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

I was definitely excited to see iriver’s booth this year at CES since was by far my favorite last year- bright, modern, and fun. I would love to put the iriver booth in my home somewhere; it would be my happy place. This booth was the same as last year with a slightly different layout but it a much better location, not stuck in the corner with the car audio. I did the best I could to share this with you in the form of an HD video below. Please enjoy this along with a general recap of whats new with iriver.

What really disappoints me about iriver is that most of their products will not be for sale outside of the US and those few that are sold have very limited distribution. I discussed the availability with one of the iriver reps and they said the only brick and mortar store selling iriver products was Costcos and it is only the E100. There is a bit of good news for stateside devices- I was told that the Wave home unit will come to the states. However, I was told that last year for many of the other devices. Here is a quick video of the Home unit.

It’s a rather clever device with all kinds of media playback, various widgets, and a full VoIP / video conferencing set up. What is cool is that the W10 (Similar to the W7 minus the phone part) ties into this home unit acting as a satellite handset for the main WAVE unit. I actually was able to make a call from the Wave Home to my cellphone- funny thing was it came in as a Korean number. Just for fun I called that number back and got a very excited sounding Korean operator that I couldn’t understand- I wonder what that antidote is going to cost me. Tangent aside, I’m told that this home unit will sell for “around $300”, not bad if it ever comes to fruition.

To be honest I’m a bit frustrated with iriver for the fact that they have hands down some of the best looking devices on the market- their designs are truly top notch. But, what’s frustrating is that they don’t do too much for the US, so we never get to experience their products. Though you can’t really blame them since the market for high end media players is limited in the US, especially recently. If you want to check out an example a great looking device and UI take a look at this P7 HD video I took at the booth.

Some of iriver’s products this year have been questionable, with the very plastic E100 being a prime example. iriver is now preparing the release the iriver E50, which on paper will correct a lot of what the E100 did wrong.

The T50 has a brushed metal casing, FM radio, a 1.8″ 176×220 pixel screen and voice recorder. The battery life will be a whopping 52 hours and it supports Vorbis and FLAC beside the usual MP3 and WMA support. It will be available in 2, 4 and 8GB capacities sometime in January.

[GenerationMP3]