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The interchangeable cap with integrated earphones
...or use your own headphones with this cap

There seems to be no let up in the popularity of MP3, or rather, digital audio players. Apple’s iPod continues to grab headlines in the mainstream press and there are rumours flying around that the fruity company is soon going to release a flash-based player. In the meantime others such as iRiver have the solid-state audio party to themselves.

From previous experience I’ve found that iRiver devices tend to be loaded with features but suffer from poor interfaces and style-free looks. Therefore I msut admit that I was genuinely surprised by the iRiver N10. Starting from the packaging, to the player itself, the N10, is a really cool little player that really turned round my opinion of iRiver products. Up to now iRiver clearly though ‘style’ was just something you used to cross over a fence but someone must have sat the designers at iRiver down and shown them where they were going wrong.

The N10 is designed as pendant style ‘fashion’ item that’s actually meant to be worn. This sounds like it could easily have gone disastrously wrong but fortunatley iRiver have actually managed to pull it off. The player is less than seven centimetres long and hangs off a chord so you can wear it like a necklace. In a neat touch the supplied in-ear headphones are actually attached to the chord so that when you’re not listening to them they can be secured to the clips on either side. However, I’m not a fan of in-ear headphones and find them very uncomfortable to wear. In fact, I found that when I literally took the N10 out for a test run at the gym, the right earphone constantly fell out. However, this is probably due to a defect in my ears as the left one never budged. I also don’t like in-ear headphones because they’re often poor quality but the ones supplied with the N10 are actually quite decent sounding, as long as you don’t turn them up too much.

Fortunately though, I was able to avoid the whole in-ear scenario, thanks to a rather clever design feature. The top of the player is actually a removable cap, which can be replaced with another cap that contains a standard headphone socket, thus enabling you to use the 'phones of your choice. The disadvantage of regular headphones is that you then have to contend with the excess cabling but on the upside you do get to make the most of the excellent sound quality. This has a rich bassy quality to it that is very listenable to, even for extended periods.

The player display uses OLED technology and the green against black backdrop is effective. When turned off the display reverts to a clear smoked mirrored finish, which you’ll probably keep polishing to keep it free of fingerprints. The display isn’t large but it shows plenty of information as the track plays. These are battery power remaining, track-time played, the scrolling track name, and the folder it’s contained in. This switches to one of four screen savers after a few seconds, before the display turns off to conserve power. This enables the lithium polymer battery to last for the stated 11 hours. The player plays MP3 and WMA and ASF and also has a tiny built-in microphone for recording.

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