Christmas is a time of constant surprises and so it was as LP tucked into another turkey sandwich that he accidentally stopped on QVC, they were showcasing the iRiver N10 MP3 player, out of curiosity he turned up the sound. Only a week ago we had a few hours with an N10 and one of LP’s bits of Xmas homework was to put together a review of the mini river mp3 device, but of course the young lady on QVC had it all covered.

She proceeded to describe the iriver N10 as a piece of jewellery and spend more time on its looks rather than its function, as a wearable MP3 player its fair to say that iriver had brought this approach upon themselves. What followed was a basic display of how to press play and what an mp3 player was along with a statement that as there were no moving parts it wouldn’t go wrong!

Well it doesn’t look like LP will be out of a job anytime soon as his few hours with the N10 proved a little more fruitful. The model of N10 on test is the 512mb version, this sits squarely in the middle of the flash based MP3 market, its good to hold about 8 – 10 albums of music encoded at 128mbits. It is small measuring just 6.2 x 2.7 x 1.3cm and weighing 24grams this is essential for any player in this segment, as they should offer ultimate portability to make up for the relatively low storage space. 

But the iriver N10 is relying on style to mark it out in this fiercely competitive end of the mp3 player market, even the box that the N10 comes in is more like a jewellery case than the usual polystyrene affair. This fits well with irivers suggestion that you wear the N10, the headphones are built into the necklace attachment which loop round and through the top of the unit in a fairly secure manner, you can use ordinary headphones by using the second attachment which gives you a 3.5mm jack output.

Now we were expecting that like many flash players the N10 would have a good battery life something that even the current Apple Ipod 4G fails on, but iriver have only managed to squeak 12 hours of replay from the N10. It’s difficult to see what eats the battery, the display is not bright, although readable and when not in use the backlight switches off. The MP3 / WMA playback (up to 320kbps) is of good quality in terms of audio response and the line level is comparable with other small players, so its hard to see why only 12hrs?

Getting tracks onto the N10 is accomplished via a USB connection but sadly you are forced to use the river drag and drop software which is to simple to be of any assistance and therefore leaves you wondering why you can’t just use windows.

Even with 20% off the price on Amazon, £159.99 is quite a steep price for a 512mb device, perhaps this fits more with its fashion accessory looks, but we can’t help but think there is something flawed with wearing £160 worth of mp3 player round your neck.

Overall the N10 is a good replay device and Iriver always ensure they sound good to the ear, but styling is clearly pitched at a small market section and the current price ensures that it will achieve comparable sales.

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