iriver Spinn caught on video, kills without words

Oh yes it is. iriver's 3.3-inch Spinn media player with AMOLED display has finally been captured on video. That gives us a first look at the new SPINN Wheel controller and how it assists with navigating the touch-screen display with haptic feedback. Gotta say, the navigation looks extremely impressive causing our want factor to burrow a bit deeper down into our wallets. Check the UI in action after the break.

[Via iriverfans.com]

[phanbouy @ Aug 4th 2008 2:19AM]

hey, you can play pong on it!

[eric @ Aug 4th 2008 2:23AM]

Unrelated-
Some of your comments and particularly ones made in that post which included the cop body-checking the cyclist have made me a Phan of Phanbouy.

[T Jefferson @ Aug 4th 2008 2:56AM]

Nearly 3000 comments? Thats insanity!

[phanbouy @ Aug 4th 2008 2:59AM]

ha.. guess so. but i'm sure i'm pretty low on the word count heirarchy!

[gigidi @ Aug 4th 2008 5:41AM]

http://www.mncast.com/player/index.asp?mnum=5401069&prevmnum=5419070

[Jon Doe. @ Aug 4th 2008 10:27AM]

"Nearly 3000 comments? Thats insanity!"

No its caketown.

[anonymouspimp @ Aug 4th 2008 11:28AM]

@T Jefferson

Insanity? rofl... Yeah that's the word for it...

Don't worry... things will change when he moves out of his parents basement and gets a job. ;)

[phanbouy @ Aug 4th 2008 12:47PM]

only someone with intimate firsthand knowledge of his parents basement would name himself "anonymouspimp"

[anonymouspimp @ Aug 4th 2008 1:08PM]

I did, in fact, live in my parents basement for... i'd say roughly 6 months after I finished college. There was indeed a lot of pimpin' going on in that basement. Alas, I have since moved on to much nicer accomodations.

I'll have your mom send you down some hotpockets in a few... ;)

[Eh @ Aug 7th 2008 5:33PM]

"only someone with intimate firsthand knowledge of his parents basement would name himself "anonymouspimp""

I resent that

[DJRome @ Aug 4th 2008 2:20AM]

so dark I can't see. . .

[leo1.618314 @ Aug 4th 2008 2:22AM]

Looks Sweet, maybe I'll ditch my efforts in getting a touch..lol

[Imran @ Aug 4th 2008 3:44AM]

What fun is a device you can't jailbreak :p

[matt @ Aug 4th 2008 6:56AM]

Why buy something that you have to fix in the first place...

[eric @ Aug 4th 2008 2:21AM]

It's lovely and all but I seriously can't stand using devices with weird choppy framerate for the UI.

It messes with your head.

[Colin Potter @ Aug 4th 2008 2:40AM]

if I had to guess I'd say youtube is at fault

[Mic2000 @ Aug 4th 2008 3:14AM]

I totally agree, I bought a HTC Touch Diamond. It is as slow as hell, it really gives me a headache.

[Tonicboy @ Aug 4th 2008 1:03PM]

yeah, welcome to the same hell as Windows Mobile. I have yet to use a WinMo device that's snappy. And sluggish is bad enough for UI's, but it's absolute killer for a touch-based UI.

[Jeff @ Aug 4th 2008 1:19PM]

really. if they can't get the UI looking and feeling at least basically smooth, it hardly matters to me how "neat" it is.

and no, it's not a "youtube thing" that made the UI look janky - that was the UI. Now it might be unfinished or something, but they can't blame youtube for that one.

[phanbouy @ Aug 4th 2008 2:23AM]

quadrafail

[James @ Aug 4th 2008 2:26AM]

is the message here: Buy our Mp3 player, and can't pay for power to your house?

[Johan S @ Aug 4th 2008 2:27AM]

Nice, but can they hire a professional graphic artist to do their icons using color?

Still, it seems good .. icons not of my taste is no reason not to buy it.

But..

I'm still waiting for the Sony Xperia X1.. I hate to carry multiple devices.

