Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Product Description
Light as a feather and small enough to fit on your key chain, the 128 MB iRiver iFP-180T flash memory digital audio player offers multi-format capability, a built-in FM tuner, and the ability to make voice and FM recordings while on the go. It features a sleek, silver/gray triangular design that's just a little over 3 inches tall and weighs only 1.1 ounces. The player has a 4-line, backlit LCD and a joystick for navigating through songs or control volume, forward, and reverse. It runs on a single AA battery (which provides up to 20 hours of power). It's compatible with MP3, WMA, and ASF audio formats, and you'll get about 4 hours of digital music storage (depending on the bit rate that the digital files were created). In addition to digital audio, you can listen to your favorite radio broadcasts. With the Record from FM feature, you can record live radio and then transfer it to your PC. It also has a built-in microphone and con function as a digital voice recorder. Additionally, you can use the 128 MB memory for data storage, handy for transferring files from PC to PC. It connects to Macs and PCs via USB 1.1. What's in the Box
iFP-180T Music Player, Sennheiser MX300 earphones, neck strap, AA battery, USB cable, printed instruction manual, and CD-ROM. It is backed by a 1-year warranty.
iRiver iFP180T 128MB Flash MP3 Player iRiver now brings you the most advanced portable music player available, including built-in FM Tuner and Voice Recorder and features 128MB of internal memory for up to FOUR hours of your favorite music. The iFP-180T comes with the exclusive "Record from FM" feature and plays your MP3 and WMA music files for up to 20 hours on a single AA battery. Small enough to wear, yet loaded with features, the iFP-180T pumps your music through the bundled Sennheiser MX300 earphones directly to your head!
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Customer Reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Reasonable engineering, DRM gets in the way, May 18, 2023
In contrast to many reviewers, I actually like the UI. iRiver has also done a good job of adding new features to the latest firmwares -- there is a "language learn" feature, you can add lyrics to the music (you need to type them in and align them to the music yourself), and a slew of other neat features. The problem is that iRiver seems to care more about pleasing the record companies than its customers. It is the only MP3 player on the market that I have seen that will only allow you to transfer files from the computer to the player, rather than both ways. You cannot use it as a memorystick to transfer music files between two computers. It's retarded. Similarly, you cannot just mount it as a file system. You need to use iRiver's proprietary POS software to transfer files back and forth. Most MP3 players, you can just plug into any computer and go --- not here --- you've got to deal with driver and software installation and a whole slew of other issues like that.
There is a firmware update that fixes some of these issues, but it takes away some of the other functionality.
iRiver clearly has good engineers. Nevertheless, until iRiver begins engineering for it's customers rather than for the record companies, I'd avoid it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Good sound, small, lots of features(cost become reasonable), May 15, 2023
I bought this not long ago after did lots of research from the Internet. Actually, I'm looking for MP3 player with rechargable battery(which is iAudio U2 256MB by COWON) but it's still kind of pricey.
From my research, I noticed many people praise the sound quality of iRiver IFP series. You got you hear it yourselves, the sound quality is good(but with the price like this, it's great).
(+) sounds quality.
(+) the size is small but loaded with lots of features.
(+) supports multiple languages such as Chinese(Traditional and Simplified), Japanese, and Korean. I confirmed Chinese and Korean titles display in the LCD while playing the song.
(-) no armband. If there is, it surely beat it's competitors.
(-) not very intuitive. I understand that iRiver puts an effort to minimize number of button, because too many button can be confusing too, right?
Despite of no armband and not very intuitive, I still give full 5 stars because:
- the size is small you can slide it in your pocket therefore armband is not absolute necessary, and
- not very intuitive, but after play it for about 10 minutes it'll be easy.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Best flash player series (IFP 1xx) for the money, May 2, 2023
I've owned this player, the IFP 180t, for 2 years now (READ: Since it came out), and I dunno what the problem is with the other people (Maybe they truly have problems with their players, or maybe they just own IPODS(Try viewing other mp3 player 'reviews' for an idea of how hardcore ipod users are)), but this is the best series to own for flash players, unless you need higher then 512 megs.
