We take the iRiver H320 to the river

Bill Gates pimped the iRiver H10 at CES in January, fondling the tiny MP3 player on stage and calling it “a very nice device”. But what of the H10’s older brother, the H320? We eagerly tore one out of its packaging and took it for a walk down the Thames yesterday evening.

The first thing that strikes you about the H320 is that navigating tracks is like playing an adventure game. This is clearly what happens when you get programmers to design an interface. Everything here is quite logical to a power-user, but why would the average person want to navigate a UNIX directory structure to get to their music?

Once we’d got over the fiasco of the H320’s interface, it actually sounded pretty good to listen to music on. The Chilli Peppers sang Californication while we danced merrily like a freak on the tow path outside the Tate Modern. The H10 is clearly the future, but the H320 has a certain Linux geek charm. -CS