iRiver can always be relied on to bring something interesting to CES, and this year is no exception. The WAVE HOME is this year’s multimedia maven, combining local video and music playback, internet access and VoIP voice and messaging into a compact, minimalist desktop unit. SlashGear stopped by the iRiver booth to spend some hands-on time with the WAVE, and while it might do its darnedest to defy categorisation, that didn’t stop us wanting to bring it home.
iRiver will be briefing the CES crowd in a few short hours, but we thought we’d take an early look at one of the new products they’ve brought to the show. The WAVE-HOME is not an easy device to categorize other than to say this – iRiver wants it to do a lot for you.
Wrapped in a lovely interchangeable clear acrylic or a brown wooden frame, this iriver Digital Photo Frame takes on digital still and motion images with its WVGA 7-inch LCD display. The 800×480 Framee-L is capable of 200cd/m2 display brightness and 500:1 contrast; it also packs an internal 1GB memory, and supports a variety of memory cards, including SD/MMC/Memory Stick/CF.
The miniature Mickey Mplayer gets a new twist; iRiver puts series of LEDs to work, the cutest singing Mickey now can show up to 20 blinking facial expressions and looks when you alter the functions on the player. An extra GB of storage space is also added on the new models, that’s about 250 songs for music file averages at 4MB each.
iRiver’s parent company Reigncom and Korean cellular carrier KT have announced the release of the iRiver Wave, seemingly jumping the previously publicized March 9th 2009 launch. The handset – which includes WiFi for media streaming, internet access and VoIP – will initially be available at ten “iRiver Zones” in Korea, before more mainstream availability.
It’s been a mobile device bonanza this week, with the AT&T Fuze landing at SlashGear and promptly getting hauled over to the Sprint HTC Touch Pro for a damned good comparing. Meanwhile HTC have set tongues wagging by fettling a version of the Touch HD for a Russian WiMAX carrier: they assure us that the HTC MAX 4G won’t be showing up anywhere else, but forgive us if we’re natural sceptics. Meanwhile Verizon finally confirmed that the BlackBerry Storm 9530 would hit stores on November 24th, priced from $199.99, AT&T released the QuickFire, and Nokia confirmed the open-secret that is the E63 smartphone.
iRiver’s touchscreen cellphone – which the company coyly described as a “proof of concept” when first showing it back at CES 2008 in January – is in fact set for release on Korean network KT come March 9th 2009. The handset – called ‘wave’ – is based around a 3-inch, 480 x 272 touchscreen and has the usual mixture of high-speed cellular internet access and WiFi, together with PMP, FM radio and e-dictionary functionality.
It might look like a basic PMP, but actually this is something far cooler: the Mintpass mintpad MP100 is a 3.2oz, palm-sized web tablet, with a 2.86-inch QVGA touchscreen, WiFi b/g, integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam and 4GB of internal storage. All that in something measuring 3.08 x 2.51 x 0.60 inches. Best of all, this is no crazy prototype: it’s actually available in Korea.
iRiver have announced the US launch of their distinctive SPINN PMP, the 4GB and 8GB versions of which go on sale today. Based around the dual input methods of a 3.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen and a large “spindle” scroll-wheel, the SPINN includes video, music, FM radio and picture viewer functionality, together with voice recording and integrated Bluetooth 2.0 for wireless headsets.
iRiver’s distinctive SPINN media player, which we came away from our hands-on at IFA 2008 distinctly impressed, looks to begin shipping in the US on October 3rd. The company’s online store has begun taking preorders for the 4GB and 8GB versions of the PMP, priced at $249.99 and $289.99 respectively.
SlashGear Japan
