The player is relatively easy to use after a quick run through the instructions. Nice setup to the layered menus and I found the control stick easy to use despite its small size. Sound is good and it was priced similarly to other flash players. The headphones are poor but that seems to be typical for factory offerings included with MP3 players. Big negative for me was the sport armband. Might not be an issue for some but if you intend to move around at all it is a necessity. Armband is poorly designed, too small for an average arm, and looks completely ridiculous (even for an armband, think Judas Priest). Iriver does sell a very nice separate "sport case with armband" but include that $20 cost in your comparisons to other players. If it came with the better armband I think the 790 would be a great buy, but since I have to buy that separately I might as well buy an ipod or save $40 and buy a Creative N200.

This thing is amazing! I took it everywhere. It's amazing how it's so compact that it fits into your pocket. The controls are a little difficult but if you read the book, it becomes very easy. The only suggestion I have for iRiver is that they make them water tight. I had mine for about five months before someone spilled soda on it. Amazingly, the computer part of it still worked but the controls and USB port became very stuck after about a day. I haven't figured out if it can be cleaned or not.

I reccommend this to anyone. Just avoid mixing it with Sieraa Mist.

As some previous reviews claimed, the iRiver is great in that it:
(a) is small and lightweight, with a very convenient arm band for when I do my 5-mile runs.
(b) lasts a long, long time on a regular battery.
(c) is fairly easy to use for downloading, as long as you stick to the WMA format and use the CD software that comes with it.
(d) holds a decent number of songs, although I find that I have to switch my playlists at least once a month.
(e) doesn't skip.

However, figuring out the bells and whistles is surprisingly complicated (even for someone like me who tends to intuit gadgets fairly well). If you download *folders* of music and play straight from those, it's easy enough to figure out how to shuffle tracks and switch between folders, but I've given up on trying to actually program any *playlists*.

Other small nuisances include:
(a) the player occasionally switches songs when I try to adjust the volume while running, because the same small joystick controls both functions.
(b) the included ear buds are no good for running, because they'll fall out.
(c) the radio feature is nice, but I don't get nearly as good or reliable reception as I do with my car stereo.
(d) **** this one is my worst pet peeve **** the "random shuffle" mode doesn't randomly shuffle through all the songs in a folder in any true *random* fashion. Unless I keep my folders small, I find that some of the same tracks come up in the same order every time I run, and what's worse, some songs never get played at all, even if I try to skip ahead to all of them--instead, the player goes back to the beginning of the "random" list and plays the same songs in the same order again. (For those out there who know that random doesn't always *appear* to be random, trust me--this feature doesn't work correctly with more than a couple of dozen tracks.)

Nuisances aside, I am pretty happy with the purchase.

I've owned this player for about three weeks now and am very happy with it. Very nice sound quality and fairly easy to use. There are a few things that put it over other 256MB players in my opinion...

1. UMS FIRMWARE UPGRADE. This is probably the most important thing I'll list. I did this as soon as I got the player and it made it that much better. Contrary to what some other reviewers may say here, you CAN make this device (as well as ANY products in the IFP-700 or 800 series) function as a regular flash drive, and not have to use the included IRiver software to transfer songs. Just go to the IRiver site and/or Google search for the UMS firmware update for this device (currently it is at version 1.28). Once you upgrade the firmware (the instructions are easy to follow on the site) it will operate not only as an MP3 player, but as a portable storage device for ANY type of file you need to transfer. This also makes it MUCH easier to transfer/arrange/rename/delete your files around on the player, as you can do it in Windows Explorer instead of doing it through the onboard player menus.

2. OGG FILE SUPPORT ALLOWS YOU MORE SPACE FOR SONGS WHILE STILL RETAINING HIGH QUALITY SOUND. For those not aware, OGG is a file type similar to MP3, but with better quality and smaller file size - IE, a 128kbps OGG file will sound better than an 128kbps MP3 file. Although it's unfortunate that it won't support any bitrate of OGG, it's a very minor issue. The lowest it will accept is 112kbps, but considering that's practically on par with a 160 kbps MP3, you can fit a lot more songs on here than you could with MP3s of an equivalent quality. I've encoded all my songs at 112kbps in OGG format and it's less than half-full with 32 songs on it - and they all sound very good. Should be able to fit about 70 songs on here no problem, which is more than enough for me since I mainly use this as a workout music player. If you're unfamiliar with OGG files just go to vorbis.com and check out the oggdrop program. Very simple to use, set the bitrate and then just drag and drop wavs to encode them.

3. QUALITY HEADPHONES. While they certainly aren't the best money can buy, they certainly ARE better than most pack-in headphones you get with CD or MP3 players. I see no reason to buy seperate ones. (note - the ones included with this model are the ear-bud type, I'd recommend putting the included foam-ish covers over them to avoid them becoming uncomfortable)

4. BATTERY LIFE. The fact that it uses a AA battery instead of a AAA battery makes it last longer than many other MP3 players. It won't quite reach the 40 hours advertised, but it's certainly well upwards of 30.

5. EXTRAS. Although the included arm-band won't win any awards, and the only bicep I could see it fitting around would be...oh, maybe Rick Moranis', it fits fine around just about anyone's forearm and the headphones are long enough to accomodate just about anyone...I'm 6'6 and it was plenty long enough for me while running. There is also a neck band included if you want to wear it around your neck instead. The documentation with the product is fairly well written, although there are so many menus and little features that some people may feel a bit overwhelmed at first. It also comes with a protective plastic-ish cover which slips over it and attaches to the armband. I just leave the cover on most of the time so the screen doesn't get scratched. Also includes an FM radio and voice recorder which I don't have much use for but will definitely appeal to most people. Finally, it also has a connector cord included if you need to do any direct line-in recording which is another nice feature, but something I don't think I'll ever use.

MY MAIN PROBLEM with this product is the joystick control. The little joystick is...LITTLE. I often find myself hitting up when I want to hit right, or hitting right when I want to push the stick in. Occasionally I'll be trying to turn the volume up and end up skipping to the next track instead. You'll probably want to be sitting still when you are using it, otherwise it may become a baffling ordeal for even the most brilliant among us.

I'd definitely recommend this if 256MB of space is large enough for you. If you encode your files properly like I talked about above you can fit quite a few songs on this. This is mainly used by me as a music player during workouts and so far it has worked great. I may upgrade to the 512MB version someday, but for now this serves me fine. If it weren't for the annoying controls/interface, this would be 5 stars easily.

When I began shopping for a small MP3 player to use during workouts at the gym, I looked at the same things most people would look at: features and price. The iRiver 256 MB Player seemed to meet all of my requirements, so I bought it. Then reality set in. I took it home, installed the music management software on my PC (running Windows XP), and then the nightmare began. Try as I might, I couldn't get the software to function properly. Essentially, it refused to recognize the player when I plugged it into the USB 2 port. I tried everything I could imagine, but no dice. So....I decided it was time to call tech support. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that iRiver's tech support hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. MST. Coincidentally, those are my office hours! Once it appeared that I was never going to get the software to work, OR be able to contact tech support, I packed it up and returned it. I chose a Rio 256 MB player instead, and haven't looked back.