Review: iriver B30 Music Player
My old iPod Nano (first generation, 4GB) was starting to get a little long in the tooth and so I’ve had a good look around at the options for replacement. The choice came down to two: the latest ipod nano with video playback, and the iriver B30.
I’ve gone with the B30 for a few reasons:
- It has a DAB+ digital radio tuner built in. Extra channels, ability to record, great sound quality.
- There is a micro-SD slot so the memory can be increased
- I can use music software other than iTunes, or I can just copy files on and off it.
- It uses a standard USB connector for transferring files and for charging.
There are more photos of the B30 in the photo gallery.
The B30 has a built in speaker that is surprisingly clear and loud. The vibrating haptic feedback takes a bit to get used to, and since there isn’t any physical feedback it can be a little tricker than the ipod to drive — it isn’t possible to change volume or tracks with it in your pocket. There is a g-sensor that can tell which way the player is being held, but I found that it was worse than useless. The only place it worked was the music player (DAB and video are landscape all the time), and it would skip songs (the shake function) when walking along.
Having the full video screen lets you view album art, station logos and news/weather updates. The character based DAB+ players miss out on this, so even though the B30 is small, it has a heap of features.
It is possible to record to internal memory from the microphone (memo taker), FM radio, or from the digital radio. The digital recording pretty much pipes the AAC data from the transmission straight to flash so the quality is excellent.
DAB+ is transmitted from the Channel 10 site in Brisbane, and coverage is good in the western and northern suburbs where I’ve tried it out. I can listen to ABC News Radio on a train for the first time (25kV AC power and steel carriages don’t go so well with AM transmissions), and similarly at work the quality is better. On a bus about 5mm of antenna needs to be exposed, but iriver thought it through. The fat part of the antenna is at the top, and there is a hinge so 40mm or so of antenna can be laid across the top of the music player.
Video playback is smooth, even with AVC encoding like that used on vodcasts intended for ipod viewing. I’m a fan of Car Pool by Robert Llewellyn (or Red Dwarf and Scrapheap Challenge fame) and it plays back very nicely.
Now that I am free of iTunes, I am using Juice as a podcast manager and Songbird to manage music. SyncToy manages the file copying to and from the B30 — Songbird isn’t quite there yet with support for music players that mount as a drive, but is good for MTP players (although a new version is now out that I’ll try). If I want to share a podcast with someone else I can simply copy the file off onto their computer if they have a standard mini USB lead — it is that simple. The only hassle with managing files this way is that the database in the player has to be rebuilt when files are deleted or added. This isn’t required if you use the iriver software (iriver plus 3), but that software is sufficiently revolting that you won’t mind rebuilding the database by hand!
Two accessories I have purchased are pretty much the only two accessories there are: a screen protector film and a case. A silicon skin was supplied by iriver, but I prefer a full case so I can carry the music player in my bag without risking damage to its lovely screen. The screen protector came from Korea and the case is a Tuff-Luv, made just for it. The case supports the player with some rails on the side and these are very secure. A cutout has been made in the top (where the case ‘hinges’) to allow for the antenna to be extended.
The iriver B30 takes a bit of getting used to, and is not as polished as an ipod, but is more capable and less restrictive to go with it. There aren’t the docks, cables and car adapters that there are for the apple products, but it is a fairly cheap way of getting into digital radio (if it is transmitted in your city) with a good music & video player thrown in.
