With a considerably shorter history than Apple, the South-Korean firm iriver has managed to become a serious competitor for the products manufactured by the company from Cupertino, with its highly original and intuitive portable media players. What has made iriver stand out from the multitude of manufacturers that have tried to put an end to the supremacy of the iPod is the fact that, from the very beginning, it went into a completely different direction, in what the design and features of its players were concerned.

One of the most innovative features that iriver has come up with is its D-Click (direct click) system, initially sported by the Clix2 and now by the LPlayer, the tiny portable media player that we’ll review as follows.

 

Despite the fact that it was announced at CES 2008 and launched in the summer of last year, the LPlayer has only now made its way to Softpedia's gadget-testing lab. The LPlayer, which is very much like the Clix family of players sans a few of the more advance features, is a tiny, but solid player offering another choice to the mix.

 

You’re about to read, in the review that follows, about its pros and cons, as to its design, features, performance and user-friendliness, the way that we’ve discovered them and decide for yourselves whether the LPlayer is worthy of your attention or not.