In a new and emerging market of digital media players, a competitive race for the mainstream population is taking place. Everywhere a person looks in this rapidly changing world of entertainment, there seems to be world of digital media players on the move - one after another - with iriver's new 512MB U10 video player as the latest product which uses the Windows XP as its only operating system. Reviews consider it a leap forward for design and something different, besides following the Apple around.

The 2.5 ounce U10 features an eye-catching, direct-click interface for songs, videos, photos, or games. Slightly bulky by comparison to other flash based players, it is still small and slim compared to programs that are available. It also works with subscription and pay-per-songs music services, so the world is at the finger tips for availability with up to 34 hours of music. The size of a business card, with a 2.7" x 1.8" x .06" body, it supports MP3/WMA/OGG, MPG4 simple profile QVGFA Macromedia Flash Lite 1.1/non-progressive JPG. Skip-free listening is a real plus, especially for those who like to jog or exercise to music. Other pluses are the digital FM tuner, integrated voice recorder, an alarm clock, enhanced 3D audio which includes SRS WOWTM. Built with an internal Li-poly rechargeable battery, its main display is 2.22 inches LCD screen with 260,000 colors and a 320 x 240 pixels screen resolution. The games have a free download site on the iriver site for games.

Another issue to look at is the interfaces. Most other MP3 manufacturers get along with one interface, but iriver uses three of them: to transfer audio, WMP or Windows Explorer needs to be used, with WMP needing to be used for transferring playlist files; when transferring videos, Windows Explorer is used, with a new joint venture between them and Microsoft to tranfer video to the U10 via WMP; and to transfer photos requires resizing the images in PicturePlus (installed with the computer) and transferring them onto the player.

Next is the very unfriendly navigation system that does nothing to compete with the iPod clicking wheel feature. To be able to navigate through the iRiver U10 video player you must be a little more on the "techie" side and that eliminates a vast majority of the pop culture market. Their goal seems to be to find out if the consumer wants battery life, easy of use, or a lot of space. It will be interesting to see their next step.