Since a few weeks, I’m using an iRiver instead of an iPod.

My first task was to transfer my music from the iPod to the iRiver. And to be honest, it took me a few days before I succeeded. The iPod organizes his files in a way that’s not meant for manual intervention. Files are placed in a set of folders, but you can’t do a search on it and look for a specific song for example that you want to copy to another device. That’s why I used a small program, named Copypod. The trial version did it for me, but if I need to use it again, I will no hesitate to buy it. Note that the trial version let’s you copy only 100 files at once.

These vendors are smart. Add your stuff on a device goes fast, but moving it…

I need to say something that the Apple freaks will adore. Starting up my iRiver takes 150 secs (Viking’s one only needs 40 secs). That’s a real negative point. Viking and I have almost the same number of files, but I have at least twice as much albums and artists. I’m thinking now of creating fake albums for all these stand alone songs.

The next issue is navigating. It’s really strange when you discover the fact that you can only browse the content via the file tree out of the box. You can enable a option which allows you to browse the content through the familiar items like artist, album and genre. However, the iRiver needs a database for it which can be generated by a tool you get with it. However, that crashes more often than it works. In the US, it’s possible to sync with Windows Media Player. The international version of the iRiver is not recognized by Windows Media player as a syncable device. And there are more differences:

The U.S. version comes with a clock and can syncronize with WMP enabling it to upload and play DRM protected music, such as you buy from Napster and iTunes. The U.S. version is not supposed to support usb on the go (usbotg) that allows the player to download files from digital cameras, usb memory sticks and other portable devices without a pc.

What can you do about it if you want to browse using the tags instead of the file tree? A free solution is the use of Tag Database tool which creates a database containing the ID Tag information of each music file. We choose to buy Irivium Explorer from Red Chair Software.

I use Irivium now to sync, transfer music, make playlists, organize and even allows you to stream the content so that we can play our music on our Airport Express via Itunes. You can check the complete list with features here.

I’m OK now with the navigation, but I need to work on the startup time. It must be said, that the iPod definitely scores better on all the points mentioned above. But even with all the negative implications, I don’t want to switch back. The iRiver is just a completer device for me (all you Apple fans note that I marked the “me” in bold and didn’t say “in general”) then the iPod was.

I think, the geekier you are, the more you will appreciate the iRiver. Just look at how Viking adapted his iRiver into a Doppler version: