iriver S7 (1GB)

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Features and performance
Features are not a strong suit for the S7 since it is making a play for your wallet with its size, not its talents. Yet, compared with the iPod shuffle, the former packs in more value. There is FM radio and SRS WOW HD sound enhancement (tweakable only via PC software) on top of basic playback.

	Pretty in a box.

In a 40 x 32 x 9.6mm body, every spare bit of space counts for a lot. iriver makes the S7's 3.5mm audio jack do double duty by incorporating the power input into it as well. Smart move. But that means it requires a special USB-to-3.5mm adapter which is mighty inconvenient since the user will have to carry it along everywhere.

Song management is pretty primitive, though there are still many users who prefer a drag-and-drop transfer to using a dedicated music management software.

FM radio reception is good; we could capture most of the major stations in our test area. There seems to be no way to preset the stations. However, by holding down "boy right", the S7 could skip immediately to the next available station.

Sonic-wise, we hated the grating high-pitched audio blip that precedes track skipping. In Diana Krall's You are Getting to be a Habit with Me bass sounded muffled and lacked a certain fluency. It was the same case with Massive Attack's Angel. Mids and highs were still adequate in You are Getting to be a Habit with Me, though not spectacular.

We liked the fact that the S7 was pretty swift when it came to transfers. It managed a write speed of 3.69MB per second with 240MB worth of files and that was faster that the average speeds we've encounter, such as the Samsung YP-T9B (3.21MB per second).

Battery life on the S7 was expectedly low, given its tiny size. We recorded 6 hours 58 minutes on 240MB worth of files played on a loop.

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