iriver SPINN hits the streets at last

It's been a long wait since we first saw iriver hint at the SPINN way back at CES in January, but the flash player is finally shipping -- just a few days late. Our full hands-on impressions are on the way, but there's no denying that iriver has caught our eye with this distinctive player. 3.3-inch OLED touchscreen, unique spin controls and that traditional iriver eye for design make this thing potentially worth the hefty $250 (4GB) and $290 (8GB) asking prices -- though we have a few issues with long-term usability we'll need to hash out. It'll be available at iriverinc.com, Amazon.com, J&R and B&H online stores, though iriver's seems to be the only one with it live just yet.

[Eddie @ Oct 8th 2008 12:13PM]

It better be pretty friggin sweet in every way to legitimize that price for me :(

[Thetwins @ Oct 8th 2008 12:27PM]

It's not.

[who? @ Oct 8th 2008 12:28PM]

It's really, really not...

[DBrim @ Oct 8th 2008 12:47PM]

Not sure what your guys' problem is, because this is the most creative PMP design in years...

[Matt @ Oct 8th 2008 10:01PM]

Sure, it's a creative design, but why would I buy it when I can get an 8gb iPod Touch for $229 that has WiFi and lots of apps? If it was priced at maybe $200 for 8gb, then it would probably be worth it.

The problem is the OLED screen since they are still very expensive. I bet it looks amazing in person, though.

[Nick @ Oct 8th 2008 12:21PM]

It's so cool, but if it only had WiFi..

[who? @ Oct 8th 2008 12:22PM]

Yeah, no Wi-Fi no deal! Boo on engineering!

[Thetwins @ Oct 8th 2008 12:32PM]

You know, that's what I said about the Storm... Sux.

[Troels C @ Oct 8th 2008 12:58PM]

Yup... not enough storage and no wifi. Why make a device with a killer screen like that and not the specs to use it... I'm confused.

[Eddie @ Oct 8th 2008 1:33PM]

Larger screen would be nice...but mostly 2x capacity is what I'd want. I still think wifi is pretty unnecessary on a pmp.

[Troels C @ Oct 8th 2008 6:38PM]

Agreed, 16GB would be enough for me too. The reason I could use some wifi on it is that sometimes I surf a bit on my pmp or watch some youtube while I'm wating for something. Yeah ok, its a Touch. But add those features to this baby and I'd go for it. I think the design is better, and a screen like that in it? Wow!

[Troels C @ Oct 8th 2008 6:49PM]

Omg! I has Bluetooth. I missed that all together.

[Wwhat @ Oct 9th 2008 5:19AM]

Funny how it seems to supports flashvideo but has no wifi/browser, where others have wifi&browser but nof flashvideo support.

[trainwrecka @ Oct 8th 2008 12:21PM]

It looks really cool. Nice to see a company other than Apple putting thought into design.

[who? @ Oct 8th 2008 12:22PM]

On the outside at least...

[Thetwins @ Oct 8th 2008 12:32PM]

LOLOL

[smib @ Oct 8th 2008 12:26PM]

The extra n is for neato.

[who? @ Oct 8th 2008 12:27PM]

I think it's for NOT

[Neil @ Oct 8th 2008 4:46PM]

Other than having support for a lot of audio formats I can't see any reason to get this over an iPod Touch. If the price was lower then it would be a good buy.

[Juxtah @ Oct 8th 2008 12:36PM]

@ Who?

Are you really so insecure about your loyalty to Apple that you must dump on this player, a very good competitor with many excellent features in Every single persons comment?

As for the player, 3.3" AMOLED Yum! Still waiting on Cowon S9 though.

[Eddie @ Oct 8th 2008 12:39PM]

Dude you don't have wifi built in nor were you made by apple...INVALID COMMENT.

[Thetwins @ Oct 8th 2008 12:42PM]

He didn't say anything about Apple at all! WTF?

[farfisa @ Oct 8th 2008 12:38PM]

I think the big wtf is on the capacity to price ratio--bump them to 8 & 16 and they'd be more in line with the iPod touch.

[SteveM @ Oct 8th 2008 12:39PM]

The Gadget Show reviewed this last night and it got a bit of a slating - 2 stars out of 5 I think it was. Mainly for a terrible user interface, poor build quality (feels cheap was the verdict I believe), sound quality was okay but the screen was too small for video and almost unwatchable outdoors. Winner of the group test between this, the iPod Touch and the Cowon Q5 was... does it surprise anyone that it went to Apple?

[who? @ Oct 8th 2008 12:41PM]

Nope.

[Phoenix @ Oct 8th 2008 1:00PM]

No, because the gadget show are a bunch of biased twats

[SteveM @ Oct 8th 2008 1:07PM]

To be fair I'd say the Gadget Show was a bunch of incompetent twats rather than biased. I'm usually sighing when I see their reviews as they do things in a phenominaly stupid way to make sure one gadget doesn't steamroll the competition. But this one wasn't actually that bad and from what they showed I could see why they made the complaints they did and they seemed to have merit.

[Thetwins @ Oct 8th 2008 1:17PM]

Yeah? Well you're a twut! See? Doesn't feel good, does it?

