Finally, companies that make media players (besides Apple) are thinking different. The iriver U10 represents a leap forward in design—or at least a good attempt at one. It's a flash-based audio player that can also play video on its 2.2-inch LCD screen, albeit with some format restrictions. The real innovation is in the controls: Instead of trying to cram a bunch of navigation buttons next to the screen on the player's faceplate, iriver made the faceplate itself a four-way button that does pretty much all you need. There are a few buttons on the top and side for volume, power, and screen orientation (portrait or landscape), but that's it. You do pay a premium for all this, however: The 1GB version will run you $249.99 list, and the 512MB version is $199.99. The U10 represents a cool hardware concept and has an interesting feature set, but the software/firmware side needs some work, and the price really needs to come down.

Finally, companies that make media players (besides Apple) are thinking different. The iriver U10 represents a leap forward in design—or at least a good attempt at one. It's a flash-based audio player that can also play video on its 2.2-inch LCD screen, albeit with some format restrictions. The real innovation is in the controls: Instead of trying to cram a bunch of navigation buttons next to the screen on the player's faceplate, iriver made the faceplate itself a four-way button that does pretty much all you need. There are a few buttons on the top and side for volume, power, and screen orientation (portrait or landscape), but that's it. You do pay a premium for all this, however: The 1GB version will run you $249.99 list, and the 512MB version is $199.99. The U10 represents a cool hardware concept and has an interesting feature set, but the software/firmware side needs some work, and the price really needs to come down.

At 2.7 by 1.8 by 0.6 inches and 2.5 ounces, the U10 is a bit bulkier and heavier than many other flash-based players (iriver doesn't seem particularly concerned with miniaturization—consider the company's history with bulky products like the T10). Nonetheless, its boxy shape still fits nicely in a pants or jacket pocket.

The U10's features make it versatile enough for lots of different types of users. In addition to having video, photo, text, and audio playback, it has an FM tuner, does FM and voice recording, and has a built-in alarm clock. You can also play Macromedia Flash–based games on it, and iriver regularly adds new games to its Web site for free download. The device can be used for line-in recording, but you need to purchase a separate dock for that feature.

Navigating the U10's menu is simple, but the animated interface seems to slow it down a bit. We also found ourselves accidentally pressing the faceplate when we used any of the buttons around the side, which gave us unintended results, such as skipping to the next track when we were trying to change the volume or move the hold switch. As for operating the device without looking at it, there are very few tactile cues, but if you can remember that pressing the side of the faceplate that's closest to the headphone jack will rewind the song, then you should be able to figure it out from there. The menus themselves are fairly clear and easily readable. We like that there are contextual settings that can be accessed by holding down the right side of the faceplate for a couple of seconds while you're in a given playback mode. Browsing large collections can be a bit tedious, since the scroll speed isn't particularly fast, but the player does read ID3 tag data like Artist, Album, Genre, and Title. You can also transfer Microsoft Windows Media Player playlist files (if you use WMP's automatic sync option).

Getting your music and other media onto the U10 is a complicated process. Where other manufacturers generally settle for one interface for audio, photos, and video, iriver decided to use three interfaces. To transfer audio, you use either WMP or Windows Explorer (though you'll want to use WMP if you want to transfer playlist files). To transfer video, you have to use Windows Explorer, though iriver claims it is working with Microsoft on a way to transfer video to the U10 via WMP. If you want to put photos on the device, you'll have to install the included PicturePlus software, which resizes the images and transfers them to the player. Is your head spinning yet?