While the E40 posted below isn’t anything overly exciting, iriver shows with the B100 that they still have some tricks up their sleeve.

Noticeable is the rather unusual 3:2 aspect ratio of the 480 x 320 pixel 3.1 inch capacitive TFT touch screen – it’s smack in the middle between the usual 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios, and it reminds of the higher end Palm PDAs of yore. That screen makes perfect sense on the B100, since it’s one of the very few (non-Android) portable media players that supports useful ebook formats – ePub and PDF, not just the usual plain text files.

While the B100 doesn’t play HD movies or sports an HDMI output, it still supports a lot of useful video formats in standard definition – MKV, MP4, and even MPEG Transport Streams are a few of those, next to the usual variety of AVI, WMV, and the like.

On the audio side of things we find iriver’s usual SRS sound enhancements (when will they switch to the far superior BBE bundle… nudge, nudge, wink, wink), an EQ with lots of presets, and FLAC, APE, and Ogg Vorbis playback, next to the MP3 and WMA standards. MP4/M4A/AAC support appears to be missing on the B100, though. It is unclear if the B100 sports gapless playback.

Other features are the usual FM radio, voice and radio recorder, image viewer, and a cheesy user interface that seems to come straight from the Cowon design department, sporting slogans like “romantic”, “lonely”, “relax”, and the like. One thing I’m missing on the B100 are tactile buttons. There’s only two of them, to change volume (and a “home” button on the front, which hopefully can act as a play/pause button). I wish the B100 at least had as many buttons as the Cowon S9 or J3 – that would make it a lot more practical to use on the go.

The B100 comes in puny sizes of 4 and 8 GB – but expandable via MicroSDHC cards up to 32 GB. Synthetic battery benchmarks claim a life of 36 hours for audio and 8.5 hours for video – not bad, if that turns out to be close to real life usage.

So far the B100 isn’t officially released in Europe or America, but I’ve seen it pop up in shady and not-so-shady import outlets and flea markets going for $120 to $240.

[iriver Global - thanks to TDS101!!!!!!!! for the tip]

Remember those guys that in 2003 brought us the innovative H100 series player with optical S/PDIF output, and two years later the sturdy H300 “Soviet iPod” (as CNET called it) with changeable cover designs?

Yeah, they didn’t make many waves lately. They quietly released a lot of players, but they mostly went under the radar. The new E40 shows that they still stubbornly hold on to touch interfaces without tactile feedback, and the 220 x 176 pixel screen is right at home in a top quality player from 2005. Same goes for the supported video formats, which are MPEG1 and the proprietary/elusive/dead SMV container.

On the positive side, battery life on the E40 appears to be very good – 51 hours for audio playback is claimed. It also uses a standard MiniUSB port – not quite the MicroUSB port one would expect nowadays, but everything is better than some proprietary plug. Transfer protocol of choice is MSC, which is great as well. Next to iriver’s usual SRS sound tweaks, the E40 sports an equalizer with lots of presets, FM radio, recording (radio and voice), and an image viewer which is about as useful as a video player on the tiny low-res screen.

That being said, the price is right for what you get – the 4GB version goes for about $50 and the 8GB one for $70. No, it doesn’t have an SD slot.

[iriver Global - thanks to Splashback for the tip]

It’s something like the Samsung U Series, something like the Sony B14/15/16 series, but it’s also trying to be a Sansa Shaker, or maybe a Nike+ accessory. Take your pick.

The iriver T9 sports an aluminum housing, it has a g-sensor so you can shake for the next song (cause using the buttons is way too inconvenient), and it has a ‘screen saver’ that says “I love you” and “enjoy your life” (yeah, cause a ‘screen saver’ prolongs the life of a monochrome OLED display). Now I have to go cut myself, BRB.

Oh, before I forget – it comes in appalling 2 and 4GB sizes (no expansion slot), it plays MP3/WMA/APE/FLAC (but no Vorbis), it has SRS WOW sound enhancements (for the little trunk rattler in you), an FM radio, and a voice recorder. There’s also a ‘fitness mode’ with step and calorie counter. It has an USB plug built in, so you don’t need any cables to carry around with you.

Thanks to Splashback for the tip.

The U100 sports a 3.1″ 480×320 touchscreen TFT, comes in meager sizes from 4 to 16GB, has a MicroSDHC expansion slot, and should give very good battery life – 50 hours for music, 11 for video. Sound-wise, iriver unfortunately still sticks with SRS audio enhancements. Compared to Cowon’s BBE, Samsung’s DNSe, and the rest, SRS sounds rather artificial and mushy. For bookworms the U100 might be worth a second glance: besides basic TXT it supports ePub and PDF as well.

