A reposting of a great review! It was posted at misticriver back in 2004, again in 2007 and seems appropriate again for the beginning of 2010, a full 7 years after its release.


WOW! 2004 seems like a hundred years ago. It was a time when iriver was king of the flash player market and a time when the venerable iHP-120 was young and garnering a crowd of geeks, lusting after its unique design and bevy of included features. Still the only consumer digital audio player to be released with an optical output*. Back in February 2004, our very own Doug (Sweet Spot) gave us his review of this fine player. I was able to salvage the review from misticriver v1.2 just before it met its maker. In fine S.S. fashion the review is lengthy, and it’s been unedited, presented to you here in all it’s glory. Take a ride back in time and enjoy!

iHP-120 by Sweet Spot


Ok kids, gather round by the campfire with your marsh mellows, gram crackers and chocolate bars….Uncle Dougie is gonna tell you all a story !


Let me just say in advance that this is by no means a full length review. Only when I’ve had and used the unit extensively, shall I do that…which I think is the only way to really review any product unless it has so many inherant flaws that no further dissection is necessary. I will walk through each and every part of which experiences I can recall while using the IHP-120 either in my home, or on the go.
There are still things that I have yet to experiment with or test, so if anything seems left out, it is. And purposely so. I like to be thorough, but I find that there are never enough hours in a given day to do all the things I’d like. Not to mention that I can be very lazy too !
Let’s begin with the basics shall we ?


Read the rest of the review here...

Hello all. As you can see I'm new to these parts, but I wanted to share a recent modification of mine in case anyone may find it helpful.

A few months ago I bought a used iriver H10 20GB hard-disk player on Amazon, and have been using it as my audio source when driving. I like the size and interface of the device and am a big fan of RockBox firmware (ogg ftw). These are the main reasons I chose the device over newer products and why I have no desire to buy any other player at this point in time. Unfortunately I recently dropped the player from about 4ft onto linoleum, which of course ruined the hard drive. It still worked but would intermittently lose track of the playlist or display the infamous 'firmware files missing' message on startup. I considered buying a brand new Samsung 80GB drive but decided against it since there is always the risk that I will drop it again.

I learned recently that the ZIF40 connector used for 1.8" hard disks is compatible with both PATA and CompactFlash -- they are all just different size connectors for the same signal bus. So after poking around a bit I found this adapter card:
Newegg.com - StarTech 1.8in ZIF LIF to Single Compact Flash SSD Adapter Card - Adapters & Gender Changers

You can see where this is going ;)

I also bought one of these:
Newegg.com - Kingston Elite Pro 32GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card Model CF/32GB-S2 - Flash Memory

as well as a higher capacity battery from iPods99.com
Super Extended Life Battery for The iRiver H110


Prior to doing any modding, I connected the player to the computer and used a CF card reader to copy over the entire contents of the player's hard drive onto the CF card.


And here is the fun part
(note: all images are clickable for higher res)



I followed GamerGeek's phenomenal disassembly guide
http://www.misticriver.com/showthread.php?48729-iRiver-H10-20gb-disassembly-instructions-(with-pics)

halves separated




back of the front half


back half


hard drive removed


drive comparison


The CF-ZIF adapter is 2mm thinner than the hard drive


The ZIF connectors do not quite line up, but this turned out not to be an issue


The SSD module fits!



-- post continued below, too many images for one post --

The rest of the tutorial and photos HERE

What happened to iriver? A question that many of us ask, but most of us don't have an answer for. When you study your history of DAP manufacturers who had a U.S. presence from the year 2000 on, you'll see iriver popping in with their iFP series of flash players. These players were very well made, had great sound quality and were, at the time, on the "cutting edge". In October 2003, iriver released the iHP-100 Series, its first hard drive based players, and with a cornucopia of features including, optical in/out and fm radio, they were a hit with audio fans.

In 2004, iriver followed up the iHP-100 series with the H300 series. While this new player featured the same HDD sizes, it included a color lcd display (arguably a first for a digital audio player) but failed to really improve on the now H100 series other than the color screen. Player size remained the same if not a little thicker and the UI experience was disappointing. It's also important to understand that during this time period, iriver was the largest and most popular portable audio manufacturer in Korea. This should have lent itself to improved development and design but unfortunately did not seem to have any effect on what happened in the U.S. market.

From the beginning of 2004, I had built a solid relationship with several iriver Korea employees including their Accessories Dept. Manager and their Web Dept. Manager. I was also invited and attended a user gathering in Seoul, Korea in July 2004. Exciting times for sure and all the time providing feedback from this community on what could be done differently or better. In 2005, iriver released the H10/20 series of flash/hdd players and again failed to impress with buggy firmware and hardware. Also notable was the continued lack of capacity in a market that was starving for more storage and being given what they wanted by competitors such as Apple, Cowon and Creative. This trend continued until 2006 when we finally got wind of the clix and clix 2 players. Small and well designed flash players with the latter having an AMOLED screen and a LOT of potential. Again, from all angles and many emails, I begged iriver to up the capacity for the American market and compete price wise with the competition.

The clix arrived, small and chubby with it's unique "d-click" navigation and a couple of cool accessories but, we all wanted and waited for the clix 2. When the clix 2 arrived it was going to be a masterpiece. Again, iriver took a great design and concept and dropped the ball by maxing the clix 2 out at 8GB of flash storage. Not a bad amount but, at a time when 16GB was starting to be the norm and users are begging for more, iriver wouldn't deliver. It is sad but the clix 2 was the last hurrah for iriver in the U.S. Players since such as the P7 have failed to garner attention, not only here, but anywhere.

iriver, if you are listening or reading... it could have been so much better, so much more. Listen to your customers!