iriver Clix Rhapsody 4 GB Digital Music and Video Player (Black)

I have had my Clix for almost a year now and truthfully I have had nothing but problems. I had high hopes for it because it is a truly gorgeous player and touts some great features but the reliability and support have been so horrible that I couldn't recommend this to anyone.

When the player works it has a stunning screen for photo and video playback. While the sound is significantly quieter than other players, the quality is very high.

The problems I have had with the player however, significantly outweigh those benefits. The first player I received didn't work at all right out of the box and getting it replaced was a miserable experience because iRiver's customer service is the worst I have every experienced. Since their US presence is so small, there is little hope that you will ever get a satisfactory resolution to your problems. I eventually had to simply send the player back with a note attached to it requesting a full refund and crossed my fingers that it would happen.

After that I decided to give it one more shot since I figured the player was probably a dud which I was just unlucky enough to get. I was wrong. While this player works for the most part, I frequently experience issues such as my entire music or video library disappearing despite the player showing reduced memory. It also freezes up on a regular basis and can be quite frustrating to reset.

I personally like the clicking controls as opposed to most other players on the market but other buttons on the Clix are troublesome such as the locking button which does not function correctly most of the time.

Additionally, some of the things that are annoying on the player is that you have very little control over files after they are on the player. Your music software can transfer or delete files wonderfully but you are unable to do basic functions on the player itself such as deleting files, rating them, or moving them to different playlists. These features seem pretty standard in players like this yet they are lacking on the Clix.

The biggest issue with the Clix is that when you do happen to have a problem you are basically just screwed. Since iRiver customer support is all but non-existent, and they aren't likely to have a store which will support you in your area, you can basically say goodbye to any investment you make in the Clix if something goes wrong.

Since I love the video quality and the styling on the Clix, I put up with it for quite a while but I think it is time to move on. Only buy this player if you have money that you don't mind gambling with.

I bought the Clix gen 2 8GB because it was advertised as Rhapsody compatible and got a great review on CNET. It has a great display and user interface but I was not able to get it to work with Rhapsody to Go DRM transfers and I also had trouble with tranferring my own MP3 music files to the device using Rhapsody. They transfer OK but will not show up in the music menu unless you "rebuild library" each time. I tried working the problem with both iRiver and Rhapsody tech support without success. I don't think it's a Rhapsody issue as I experienced the problem on two different computers running Rhapsody and I have not had the issue with the Sansa players that my kids use. I was also not satisified with the "fit and finish". The D-click user interface is very innovative and easy to use, but the top part of the device shell feels loose and wiggles around. I'm concerned it might come off.

So what could have been a delightful product was instead a big disappointment. I'm shipping the Clix back to Amazon for a refund. I hope this review will help others avoid the frustration and waste of time that I experienced with this product.

Brad Freeman

First off, let me just admit that I'm an MP3 player addict and I usually get the big hard drive ones. So for comparison purposes, I've put this up against an iPod Touch, an iPod Video 5.5, and my Archos 605. The main thing that drove me to buy a Clix was the glowing CNet review and numerous comments about the superb audio quality of the iRiver players and the Clix in particular.

After a lot of fiddling with audio settings, I finally see why the clix 2 gets such rave reviews for audio quality. However, straight out of the box it doesn't sound very good at all, you will need to spend some quality time with your clix to get good sound.

As is my wont, I like to list out the things I love followed by the things I don't love so much:

1) This thing is real nice to look at, its sleek and thin, clean design.
2) Perfectly sized for a pants pocket, which is a first for me!
3) Beautiful screen for the price.
4) Innovative D-Click interface with lots of dedicated buttons for volume, power, hold and even a special programmable button.
5) Easy to operate blind with only a little bit of practice so you don't necessarily have to take it out and look at it to see what you're doing.
6) Very customizable in so many ways.
7) After setting to MTP mode I was immediately able to download my music and playlists, as well as album art and song ratings using Media Monkey; this was as easy as the iTunes/iPod setup which is a minor miracle. I'm very impressed, given the problems I've had doing same with my Archos 605.
8) Built in mini-USB port, might sound like a minor thing but none of my other players has it.
9) Special button: one button can be assigned to a special function which is nice (I set mine to do Play/Pause).
10) Lots of other features which I don't use and other reviewers have described in detail.
11) Flash theming: you can download all sorts of flash background themes and fonts and really customize the look of the player.
12) If you are patient, you can really get some great sound out of this thing by fiddling with the Wow and SRS and other EQ settings.