Spec-wise iriver is maybe a little late to the party, obviously aiming at the same market segment as the Cowon J3 or Samsung R1, but the U100 has one more trick up its sleeve: it comes in two variants, with and without Wifi. So I guess the Zune HD can be seen as another competition for the U100. It’s not known yet what kind of browser the U100 provides (if any), or what OS it runs – or if it’s ever going to see the light of day outside of South Korea.

Thanks to lebellium for the tip. Korean product page. Via JDG.

Watch a video after the jump.

Hello Kitty fans rejoice, iriver recently announced a new MP3 player which is designed to look like the Hello Kitty “chococat”. The player—which iriver Japan says will be targeted more towards adults—features gold accents and an LED nose which will surely make even the most hesitant become fans of the Kitty.

The 4GB player, which weighs in at a paltry 16 grams, features a 10 hour battery life, 4-preset EQ, and a shuffle mode.

iriver says the player will be available December 18th for 7,980 yen ($90). Unfortunately it will only be available in Japan.

Yes, it’s a slow news day. That’s the excuse that will help us sleep tonight anyway.

[iriver via engadget]

As we were making our rounds across the Mariah Carey fan blogs, which we usually do on a Sunday night, we discovered the pop star is teaming up with iRiver Korea to release a limited edition N20 which will come preloaded with all 17 tracks from her latest album, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel.

“We’re excited about the new N20 Special Edition, as it offers digital consumers and music fans an exclusive experience of the fantastic new album by the megapop icon Mariah Carey,“ said iRiver CEO, Kuno Kim.

That’s all well and good, Mr. Kim. But you still fail to tell us how the player is controlled. Some say it’s controlled by a touch interface, some say there are buttons at the back, some say you have to scream at it in Korean. We just don’t know.

We also still don’t know release dates, or whether or not the N20 has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack somewhere. However, after putting our team of crackpot ABi researchers on it for several hours, we did discover this bombshell…

That’s right! The N20 has a clip. You saw it here first.

The unit will retail for $120. But hang on fellow Mariah fans, if you ever find out release dates, you’d better act fast because Universal Music Korea says only 5,000 will be available.

[Mariah Carey Connection]

We first heard about the iriver N20 about 3 years ago, before it had an identity crisis and eventually became known as the iriver S10. Now the N20 is back, and the only thing it has in common with the S10 is the name— and the whole MP3 playing thing.

The 26 × 55.5 × 13mm necklace player—which bears a striking resemblance to a 9V battery—features a 4 line monochromatic PMOLED display, support for most audio codecs, and a 15 hour battery life. And judging from the lack of tactile buttons, it’s likely controlled by some type of touch interface. There’s also an FM tuner in there, somewhere.

The N20 will be available in 2 and 4GB flavors which will set you back 649 yuan (about $95 USD) and 749 yuan (about $110 USD), respectively. No word on release dates, or whether or not the N20 will make a very unlikely appearance in the States.

[imp3.net | via PlayerBites]

The iriver SPINN has been out for a while now and the firmware updates are starting to show up. The device just hit FW 2.0 with a number of minor improvements.

The new features include bigger album art, more supported picture formats, radio recording, video options and a memo pad. There’s also mention of some downloadable games, though that might be Korea only.

[Download Link via DAPreview]

The P7 was my favorite device shown off at the iriver booth, but unfortunately the US won’t see this device. The closest thing you will get is the Cowon O2, but well we found quite a few problems. The P7 is a beautiful monolithic block design common to the high style of iriver. But this modern design also shows up in the UI with a truly unique home screen almost like a layout of a brochure or magazine.

Unfortunately, the UI is rather sluggish as you can tell from the video and basing the opinion solely on experience from previous devices, it’s likely not up to par. Perhaps what needs to happen here is iriver needs to give up on making the electronics and concentrate on the design- leave internals up to Cowon. A fantastic sounding Cowon iriver P7 anyone?

• Specs:
• 4.3” TFT LCD (480×272) resistance touch screen
• About 50hrs of playback time (audio)
• SRS WOW HD, 7 Preset EQ
• 4/8/16GB Nand Flash (Micro SD Slot)
• Functions: Video, Music, Photo viewer, FM /Voice Recording