iRiver iFP-899 - 1GB Flash MP3 Player With Tuner - USB2.0

I disagree that it is a bulky player. Sure it is not the smallest on the market, but it's not a basic player. I do not own any pockets that this will not fit into, and it fits easily into the same pocket as my wallet and mobile phone (regular High street jeans) It also has the AA battery to fit into it. This will obviously dictate a certain amount of space that this takes up. The size is a sort of triangle rather than rectangular, this means it fits easy in the hand for finding the controls.

The sound is amazing, loud, clear and warm, and there are more than enough presets to keep people happy. It does get very loud, too loud for earphones, but if you were to hook it up to speakers, or a hi-fi and the volume can come in very handy. All this with no distortion or break up.

I brought this player, after getting my girlfriend the 512 Mb last Christmas when the price was more than it is now. I was so impressed with the quality of it, that I had to get myself this one when my trusty old MP3 player died.

Pro's
Sound quality - 10 / 10
Able to play different formats - 10/10 - WMA, OGG, ASF as well as MP3
Speed of track changes - 9/10
Memory size - In MP3 I can get almost 300 tracks, in WMA it will be about 550. More than enough for me.
Menu Navigation - 9/10 would give Apple a run for it's money, you can easily move through the files and folders you can create
Battery life - 10/10 - 40 hours with decent brand AA's, and it really achieves it
Line in Input - 10/10 - Don't get cd's of all your favourite vinyl, copy onto this, move to your pc, then burn to cd. You have already brought it once!!!
Looks - 8 / 10
Being a flash memory player, if you drop it, you won't waste a load of money having to buy a new one. It's also good for running and work outs etc as no fragile hard drive to protect.
You can record from the radio, and it's a Dictaphone

Con's
Software - Easy to use on my aged P3 933mhz PC, but basic. Sometimes easier to have the software open, drag and drop from Windows in to the Iriver software.
The battery cover can come loose, bit not with the jacket on. Minor niggle, but one all the same.

If you want a smart player that's big on features, powerful sound, and easy to use then get this. I would only get something else if you wanted a hard drive player.

And then this player has extra features which not all others have. Like the FM radio - I didn't think I'd really use it, but now it's there I do, and the sound quality and reception you get with it is very very good. I've never used the microphone, but I'm sure it's a great feature for a lot of people. However, I do use the line in function, which allows you to produce mp3 files from any sound source with the right hole! Also, I'm sure it's aility to play OGG Vorbis files as well as WMA, mp3 etc would be a great advantage to some people.

There are only a few bad points I can think of: It is a fair bit more chunky than the smallest players you can get (largely because it needs room for the AA battery), but it's still so much smaller than any hard disc players/minidisc players etc. Also, I always wear it with the neck strap, so bellow a certain size, it doesn't really matter. Also, the battery cover is loose and I almost lost it, which would've been annoying. But that can be solved by putting on the player's protective jacket (it just doesn't look quite as cool). Finally the headphones it comes with really arn't very good and are a bit big for my ears, but to be honest that's probably the same with most other players available.

Overall, this really is an excellent player. If you're looking for a solid state player, then I really recommend this one, especially if you want the radio too.

...Good sound quality.
...Long battery life from a normal disposable battery.
...An FM radio that will pick-up local radio stations whilst walking around.
...compatible with all the common file standards

All of the above were achieved by the iRiver FP899

There are lots of other features which don't 'float my boat'

Recording from the radio.
Recording via a built-in microphone.

To transfer MP3 files to the device you either have to use the iRiver Music Manager software that comes with the player or the Windows Media player. I prefer just to be able to drag and drop files onto the device but the IRiver will not play ball

Nice unit pleased with my purchase