that if you use the supplied earphones and wear the player as a pendant the off centre 3.5mm jack makes the S10 hang at a jaunty angle. These minor issues detract from what should be a stylish OLED screen player at iPod shuffle money.

Priced at £99 for this 2gb model and £20 less for the 1gb the iRiver S10 compares well to the £55 1gb iPod shuffle, just be careful that you can live with the 8 hour battery life and use your own earphones.