The iRiver H10 vs iPod

A friend of mine is a second generation iPod user (she has a 60GB iPod of some sort). While I’ve used it on occasion I’ve never used it much. What I own is an iRiver H10, and while it gets good reviews it is often considered a notch below the iPod. The UI is supposedly just not quite as good as the iPod.

This past weekend I got a chance to use her iPod more extensively and frankly, I was disappointed. Many people at work here even love the iPod so I was expecting something that said, "This is UI clearly superior to the MP3 players you've used in the past". And surprisingly the UI really is just about the worst part of the iPod.

The spin wheel is simply not very usable, compared to the iRiver up-down thumb-pad. The rotating thumb action that the iPod requires is distracting and simply a waste of movement. It would be like requiring me to rotate my mouse in a circle to scroll my page up or down, rather than just holding down a button. When I'm riding my bike I can scroll my iRiver very easily, this isn't nearly as easy with the iPod. Now it's quite possible that there's another way to scroll the iPod, but I couldn't figure it out.

I realize it is blasphemy in many circles to criticize the iPod, and I’m certainly not one of those people who buys every new gadget that comes out (the MP3 player I had before the iRiver was the original Archos 6GB player), but I must say that I found the iPod just decent. I wouldn’t trade my iRiver for it, even if they both had access to the same music. And given that the iRiver can play subscription based music services, it’s a no brainer.

I've heard that the iTunes experience is really great. And maybe it is. I didn't try that. Although syncing works fine with the iRiver. Although w/o knowing how great the iTunes experience is, maybe I'm missing something.

With that said, if you gave me an iPod for free, I would not turn you down.