[Phoenix @ Oct 8th 2008 1:31PM]

@steveM

Yeah, that's probably right...

I did see a show where they did a test of "smartphones" with an iPhone and a Nokia E-Something. No Windows Mobile. no Blackberry. and they basically took a guy who was an apple fanboy and showed him waiting in the line for the iPhone, and then took them out in the streets, let people glance at them and asked which they preferred. basically a test of which is prettier out of a media-centric featurephone with enhanced browser capabilities and a real smartphone. Ignoring most of the kinds of smartphone available

Not really an unbiased, competent test of smartphones.

And don't get me started on the laptop comparison with laptops that were of completely different spec. They then got the presenters to hold them at arms length as long as they could: Completely unscientific, as each one has different strength and stamina >.<

It's not a show for people who know ANYTHING about gadgets. It's for people who'll take an expensive, shiny thing over a cheaper one that does more but doesn't look as nice

[Juxtah @ Oct 8th 2008 2:01PM]

Gotta agree, the Gadget show 'tests' are completely worthless as they aren't fair or in many cases unbiased. And the scoring system has to be the worst and most inconsistent I've ever seen, bottom line is if you're taking advice from the gadget show on what gadgets to buy you obviously don't have a clue about gadgets at all.

[Wwhat @ Oct 8th 2008 6:23PM]

How can an OLED screen be 'unwatchable outside?' especially if the competition uses LCD most often, how could they say that? Makes no sense that.

[Wwhat @ Oct 8th 2008 6:34PM]

On the other hand, doesn't make sense it only has 262K colors and no memory card slot and no MSC(?) and only bluetooth and no wifi and so little room and such a high price either.
None of it makes sense.

[qwertyblue @ Oct 9th 2008 7:59AM]

One thing that irked me about the Gadget Show review of the multimedia players was when they took the spinn out doors - instead of being out doors with it originally like with the touch the radio presenter (forgot his name) took it outdoors for 5 secs and goes "oh yeah thats really poor quality" and took it back in. I generally like the gadget show but they were clearly biased towards the touch.

[Alex @ Oct 8th 2008 12:45PM]

Looks decent, but cannot justify the price. I bought my 16GB Cowon D2 for $199 and has all the features that the Spinn has and more. GG

[JerkfacedFed @ Oct 8th 2008 1:54PM]

while ive had a cowon and an iriver, i tried the zune and its definitely ftw.

had to add this: patriots suck, gmen ftw

[Juxtah @ Oct 8th 2008 2:02PM]

Yeah the pricing is definitely off, I hope the Cowon S9 with similar specs can beat it in that respect. Since although it has some very nice features, they certainly don't justify the price.

[al @ Oct 8th 2008 2:25PM]

Too bad iriver didn't have a good player since h300.. I even think that there was never a player to beat the h300 to this day

[noyp @ Oct 9th 2008 8:18AM]

The x5 had it beat in sound quality, but not controls and organization system imo

[maveric101 @ Oct 8th 2008 2:32PM]

@ who?

why are you going out of your way to hate on this PMP? it's fine if you love ipods. just shut up.

[Minilap @ Oct 8th 2008 2:45PM]

Hey "Who", I got an apple between my legs for you.....

[wilcoholic @ Oct 8th 2008 2:34PM]

Not trying to sound like a fanboy but why get this when you can get an ipod touch for cheaper? The ipod touch is a pocket PC that can do exactly the same things as the Spinn and more. Whereas the Spinn will never be more then a PMP.

[Juxtah @ Oct 8th 2008 2:43PM]

The iRiver has its plus points, namely the 3.3" AMOLED screen. But I agree it's badly priced, it even makes iPod players look like good value! :)

[CJ @ Oct 9th 2008 3:11AM]

Not to mention the SPINN is probably capable of music playback (which is both devices' primary funtion) at a much higher quality than the iTouch.

Nobody can deny that the iPod's audio chip is somewhat lacklustre.

[noyp @ Oct 9th 2008 8:20AM]

It actually has a capable dac (wolfson). Whether Apple knows how to use it well is beyond me

[Jake Maheu @ Oct 8th 2008 2:53PM]

Is it just me, or is there something wrong [read: extremely lossy jpeg compression] with that photo?

[Skobbolop @ Oct 8th 2008 8:14PM]

theres a review at www.anythingbutipod.com

the missing 16 gb model is a deal breaker for me though...

[Troels C @ Oct 8th 2008 7:26PM]

Same here, but I expect them to launch that soon.

[ijyt @ Oct 8th 2008 5:50PM]

All I want added is a SDHC or MicroSD slot. :c

[Hernan Paredes @ Oct 8th 2008 8:56PM]

hmm still waiting on the cowon s9... mmmmmmmmmmm

[sunsub @ Oct 9th 2008 4:32AM]

I guess that the design is very good. But does that still justify a 250$ price tag for a meager 4GB. That too at a time when Apple had reduced the prices of iPod Touch!
Of course OLED screen means that we can expect a really good battery life which probably adds to the price tag as well...
Also it is funny that the price difference between the 4GB and 8GB model is 40$. Wonder who will buy the 4GB model!