Things that I'm not loving so much:
1) Fits so well in my jeans pocket, but every time I bend over it starts fast forwarding. I have to put it on hold every time I put it in my pocket. Basically, the down side of the D-Click interface is that it is easily activated by random bumps and jostles so I pretty much have to put it on hold all the time. I also find this can be hard on battery life as my case will keep the screen alive when fully closed. This has become a real problem to me, unfortunately my noreve case isn't helping matters at all.
2) After the joys of touch screen interfaces, I find it a little tedious to not have any sort of sliding/touchy interface for doing things like scrolling through long lists of songs.
3) Hard to find accessories: welcome to life outside the Apple happy place, I have yet to find a store that actually will sell me an accessory for the Clix. Looks like I will be ordering everything online! So for now I have to carry it in my pocket whether I like it or not; fortunately that works pretty well!
4) Battery life is a bit disappointing, I end up putting it on the charger whenever I'm not using it!
5) Although the screen is beautiful, its very hard to read in full sunlight.. unlike my iPods.
6) I can't get this thing to work with Rhapsody ToGo to save my life, in spite of going around with Real and iRiver tech support it still doesn't work for me; I have heard it works for others though.
7) Tech support, where is it? I put in a ticket and never got any response at all so it appears to be non-existent. Makes Archos tech support look stellar by comparison!

So, in summary, this is the best pocket player I've ever found, the sound is crisp and clean, the interface is innovative and fun. I think its a great little MP3 player for the price but I don't think it holds up to the higher priced iPod Touch overall... not surprising since it is a hundred dollars cheaper!

Update after 1 month of ownership: well I have to say this little player has really grown on me. After fiddling with settings I now find that the sound is as good as advertised (still lacking some power though!), it is addictive, all my other players don't seem quite as crisp and clear anymore. I've updated my pros and cons accordingly. Normally this would be good enough reason to bump the rating to 5 stars, however I've discovered a few more things I'm not so happy with so I'm leaving it at 4. Hoping the next version (Clix+ ??) will resolve some of these problems!

To the best of my knowledge, there are only two mp3 players on the market that actually advertise to be compatible with Rhapsody. Those two players are the Sansa Rhapsody and the iriver clix Rhapsody. Since I have a Rhapsody account, these players attracted my attention. I started out with the Sansa and after a year, I was disappointed with random shut downs, the player locking up, and in the end, the player not even turning on.

So my next natural progression was the clix Rhapsody from iriver. After reading many reviews, I finally bit the bullet, and purchased the clix. The price is obviously much higher then the 4GB Sansa, but hey you get a pretty sweet player.

Here are the pros:
-Player style is a huge plus, easy to navigate with the "screen buttons"
-The screen is amazing. Still kind of small, but still good enough to play some music videos
-Volume is insane at 20 and it reaches 40!
-Adjustable EQ is much better than Sansa's
-Flash games are fun for those boring times, but they cut the battery
-Player boot up is about 10x faster than the Sansa's

Here are the cons:
-The battery definitely doesn't last for 24 hours of continuous playback. The most I've gotten was 8-9 hours.
-When using Rhapsody to update player, it seriously takes 10 minutes to load my player's music. This could be a rhapsody software problem, but it's really annoying.
-There are random "skips" in audio playback like it's playing from a CD. There is no pattern to the annoyances, they just happen.
-Audio playback stops when you start playing flash games.

Due to the cons, which can be very nerve racking, I gave this player a 4 out of 5 rating. I would have liked to give this player a 5, but the "skips" really tick me off when I'm trying to rock out...

This was my third Iriver player and they are all still working like new. My first was a 128 MB unit that was about the size and shape of 1/2 a cigar. You could wear it around your neck or on your arm. Next I bought a 20 MB hard drive based unit that holds about 5500 titles and uses just over 9 MB. I record usin WMA at the 64k setting. The I just couldn't resist the features of the Clix! It has it all. The older units had FM and voice recording plus record from FM. But this has all of that plus great pictures, videos, and even games. The color and screen are magnificent. And the ergonomics work for me. What a great idea it was to make the 4 edges of the screen navigation buttons. It has been said the volume buttons are not intuitive but depending on the screen orientation they may or may not seem right to you. So whta more would I like? Two things come to mind. First I wish there was a shuffle mode for viewing pictures. If there is I haven't found it. Second, I wish there was a way to jump directly from "A" to "B" to "C" and so forth when scolling through song titles. The scrolling is fast but should't there be a way to perhaps double click to the next alphbet lett of tune names? Still I rate it 5 stars because, I love it!