With head-turning looks, class-leading recording features, and sound quality that will please the pickiest of ears, iRiver's compact iFP-795 digital audio player is one of the best flash memory-based players around. The player also accepts secure WMA files purchased from Napster and other online music stores and works with both PCs and Macs, but a firmware upgrade is required for the drive to show up as a removable drive in Windows Explorer. Nevertheless, you'll struggle to find such a complete and feature-rich device for the price.
Pros: Great design; class-leading features; long battery life
Cons: 1GB max memory; fiddly controls; requires firmware update
The popularity of portable digital audio players is increasing by the day. IRiver, a constant innovator of attractive and feature-packed players has released yet another product that is jam packed with loads of features. The iFP-795 is a flash-based player that's available with either 512MB or 1GB of non-upgradable memory, so it's not really suitable for those who like to carry all of the music collection with them. Instead, it'll suit gym-goers and commuters.
The iFP-795 comes in a variety of colours - depending on the model purchased - including bright blue, grey metallic, red metallic, night-sky blue, panther black-metallic and purple. With designer INNO from INNODesign putting the finishing touches on its smooth and curvy triangular style, the player also makes a fashion statement. It measures 87x32x27mm and weighs just 37g too, which makes it ideal for fitness fanatics.
Unfortunately, using the player is let down slightly by the navigation stick and sensitive on/off button, which take a while to get used to. Navigating through menus is not particularly intuitive either, especially for those with large fingers, and we kept catching the overly-sensitive on/off button. But these quibbles aside, the iFP-795 looks really cool, especially the blue-backlit 4-line LCD (displays song title, album, artist, directory, sound visualisation, bit rate, sampling rate, and time elapsed/remaining), and its features will keep most audiophiles busy for hours.
The iFP-795 has a variety of features that distinguish it from the mass of competing products in its price range. As well as a wearable design (wrist band and neck strap supplied), it features 512MB of internal memory for up to 17 hours of music, extended battery life up to around 40 hours from one 1.5V AA cell, built-in FM tuner and voice recorder, radio alarm function, clock, and it also records music from any audio source. Plus, this ultra-light, skip-free player can be used to store music or transfer the most popular music file types (including MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG).
