iRiver Clix 2GB digital media player review
 £84.95 Your Best Buy |  £123.15 |
| Design |
| Looking wise the iRiver Clix looks very similar to the IRiver U10 but comes with a much better interface. The design is very cleaning looking and simple. Measuring 2.7 x 1.8 x 0.6 inches the iRiver Clix only weighs 2.5 ounces but come with a bright 2.2 inch screen with 320x240 pixel resolution. All the navigation tools have been put around the side of the MP3 player giving more room for the screen but keeping the sleekness and compact size. By clicking the top and bottoms of the screen you’re enabled to move around the menu and they have a very satisfying click as you move through them. There’s two dedicated buttons on the top for volume which we really like as well as a tiny microphone and the power button on the right hand side together with a smart key which is really handy for creating short cuts to your favourite functions like track shuffle. Finally to the left is the headphone socket and at the bottom the charger socket. |
| Setup/Installation |
| You need to put the software provided on to your computer and from there it's very simple to tranfer music across the Clix. The only difficulty arises when you want to tranfer movies across, and at this point we suggest reading the printed manual provided. There's also lots of help on the iRiver website if you get stuck. |
| Features |
| There’s no denying iRiver have been very generous on the features front when it comes to the Clix media player. The Clix supports MP3, OGG, and WMA files, including songs purchased from online stores such as MSN Music or downloaded. You can transfer playlists to the Clix or something we really like, you can make your own Quick List or let the player decide based on your song ratings. And you can also rate songs while on the move. For music playback, the iRiver Clix offers the standard shuffle and repeat settings, and you can select from 13 EQ settings; Normal, Classic, Live, Pop, Rock, Jazz, Ubass, Metal, Dance, Party, Club, SRS Wow, and a user-defined mode and preview them in real time. Unlike the iRiver U10, this latest iRiver MP3 player also supports album art and MPEG-4 video although you need to convert videos before you can play them. And then there’s all the extras. First up is the FM radio which has up to 20 preset options. And then there’s the voice recorder. As well as that there’s an alarm clock, calendar and you can put on loads of Flash games which you can play while listening to music. You can also view text and look at JPEG photos while listening to tunes. Thanks to the improved interface you can preset your background and there’s an automatic setting that changes the colour scheme on a daily bases or adds your own photos as screensavers. |
| Performance |
| It’s all very well looking good and being full of funky features, but at the end of the day an MP3 player needs to sound good and the picture quality of JPEGs or movies needs to be good. And we can happily say that the iRiver gets a big tick for both those features. The iRiver Clix sounds fantastic and even when you whack the sound up it doesn’t distort. We loved the simplicity of the navigation system, a simple click and you moved from Music to Games, a click again and you were in the Settings option, and the Clix was quick to respond too. Using it was really easy. You can go back to the main menu at any time by clicking and holding the left side, which then brings up the seven options; Extras, FM Radio, Now Playing, Music, Pictures, Videos, and Settings. Each word magnifies and lights up as you scroll over it so its easy to see even in the dark. Once in the Music submenu, you can view content by playlist, artist, song, album, or genre. And it gives you album art to the left of the track name, the artist name and year, and the album title, the song length and time elapsed, and the five star rating. And a really lovely touch, at the bottom it tells you what song is coming up next. The EQ added to the sound experience as you can tinker with the setting and add extra oomph to your sounds. The images shown on the screen came out really bright and colourful and were a joy to watch, and thanks to the new interface by clicking a button you can flip images over from portrait to landscape. And because of this screen the Flash games looked really good too and left you wanting to play more games. The FM radio worked a treat and reception was good even indoors and the autoscan worked well to making it easy to select and save your favourite radio stations. Battery life on the iRiver Clix was pretty good too coming in at around 18 hours before dying on us. |
| What's In The Box? |
| iRiver clix 2GB multimedia player, iriver earphones, carry case with screen cleaner, Easy Start installation CD, preloaded tracks from eMusic, preloaded games, USB 2.0 cable, printed manual. |
| Overall Opinion |
| It’s a bit of a difficult choice, picking between the second generation iPod Nano and the iRiver Clix. In terms of satisfaction we thought the Clix was excellent – it looked great, and worked well and was really simple to use. The only drawback was the obvious limit of 2GB. However, while this machine is fantastic it is pricier than the Nano and this might be the dividing factor for people when deciding which MP3 to go for this Christmas. |
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Pros + Looks great + Simple to use + Has loads of features including FM radio |
Cons - limited space - Screen is a fingerprint magnet |
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Appearance 9/10
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Media Capacity 8/10
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Ease Of Use 9/10
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Build Quality 9/10
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Value For Money 9/10
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Overall Rating 
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By Babita Wakelin
16/10/2006 at 10:55:50am
16/10/2006 at 10:55:50am
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