Now, read on, I'm not kissing Iriver's ass.
This player, released 2 years ago, has the features that are common today: Drag and drop, fm, voice, joystick etc.
That's just stratching the surface. It has good sound. Maybe not GREAT sound, as the sound is only 90db noise reduction, but for IPOD users, and anyone who uses really crappy mp3 players, it's pretty good. Even for an audiophile like me, I can listen to it for a while without going crazy. But only for a while... Adding a good pair of speakers helps obviously.
This one also comes with a decent pair of earbuds. Not exactly the best pair in the world, not even good, but decent. The sennheiser mx300, makers of... Well, better headphones then earbuds, but they still make pretty good earbuds. And these are decent, you just hafta remember to screw with them, and if you want good sound quality, you can't use alot of bass with these earbuds... They are your normal 'cheap' earphones, as in, they use over exagerated deep bass, which makes it sound bass'y, but when use, makes everything else sound diluted. Bleh.
But when not using deep bass, they are pretty nice sounding headphones. For a cheap pair of headphones for the 180t (Hey, you're getting a flash mp3 player!), I suggest the Sennheiser mx-400's. crystal clear bass (nothing exagerated), high regeuncy range, and a small problem of the mid tones not sounding good, but you don't notice when you are wearing the supplied foam covers for the ear buds.
Anyways...
The 180t is also well made, I've used it alot for the past two years (I have two hard drive players, but I jog alot, so this gets alot of use), and I believe I will use it more, knock on wood.
The 180t also has a ton of customizable options. Once you figure out where the options menu is, you will be quite surprised. You can make your own equalizer, change graphic settings, change your name, etc etc etc.
And of course, the battery. The battery lasts for 20 hours, of cours this changes depending on if you use variable bit rate or not...
So much for the good, now for the bad about the 180t:
The interface is confusing as hell. It took me a week or two originally to fully understand it, considering their are so many buttons, places you must go, buttons you must hold down, etc. When I tried to use fm, I became 'trapped' and couldn't figure how to 'escape' for about 2 hours...
Then, there is the lovely voice recording, or lack thereof. Recording to voice would be nice, if it had some quality. Alas...
But really, the good qualities of this machines FAR outnumber the bad qualities. This is a great machine for the price. I would definately recommend it. Either this, or the 190/5t, Since those are 256/512 megs...
I recommend these because (IMO) the newer Irivers are not as good as the older ones. But it's all better then the Ipod shuffle, and it's no features, nOT EVEN A LCD SCREEN... don't great me started with that one..
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
poorly built, bad UI, Apr 30, 2023
Bad:
- Too fragile. I dropped it a few times and the joystick just stopped working, making the player unusable. Lots of people have complained about this player's resilience. It doesn't last more than 1 or 2 years, sometimes much less.
- Mysterious user interface. 16 effective buttons (3 on top, up, down, left, right, center, each with tap and hold-down varieties) working differently in each of 5 modes (mp3, radio, recording, menu, file list). It was hard to remember what does what. The labeling is useless. You'll find yourself saying: "Was that a press-and-hold or tap? Damn, what did I do now?" And you'll end up having recorded 20 files of radio static.
- Awkward user interface. It's hard to move my finger from the joystick to the buttons without looking at the player.
- Software doesn't allow you to reorder the files.
- Low memory. A little more money will get you a lot more memory.
- Non-standard behind-the-head earphone design.
Good:
- Earphone sound quality.
- Plays the audio from an ASF video file. Sometimes plays the audio from an SWF file.
- The display.
- Compact size.
- Lots (too many?) customizable settings.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Best Mp3 for the price, Mar 24, 2023
I purchased this player about 2 years ago. It has stood up to all the abuse I have put it through. It has unbelievable sound, and cannot be beat.
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Based on 13 reviews.