iRiver vs. iPod - Another contender taken down (from: Michael Gartenberg)
http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/006691.html
Sean McLeod who works over at Microsoft dies a nice jus reviewing the pretty hyped up iRiver H320 against the iPod. He finds it rather lacking in a lot of different ways.
Seriously, I did not enjoy debugging and trying to fit this device into my lifestyle. I figure the 2 or so hours I spent hacking TDT to support WMA DRM’ed files was well worth it as I learned something new, but if you are looking for a device to replace your iPod or you are on the market for a new device I would wait till iRiver works out the issues above (or some one else ships a comparable device).
It’s amazing that vendors STILL don’t realize why the iPod is a success and how to compete against it. Even with a compelling feature set like support for the Janus DRM, if you screw up the basics, there’s no way that users will ever even see the advanced stuff.