Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"It seems like it was ages ago that we heard rumors of an aluminum iriver E100... then at the end of November, the E100 Season 2 appeared and the plastic was still in abundance. The E50 (supposedly pictured above) is, however, another tale entirely. The slim, brushed aluminum encased PMP -- which will come in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB models -- boasts a 1.8-inch color LCD, an FM tuner, and gets a rumored 52-hours of audio life. We don't have full specs yet, but the players will apparently appear in January with the 4GB costing about €69 (or about $90)."

Reminds me of a flash-based Zune with out the control pad, but instead featuring a sweet brushed aluminum finish. Curious if it also features a glass screen, as that would make for a very sexy little player.

"I really don't have too many nice things to say about the iriver T7. Even if you were to ignore the fact that it has more bugs than any other player I've seen (something that might after all be fixed in firmware updates), it's still so ridiculously slow that you can take a nap between the time you press a button and the thing actually responds. The battery draining issue is another thing, if that's not just my player then iriver has a serious problem. With the exception of the USB plug/MSC mode combo, the player has very little going for it. It has basically the exact same specs as any other small player like this and when a set of players cost the same and have the same features, there is no room whatsoever for a poorly designed competitor like this. So is the player worth your consideration? No."

Looks like iRiver dropped the ball here. I'll go on record that I liked the brown Zune, but this player is pretty ugly. The one redeeming characteristic is the built in USB connector, but certainly not enough to offset the rest.