I wanted an MP3 player with video, but I couldn’t find one that I really loved. Then I found the iRiver Clix. It’s a flash player (2 GB) so there are no moving hard drive parts. This extends the battery life to about eight hours. The price is about the same as an iPod Nano – $200.
The screen is 320×240. At first I thought it would be too small for video. So I gave it the Seinfeld test. I uploaded an episode. Before uploading I used a free utility called Iriverter to convert a DVD video to the required Clix format (MPEG4). The resulting file was about 86 MB for 22 minutes of video. When I played it, it looked great. I would have no problem watching anything captured from TV on this player. If something is wide screen it is much harder to see. I don’t think I could make it through a two hour movie formatted in 16:9 on this little screen, but 4:3 is fine.
In addition to video, the player also handles pictures and music. These work exactly as you would expect. I found a program that batch converts my photos to 320×240 so I can carrie a few of them around on my player. The music player also handles WMA, ASF, OGG as well as MP3.
Instead of a menu area, the Clix uses the whole screen as the directional controller. Pressing the top of the screen moves up the menu. Right goes into a menu and so on. It works very well.
One other thing. It plays Flash games. I’m sure that will be handy at some point.
If you are thinking about a Nano, think again. You’ll like the Clix much more.