iRiverPMC120 20 GB Portable Media Center

only lasted a few months then the hard drive crashed. It was pretty good while it lasted

I purchased the iRiver PMC120 on 12/12/07 and gave it to my grandson as an early Christmas gift on 12/21/07. On 12/23/07, the screen quit working and the inner screen has the appearance of being broken; however, there is no damage to the outer screen or any other part of the PMC and no reason to suspect that the PMC was abused. I have returned it to iRiver, as instructed, and am awaiting their response. Needless to say, I am not impressed with the product at this time and have not yet formed an opinion about iRiver's service since they were closed when the situation occurred, I was only able to initiate proceedings after January 2, 2008 and the issue is currently unresolved.

When I got my hands on the PMC-120 I thought this was going to to be the best player but when I started to play with it all the glitches started to come into my way.I agree with the other reviews that it has a first generation-device feel to it.MUSIC:When I tried to put music in my PMC it syncronized my mp3s with the WMP 10 with no problem (very fast). If U are looking for a grab and drop (copy/paste) your music mp3 device, this is not for you because when I did it got everything in one same folder that read "Unknown artist and album". So you have to put all your mp3s via WMP 10, wich is no problem for me because it does it very fast. The problems that I encountered is that it only has one "Portable playlist" and sometimes when Im playing an mp3 and navegating through the other albums the controls respond 1 to 2 seconds later after pushing the button.One cool thing is that it shows the cd covers without having to put them in. This is done via the WMP10.The sound is very good and crisp, and the equalizer setups are fair.But you defenetly cant tell the difference between the diffrent eq setups with the built in speacker wich has a very small horrible sound.PICTURES:This is basically a grab and drop procedure to get your pics in the device and you can arrenge them in folders or subfolders. You can not transfer directly from your camera so if you are travelling and dont have a PC to transfer your pics this little baby wont do that job for you.VIDEO:Ok, now this is where it starts to get frustrating for me...I wanted a portable media device that I would only grab and drop my movies that are divx and xvid. I knew that this device only reads WMV but it "supports" DIVX, XVID, MPEG, etc. This "support" deppends on what the WMP10 can play. So this means that you sincronyze (via WMP10) your movies no matter the format and it converts them into WMP movies and at the same time it just transferes it and fits it into your PMC secreen size. I had this in mind when I bought it and was fine with me untill I tried it the first time: The WMP10 wouldnt convert my XVID movies and after a few hours of trial and error and surfing the web my problem was that I had to have the correct video codecs that are compatibles with the WMP10. So after uninstalling and installing I was good to go so I converted a 1:45hr long movie in only 25 minutes. But this short moment of joy was suddenly interrupted by the fact that the WMP10 fits the widescreen movies into the PMC and makes all the images long and thin almost unwatchable!!!! You cant change this because the WMP does this automatically. My answer was using other software and converting my widescreen movies into WMV files. The problem is that it takes almost the running time of the movies to convert...I have tried a lot of different softwares and still havent found one that does it faster as the WMP10.In the other hand if you have a full screen video you just use the WMP10 and it does it very fast and with good quality.You can connect your device to the tv but the resolution is very low so I think this option is useless on the PMC.So the veredict is: The PMC-120 is a good multimedia player with minor glitches. It is a little bulky but personally I think the size is not that big. I think the good side of the size issue comes along with its big 3.6 inch screen wich is great to watch films and this for me kicks arse compared to the ipod video.If you want to play directly your DIVX or XVID movies on your player buy another porduct like the iRiver PMP series or the Archos players wich are way, way, WAY more expensive.So I think that for the price and for what it does the PMC-120 gets two thumbs up.

My computer has a the Windows Media Center Operating system, and syncing my device to my computer couldn't be easier. I had my PMC for a day, and I have about forty shows and over two hundred songs on this gadget. It barely took up 7GB of hardrive space. Unfortunately, it needs to "convert" or shrink compatiblae video files to a smaller resolution. Good part about this is that it saves more than X2 amount of space. Converting twenty shows takes about three hours. Syncing the shows takes less than five minutesIf anyone has Windows Media Player 11, don't worry. The instructions say it is only compatibale with WMP 10, but it works fine, perhaps even better, with WMP 11.The display is great, but the sound on the speakers is pretty crummy. The Headphone Jack easily takes care of that problem. The playlist is also bad too, it is just Alphabetical. Buttons are put where you need them, very easy to navigate through the PMC. PMC have a wider, much better range of video files. The video quality and screen is so much better than any PMP or IPod. The PMC is a little bulky, but i like it because i didn't want a tiny, breakable, and loseable portable media device. It's not HUGE, but one will have a little trouble putting the PMC in their pocket, especially if one has a cellphone or wallet blocking it.About my price, and this is why i gave all five stars. I got mine for 55% off, it cost me around 255 to buy the whole thing, shipping included. I think I got a deal because it was Memorial Day weekend. I'm sure one can get the PMC for about the same price, but it probably will be refurbished. Five hundred dollars is a bit much, if you need WMV, Divx, or other Video files then perhaps the PMC is for you. However, if you can settle for less, like only playing MPEG4 files, get an iRiver PMP, or get an Ipod movie. But their screen size and video quality is not worth the price to me. I got my PMC for about the same price as any PMP or IPod, I got a lot of bang for my buck, and I was lucky because it sold out the next day.Chuck-Bob

To be honest, the main reason I purchased this model of Portable Media Center is because it is one of the few electronics that Amazon has been able to ship to my APO address. I suppose that has something to do with the fact that iRiver is owned by a Korean company called Reigncom, who is attempting to "reign" over the Korean MP3 player market by using nationalistic business propaganda against Chinese, Japanese, and American products. At any rate, some shoddiness in the PMC-120 construction is evident, such as a "hold" switch that is free-moving and changes position at the slightest nudge, as well as a rubber docking port cover that falls off easily. Also, the device skips sometimes, and the user's manual appears to have been slapped together by a high school sophomore doing a last-minute research paper. The Portable Media Center segment is fairly new, so I expect that both hardware and Microsoft's software will improve over the next couple years. An overall decent first attempt by iRiver, but the shoddy Korean craftsmanship shows through.