Why You Can Trust CNET iRiver B30 review: iRiver B30
Idiosyncratic as hell, the iRiver B30 is a feature-complete player with sparkling sound, but it won't put a fire up the Cupertino boys.
- Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
Recently, there has been a wave of products originating from our Asian neighbours with nonsensical taglines — take for example Samsung's "Touch the Light" and Creative's even more ludicrous "Touch the Sound of Perfection". However, we may have found a winner: the iRiver B30 lets you ... "Play with your Motion". What the hell?! We're pretty sure there are laws against that.
iRiver B30
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Design
Like most new MP3 players, if you take a quick glance at the B30 you'd swear it was an iPhone; it has the glossy, black fascia and roughly the same dimensions. However, once you handle the device you’ll notice that it's not a touchscreen and instead features a capacitive touchpad at the bottom with volume controls. The touchpad is a little strange as there are four directional arrows and no "Back" or "Info" buttons. As a result, navigation takes a little getting used to — once within a menu the left arrow acts like a "Back" button, and up and down are used for FFWD and REW during playback. Though sometimes you'll accidentally find yourself hitting OK instead of down as the buttons are a little nebulous due to the lack of a hard button.
The large backlit touchpad means the B30 has a smaller screen than the 3.5-inch iPhone at 2.7 inches, nonetheless videos are still watchable and text readable. The iRiver features a hardened all-black case, and the unit we received even came with a silicon jacket, but we think this is an aftermarket accessory. Moving around the unit you'll find a power button and a lock switch on the left-hand side. On the top is the DAB+ antenna and then on the bottom you'll find the 3.5mm headphone jack and a flap that hides the mini USB port and a microSD slot.
Features
The iRiver B30 is an 8GB flash player which has the largest feature count of any player on the market. The biggest selling point is its ability to pick up digital radio, and is the first player to have album art and other pictorial content. The player will also potentially pick up digital TV broadcasts in other parts of the world — handy if you travel to Korea a lot.
The player features comprehensive audio support with MP3, WMA, OGG, ASF, FLAC, and even the uncommon APE lossless format. Video support is less widespread but still solid with AVI, WMV and MP4 covered.
The iRiver has what the company calls a "colourful GUI" (graphic user interface) but we're not sure that brown is a colour many people would consider to be particularly inspiring. We would have liked to see different colour schemes available as well.
Other features on the player include a gravity sensor for portrait or landscape switching, FM tuner, voice recorder, text reader and photo viewer. For transferring files to and from the device the B30 comes with iRiver Plus 3 software.
Performance
We find that the most appealing thing for city-dwelling buyers of the iRiver B30 is its ability to pull down digital radio broadcasts. So this is the first thing we tried. Like many things about the player, the DAB+ receiver controls were idiosyncratic. Activating DAB puts the iRiver into landscape mode, and you'll need to view it on its side. Reception differs depending on your location, and while CNET Towers wasn't the best the bus was fine. Sound quality differs by station but Triple J and Nova sounded good, though FM is still superior to either. Artwork worked, but most stations don't actually bother to update this feature regularly — yet. The arrangement of the antenna and headphone jack makes it awkward to put the thing in your pocket, but we did find you didn't need to extend the antenna much to get reception which makes it a little easier.
Having conquered DAB+ we then moved onto putting some music onto the player, and we'll say this now: the iRiver Plus 3 software wasn’t great. It's flaky, doesn't download cover art and doesn't always display FLAC files properly. Better to use a program like Media Monkey or even just drag and drop within Windows. Equally strange is that when you plug in a USB cable the player asks you to tap "OK" to confirm that you meant to connect to it. Why do they need this? Was there a spate of USB cable-related accidents?
We loaded a range of files onto the player — from Beatles Remasters in FLAC to some rock and metal in MP3 format. One thing we will agree on is that the B30 is an excellent sounding player; with punchy bass, an expressive mid-range and not too shrill highs. A well-produced album like Islands' Vapours sounds even better on the iRiver — with a good set of third-party headphones, that is.
While not exactly a "cinema-like" experience the B30 is quite acceptable for watching on the train. Sound quality was good, and a rip of Swedish horror movie Let the Right One In was detailed with thumps in the right places. In video terms, the player does have a low motion resolution or, in other words, there are lines through movement. You may also find that you need to convert your files first — a long process — due to the limited supported file types.
The text reader is an interesting addition, but fairly limited. Text comes out as white on black and doesn't support word or PDF files. Also, it doesn't word wrap so words tend to break in the middle.
What we don't recommend, though, is the ill-fitting headphones. The bass is the special "Distorto" brand, while detail and highs are actually OK. There was also a distinct favouritism toward the left channel. They're not even as good as Apple headphones, which in the latest version are actually much-improved.
While we're on negatives, the on-board speaker is also not up to snuff — it's meekly quiet and distorted at any volume.
Conclusion
Though it seems we've spent most of the review recounting the player's weak points, the B30 does some things particularly well. It's compact, great sounding and full of useful features. It's not an Apple-killer, but it's a respectable player that's notable for its DAB+ support. Just be sure to save up for an additional microSD card as FLAC files will fill up an 8GB player in no time at all.