The iRiver U10

We know that there hasn't exactly been this overwhelming cry out for more flash-based personal video players with tiny squint-inducing displays and paltry amounts of memory, but iRiver isn't sweating that and have come out with a brand new model called the U10. No dimensions listed, so it's hard to tell how small it really is (though it looks a little plump in the rest of the pics), but we do know that it has a 2.2-inch, 320 x 240 pixel LCD screen and comes with either 512MB or 1GB of memory, an integrated FM tuner, "playable games", and support for playback of MPEG4 video files and MP3, WMA, and OGG audio files. The U10 is also the first player to sport iRiver's new "D-Click" navigation system which hides the buttons actually behind the edge of the screen, potentially giving you all of the frustration of a touchscreen and hardly any of its advantages.

[Mark @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

Wow, playable games are so much better than unplayable ones.

[Malfoy Roark @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

"giving you all of the frustration of a touchscreen and hardly any of its advantages."

Oh man, the comments you guys throw out are hilarious. ALMOST as good as The Register*. Keep up the good work.


*Note I said comments. Clearly the stories are aimed at a different audience, but sarcasm is universal. :)

[Tim Marman @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

Flash-based devices are barely adequate for most people's music collections, let alone video. Assuming it plays DivX, 1GB is barely enough for 2 hours (~ 1 full movie) depending on quality, etc.

I have to question the utility of a device like this....

[Tim Marman @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

Hmm... I naturally assumed there would be some video out, in which case you want things reasonable quality to play on TV. Since there isn't, I guess you can just downsample everything.

When downsampled to 320x240, you're still looking at about 2.5-3MB per minute for WMV - which means that 2 hr movie fits in ~450 MB.

Since you can only look at a screen that small for so long, maybe it's not so bad after all.

[Jayson Elliot @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

I'll hand it to iRiver for making the first device that actually seems innovative in a long time. I would probably need more memory than they're including in this, but I really like where they're going with it.
I could definitely see one of these propped on my desk at work, plus a couple headphones.

Those models are creeping me out, though...

[Wilson Cortes @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

Sony has a Cybershot U10 camera, wonder if that name will infringe on Sony's trademark?

[mike @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

I have to question the utility of a device like this....

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I believe it goes something like this... "Apple doesn't make one of these so... look who's innovative NOW!"

[hank williams @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

This device is significant because, as far as I can tell, it is the first programmable mp3 player. That is a big deal, at least as far as I am concerned, since I have been developing software for the last year that anticipates that happening. Just as Yahoo introduced the programmable music engine, doing the same thing in the portable space is key

[aerochoi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

Here is news clip about U10.
Thickness is 16mm.

mms://navernews.hvod.nefficient.co.kr/navernews/0017/2005/0620/00000938.wmv

[Kye @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

k, so tell me where to buy it, except Best Buy, ebay, amazon.