[Shaun @ Aug 4th 2008 7:10AM]

That phone is one of the sexiest phones ever.
I dont care what anyone says.
makest he iPhone look like shit (not that it looks that amazing in the first place)

[Dan @ Aug 4th 2008 4:39PM]

I would have used to agree on the Sony X1, but the last shots of it that I've seen really made it look pretty uninteresting....

No doubt the X1's still in development...But I'd rather go with HTC's new Touch Pro over the X1 from what I've seen. :o

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 4th 2008 2:29AM]

Looks pretty snazzy.
looks like the framerate is a little slow, like 15-20. not too bad, but it would look nicer if it were completely smooth, which is definitely possible based on the simplicity of the menus.

[Einhanderkiller @ Aug 4th 2008 2:46AM]

Probably a battery life thing.

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 4th 2008 2:57AM]

or a "it's not done yet" thing.

[Namarrgon @ Aug 4th 2008 3:10AM]

Or maybe even a YouTube thing? Try one in Real Life.

[agroupofletters @ Aug 4th 2008 1:03PM]

is it sad that when i first saw Real Life i thought he was talking about some other video player or video website?

[Richard @ Aug 4th 2008 2:31AM]

Hmm.. looks cool but I have no use for the mp3 portion of it (have a Zune subscription). What do you guys think about buying it just for the video? A waste?

[alechko @ Aug 4th 2008 2:33AM]

iWant.
Looks to me like iPod Touch killer. Just slap on phone into it and you've got world domination.

[gad get @ Aug 4th 2008 3:11AM]

There is no iPod touch killer, just as there is no iPhone killer, or iPod Nano/Classic killer. Not because nobody makes better devices (superior portable media players have been not only coming out, but beating the fruit-branded competition to the marketplace, since mp3 players came into being), but because realistically the devices can't be better /enough/ to overcome "the Apple factor."

[Lloyd @ Aug 4th 2008 4:27AM]

i wouldn't say its the apple factor for ipods as much as it is the itunes factor. out of all of the DRM systems, itunes is by far the best, and lots of people have invested $$ into it, and dont want their music to go poof.

i mean, definitely the hipness, the ipod touch looks just as cool as the iphone, BUT, the ipod touch is holycrap expensive in the DMP arena. if this is cheap, it might have a shot at doing better than non-pods, but i don't expect anything to dominate apple anytime soon, as they keep pushing their DLC angle (and i reluctantly admit, they're doing a very good job with it).

Bottom line is DLC/DRM is an amazing way to create brand equity / loytalty. I don't think a lot of people realize that (thus the reason the xbox is so successful as well).

[macserv @ Aug 4th 2008 2:38PM]

Except that Steve wants to do away with DRM, remember?

It's not that nobody can beat Apple, its that Apple's products are solid, with awesome design and user experience that is (overall) second to none. That is why Apple is so firmly entrenched right now, not the relative ease of FairPlay.

People don't see me buy music from the iTunes Music Store and say, "Wow, I've gotta have an iPhone/iPod/MacBook so I can do that!" They hold the device, see what it can do, experience it for a few moments; and THEN they say it.

I think you'll be hard-pressed to find a DMP as thin, powerful, and full-featured (especially now that the App Store has launched) as the iPod Touch for a significantly lower price.

Making good products is an amazing way to create brand equity / loyalty.

[phanbouy @ Aug 4th 2008 2:32AM]

your first comment in nine months, and that's all ya got?

[MasterCKO @ Aug 4th 2008 2:58AM]

tetrafail

[Mark @ Aug 4th 2008 2:59AM]

I'd hold off on buying one for the time being. The devices seems to have several problems (according to reviews from users who already got their players in Korea) concerning video playback and DMB, although they should be able to fix it through firmware updates. Also there's some controversy over the fact that the screen only shows 65k colors (compared to 262k which is more or less standard in mobile devices today), and the fact that the specs are generally lower than the model they showed at CES. No memory card slot, no 3d graphics chip for the UI, mediocre battery life etc.

