iRiver Clix receives 'Best Flash Memory MP3 Player' rating*

Rated the best flash memory MP3 player by James Kim, Senior Editor at the highly acclaimed CNET (www.cnet.com) technology website.

'The iRiver Clix is a superbly designed MP3 player that's easy to use and packed with pretty much every feature in the book,' says Kim. 'We at CNET hesitate to call anything perfect, but iRiver comes close with the Clix,' says Jasmine France, Review Editor who reviewed the product and gave it an 8.7 (excellent) rating, reserved for a few outstanding products.

'Incorporating U10's cool, miniature TV-like design and great features, alongside an enhanced user interface and superb integration with Windows Media Player 11 and MTV Urge, the iRiver Clix has been launched in tandem with the media software and the music service as Microsoft, iRiver, and MTV worked closely to create the perfect symbiotic relationship between software, service, and hardware,' says Rahul Tola, Product Manager at Sharaf Electronics.

Superb looks, easy functionality

Early and late adopters, as well as design heads, will fall in love with the iRiver Clix's clean, futuristic look. The compact player measures 2.7 by 1.8 by 0.6 inches, weighs 2.5 ounces, and features a bright and colorful 2.2-inch display with 320x240-pixel resolution. While there are a few small buttons on the sides, users navigate the interface by pressing the four sides of the display itself. This tactile control method - iRiver refers to it as the D-Click (thus Clix), combined with graphical arrows that point you in the right direction - is both intuitive and logical. Indeed, compared to previous iRiver interfaces, the Clix's is refreshingly simple and easy on the eyes. Around the edges of the iRiver Clix, you'll find the remainder of the controls.

Using the Clix within WMP 11 is wonderful experience. If you really want to have some fun, though, use the Clix with Urge. You select music from a seemingly limitless library, and even the album art comes with each track you transfer. Like a song that's part of your subscription so much that you want to own it? Click and hold the right side to go to a list of options, and select Buy. The next time you sync the player, an Urge music store window will pop up with the song you requested. Once you get some content onto the Clix, it's a breeze to use and a pleasure to look at.

Powerful performance

The heart of an MP3 player is its digital music playback, and the iRiver Clix is no slouch in that area. The Clix supports MP3, OGG, and WMA files, including songs purchased from online stores such as MSN Music or downloaded as part of an on-the-go subscription service such as Urge. For music playback, the 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.

Sound-wise, the iRiver Clix is great and gets really loud. Whichever mode you use, you get clear highs, a defined midrange, and tangible lows. The iRiver Clix's rated 25-hour battery life is also solid as are transfer speeds over USB 2.0, coming in at 3.7MB per second. The Flash games are surprisingly engaging and colorful, FM reception is excellent, and the related autoscan feature works superbly.

The iRiver Clix is a bargain once you factor in all the features. You get an FM tuner (with up to 20 presets) and a voice recorder; with the dock, you have an option for line-in recording. There's a calendar and an alarm clock, as well as support for Flash games. If you need to keep your eyes busy, the iRiver Clix delivers in that area too. You can view text, JPEG photos, or slide shows while listening to music. Plus, you can tinker with the background of the interface itself, choosing from seven sharp-looking color schemes based on the days of the week or an automatic setting that cycles through them each day; alternatively, you can use your own photos. The Clix also supports album art, which is definitely nice to look at on the crisp color screen.