iriver's B20 gets hands-on treatment

iriver's nicely featured B20 may only make us Americans envious, but for those able to take advantage of DAB / DMB, what's not to love? The folks over at CNET were able to get ahold of the aforementioned device and not only brush over some of its most notable qualities, but also offer up a nice selection of photos for you and your comrades to look at longingly. Check out a couple more angles after the break, or hit the read link for the full spread.

[Thanks, Andy H.]

[John M @ Oct 26th 2007 11:20AM]

Nice size on that thing...I dont like the antenna though its f-ugly...

[loci @ Oct 26th 2007 11:25AM]

show me a beautiful antenna

[John M @ Oct 26th 2007 12:11PM]

one you cant see...

[ugg.tryptophan @ Oct 26th 2007 3:59PM]

but how will i watch my stories

[PenaltyKillah @ Oct 28th 2007 1:17AM]

A beautiful antenna? (Probably an unsurprising joke... no offence!) It's in your pants!

[jodeltje @ Oct 26th 2007 11:27AM]

so they made the device twice as thick and gave it a nasty looking antenna?...just for digital radio?

who's gonna explain to me why anyone wants this over the clix 2?

[Alan Partridge @ Oct 26th 2007 11:38AM]

DAB is radio, DMB is TV. I think the antenna looks nice

[PenaltyKillah @ Oct 28th 2007 1:25AM]

Sigh... Japanese people have this privilege where TV streams through DMB. So... yay for them. Not radio, though I'd even have an antenna that size to have AM radio to catch my Vancouver Canucks.

And great job iriver, using the 2nd generation clix's OS for the B20. Great job. I can't think of anything else better. But why did you guys have to imprint your friggin' logo on one side? What about the other side? I'm a man of symmetry, okay? When I have a zit on my left cheek, I put enough oil on my right in order to gain another so the world is in balance! XD

[crescentdavid @ Oct 26th 2007 11:31AM]

I dunno ... I like the form factor and the UI simply can't be beat. Look upon the antenna as a "form follows function" detail. My guess is the whipcord form is far more efficient at pulling a signal in than the ubiquitous cellphone stubs.

[whatthe @ Oct 26th 2007 11:35AM]

Do you guys even know what DMB is? It's streaming TV.


"oh! thats why! drrrrrrrrr"

[Zhalfim Deyn @ Oct 26th 2007 12:07PM]

I guess it looks good for what it is meant to do...

but I still like my original clix2, antenna be damned!

[Life of Brian @ Oct 26th 2007 1:56PM]

What comrades?

[kimatg @ Oct 26th 2007 12:57PM]

Without an antenna you cant watch DMB/DVB.
and that's pretty ENOUGH, at least it fits the player design...
i'm sure you can find plenty of other crappy antennas out there...

did you know the antenna also works as a stand!
...like bend it down and you can put the player on the table =)

[The ZeroCorpse @ Oct 26th 2007 1:52PM]

Mac compatible?

No?

OK then. Nevermind. It's useless to me and another few million people.

You can't take over the DMP industry if you don't support everyone... Why doesn't anyone but Apple get that?

[wolf @ Oct 26th 2007 2:16PM]

you're not serious, right? saying Apple "supports everyone" when it comes to media players is pretty comical. so I'm guessing this was sarcasm.

[treetrunk @ Oct 26th 2007 2:30PM]

Wrong. Despite their high publicity Apple still only have a very small percentage of the computer market. It's a fairly trivial cost/benefit problem to see that it was more important for Apple to support the other ~95% of the market than it is for any other manufacturer to support Apple's ~5%. Apple had no choice but to support PCs otherwise the iPod would have just been another overpriced Mac accessory with only a tiny potential userbase. For anyone else, the additional cost involved in supporting Macs usually just isn't worth the return.

[Al @ Oct 26th 2007 3:56PM]

Yes it is mac compatible because it is a UMS device.

[Mark @ Oct 26th 2007 4:58PM]

Dumbass.

iriver's players are MTPUMS. Microsoft nor Apple don't do that. Also, like half the people here you have no fucking idea what DMB is.

[jamma @ Oct 27th 2007 6:16AM]

The iPhone is trying to take over that industry, but it sure as hell doesn't support everyone.

[PenaltyKillah @ Oct 28th 2007 1:24AM]

Al, I'm sorry, but let me teach you some Tech 101.

When a device is "UMS" (Universal Mass Storage), it is independent of any software whatsoever. When you plug it in, it appears as a USB mass storage device, and you can just drag and drop, or Ctrl/AppleKey+C and Ctrl/AppleKey+V. The iPod does support Windows and Mac, but only through a "oh-so-seamless" software called iTunes. And... the iPod doesn't even support Linux, unless you have third-party software. So... you get it?

[9bit @ Oct 26th 2007 3:57PM]

The D2 has been able to do this for a while.

[9bit @ Oct 26th 2007 3:57PM]

The D2 has been able to do this for a while.

[bugmat @ Oct 26th 2007 7:26PM]

What, repeat posts?! Cool! I'll def. get the D2 over this now!

[Nick @ Oct 29th 2007 12:01PM]

I have this B20 with 4 GB i got it from SOuth KOrea where they sell it bought it for around 340 buks good price and it also has a memory card slot SD its very nice i luv it