The iRiver E100 is an entry-level media player, available in 4GB, and 8GB sizes for about $60 and $80 respectively. As you might have guessed from the price, the E100 is a basic device. It doesn't have the frills and level of extensability that many modern media players are starting to acquire. The upside to this scenario is typically ease of use, especially for utilitarians or those who aren't as familiar with technology. In the E100's case, however, this isn't exactly true.

The main issues with the E100 deal with some unintuitive design choices. Given the simply layout of its menu system and its simple physical controls – a four-way d-pad with a select button at its center – you might not assume this was the case. On the music/video playback screen, up and down will skip between files, as opposed to the traditional left and right. The left button is the back button, which does make sense since on all other screens the right button serves as a secondary select key: you get the sense that all the menus you navigate are stacked next to each other horizontally. On the playback screen, however, the right button is the menu button. Just pressing right won't open the menu, however: you have to press and hold it. The reason this is unintuitive is because "just pressing" the right button is used by another one of the E100's features, which takes clips of songs for later playback. Neither the "press and hold to access menu" nor the sound clip feature are very well illustrated on the screen. The d-pad also adds to the confusion, as button presses aren't always registered. 


Performance (read the full lab performance results at www.mediaplayerinfo.com)

The E100 had mixed results on our performance testing. We found that the device doesn't add any significant emphasis to bass or any other set of frequencies, which is ideal. It did, however, suffer from a lot more distortion than we typically see. Typically distortion is the job of a poor pair of headphones, but the E100 seems to a number on sound quality all by itself. This being said, the player didn't suffer from much crosstalk, meaning the left and right channels don't bleed over into each other much. The device was capable of an average output power, meaning you'll have to steer clear of high impedence headphones if you want a high decibel output. The device does a great job controlling noise, which is definitely a boon; noise is often far more perceptible than distortion. 

The included headphones are bad, as we've seen in every media player we've reviewed so far. We highly recommend buying a better pair. 

The E100 had good battery life for music playback: you can squeeze out about 17 and a half hours from a full charge. On video playback, however, expect your batteries to die after about 3 and a half hours.

Comparisons (read the full conclusion at www.mediaplayerinfo.com)

Since the device exists outside of the price bracket of the iPod, it can be a budget-friendly alternative despite its quirks. The truth is, despite Apple's years-long domination of the market, there still aren't any real challengers to the throne, especially in the lower price brackets. This being said, the iPods of the world, although more expensive, offer significantly better software and ease of use. If you're looking for an inexpensive option, the E100 isn't great, but it's about on par with other inexpensive options. If you're looking for a similar media player, try Sony's NWZ-A729BLK Walkman, which is more expensive but more intuitive, or the Creative Zen X-Fi WLAN for the same reasons. Both are 16GB  non-iPod options.