[Mark @ Aug 4th 2008 3:03AM]

Also the UI seems like it was designed more for a stylus (typical of iriver's tough interfaces). Look at the size of the "OPT" button at the top and the scroll bar at the bottom of the main menu.

[RijilV @ Aug 4th 2008 3:04AM]

I really have to give it to iRiver for trying something new with their user interfaces. In a world where just about everyone tries to make an interface that gets as close to an ipop as you can without having to pay royalites, iRiver really seems to be pushing the envolope with other ideas that are really innovative and at times ahead of themselves.

I know I've been very happy with my clix2, this thing reminds me of the way the original clix looked. Very cool, probably wait for the second rev of it to hit in a year or so.

[Nick @ Aug 4th 2008 3:05AM]

Looks good, perhaps I'll buy one of these, but not sure what to get with quite a few different brands coming out at the same time.

iRiver looks like its stepping up to challenge Sony and Creative.. sounds like fun, despite how Sony and Creative might just crush the competition..

Can't say for sure, I'm still a bit frustrated over my crappy 30GB iPod Video..

Cheers,
Nick

[Al @ Aug 4th 2008 3:47PM]

except Creative lost its way. The Creative Zem was a sub-par device, and the new XFI is just a little better than its predecessor the Zen. Even die hard creatives fan will concur that the last good product worth really buying from creative was/is the Zen Vision and the Zen Vision W.
Now as for iriver, a nice interface, AMOLED screen, and cool way of controlling a device isn't going to make up for the disappointment this device turned out to be. This was suppose to have a microsd card slot and go up to 16gb of space, but it has no card slot and we would be lucky if it even goes up to 16gb of space. Sound quality of the latest batch of their devices are also pretty bad. The company is going down the hill after their good CEO left to start his own company MintPass. The new CEO is out sourcing some of its parts to China so it keeps cost of the them down and while still charging a premium for a device that is nothing specially any more.

Sony, Samsung, and Cowon are so far the only ones not to go down hill. I would say Toshiba too but all their good stuff is in asia.

[Tom @ Aug 4th 2008 3:45AM]

Hey this is a cool launch. Does it have memory if yes how much?

[frankXchange @ Aug 4th 2008 3:29AM]

It looks nice...a PSP with a touch sensitive screen?

I don't see the advantage of the roller control over, say, a blackberry wheel for instance. I wonder how easy it is to see something off after you've turned on the tunes and put it in your pocket.

About games - what platform is it? Will it support other apps? Can you text on the screen? I didn't see that. Basically I'd need a LOT more information.

[imarobot @ Aug 4th 2008 7:29AM]

song is activation by john blackford.

[tyler @ Aug 4th 2008 3:31AM]

This looks amazing-- I really like how the menus were laid out, except for the tiny buttons at the top of the "Now Playing" screen.

The one question that I've got to ask is, what music is that in the background??

[imarobot @ Aug 4th 2008 7:27AM]

song is "activation" by john blackford. actually the first song that is played on the device during the demonstration.

[Colin Potter @ Aug 4th 2008 3:34AM]

megafail

[Ali @ Aug 4th 2008 3:35AM]

Is that really an OLED display - It looks like it has a backlight? OLED displays don't use backlights!?

[Sasha S. @ Aug 4th 2008 3:42AM]

I am rather disappointed with this user interface. Only the opening screen with this left/right moving line is fresh, but as soon as you start digging down into it - there it is all again, small ugly icons, beautiful touch screen very badly underutilized.

And that is only the device - I would love to see the music software that comes with it, will there be a repository for flash applications so that they can be easily downloaded, etc etc? We all know answer to this, I'm afraid.

As "gad get" commented - iPod is a part of an eco-system and snazzy devices although nice - simply won't cut it anymore. Cool that they have DVB reception though!

[John Doe @ Aug 4th 2008 3:44AM]

looks nice...but clix2 is still the king of mp3 players