The iriver IFP-899

When I left Entergy, my coworkers gave me a super duper going away gift, an mp3 player! I got the iriver iFP-899

I promised that I would post a review on this blog, so here goes.

I don't think that iriver is promoting the 800 series much anymore. They seem to be concentrating on the T-10 and the T-30 series now. As far as I can tell, the T-10 series is identical to the 800 series in features, except that the T-10 models do not allow for Line-In recording. Also, they only offer the 512 MB and the 1 GB models (and 2 GB) in the T-10 series, where the 800 series had 128 and 256 MB models as well. The T-30 series also only comes in the 512 MB and 1 GB models, but it has a AAA battery power supply instead of a AA and thus has a shorter playing time between battery changes or recharges (24 hours on the T-30's vs 40 hours for 8xx and 45 hours for T-10's). The T-30 series also lacks the FM tuner and FM recorder features that the 800 and the T-10 series have.

All that is to say, if you're looking to get an iriver 8xx model mp3 player, you might not be able to find it. But, I suppose that the T-10 series will do just as good or better, unless you must have the Line-In recording feature.

The iriver iFP-899 (and the T-10 and T-30 series) falls into the category of "flash memory mp3 player." iriver calls them "Ultra portable players". These are very different from the hard drive mp3 players, such as your standard Apple I-POD. The hard drive players are much bulkier, have moving parts, and have much shorter battery life than the flash memory players. On the plus side, the hard drive players have tons more memory, like up to 60 GB, where the flash memory players only offer up to 2 GB. So, if massive storage is your thing, go with a hard drive player. iriver makes some models that compete with the iPods, but I've never tried any of them out.


1. Price - well, it was a gift, so the price was perfect for me. If you're looking for a flash memory player in the $120 range, the iriver iFP-899 might just be for you.

2. Mode 1 - mp3 playback. I haven't used any other mp3 player ever, so I can't really compare the playback to anything. It seems to be just fine. With my new Shure E3c sound isolating earphones (that'll be another post sometime) I've been able to listen to music with much more clarity than ever before. I think I can just barely tell the difference in 128 kbps mp3 files and the 160 kbps or 320 kbps ones. Maybe I'll encode a particular song to different qualities and see how much difference I can really tell.

3. Mode 2 - FM Tuner. This is one cool feature of the iriver iFP-899. You get a full 87.5 to 108.0 MHz FM tuner, with .1 MHz granularity. The tuner works alright if you're in an urban area with strong FM stations. The "antenna" is the headphone cord, so when you move around the signal might fade a bit in response. Another cool thing is that you can record the FM broadcast! I didn't even know about this feature until I hit the Record button while I was listening to the radio. I don't really know of that many times when I would want to record the radio, but I know I have the option. One gripe about the FM tuner - figuring out how to do the station presets is by far the most confusing thing about this player. I still don't know how to do it!

4. Mode 3 - Voice Recorder. This is one of the features that made me decide to get the iFP-899. There is a tiny little mic on the front of the player, and when you set the device to Voice Mode, you can record from the mic. There are two neat things about the voice record feature. First, there is an "automatic gain control" option that amplifies sounds that are not as loud. This makes voice recording much easier since you don't have to get the recorder too close to the speaker. Second, you can adjust the quality of the voice recording. You can adjust the bitrate from 8kbps to 160kbps and the sampling frequency from 11.025 kHz to 44.1 kHz. I have no idea why anyone would want to record a voice file at 44.1 kHz 160kbps, but you have the option. Practically speaking, this gives you the option of how much space you want for voice recordings. Remember, you have 1GB total to work with (actually, some of that 1GB is taken up with the firmware, but only about 30MB if I remember right), so if you have the device nearly full up with mp3's, then you won't have much space to record using the voice recorder (or the FM or line-in recorder either - remember, they ALL have to share the same 1GB space). But, even with only 50MB left on the device, you can still have anywhere from about 14 hours to 45 minutes of record time. I use the voice record feature to record my lectures at LSU. I record voice files at 22.05 kHz, 48kbps. There is also a voice record auto detection feature, but I don't use that. It's supposed to only record when it thinks it hears someone speaking, otherwise, during silent times, it automatically pauses the recording, saving space.

5. Mode 4 - Line In recording. The iFP-899 can also record any analog audio signal with it's line-in record feature. The features of this recorder are similar to the voice recorder features except that you have the option of mono or stereo recording and there is a gain adjust. The line input jack is a standard 1/8" stereo jack (just like the headphone jack). I haven't had the opportunity to use this feature much, but I can see where it would really come in handy. I wish I'd had this when I did the sound at BLCR. I could have had the sermon files uploaded within minutes of getting home.


There are lots of other things I can say about this nifty little gadget. Nearly all of them are good. I only have a few gripes, and I know that at least one of these has been addressed in the T-10 series. I'll try to update this post as I get the time with more info.