We hit the show floor excitedly looking for iriver's GSM phone which they showed off earlier in the week, but when we got to their booth, the little guy was nowhere to be found. We managed to wrangle a chat out of some of the company's product designers and marketing people, and they explained their hesitation at continuing to show the W7-cum-GSM-phone due to the similarities of the phones UI to an all-too-familiar device. According to the iriver people, the iPhone-like interface which was showcased originally was only meant to demonstrate what the phone was capable of, not a finalized version of the OS. Of course, it's little consolation to us, having seen a brief snippet of the phone, though we're assured that some new hotness -- or hot newness -- is on the way from the cats in Korea.

Iriver's been pushing out all sorts of product at this year's CES, but this is the biggest surprise from the company yet. The "iriver GSM phone" is an iPhone-esque handset featuring a 3-inch 480 x 272 touchscreen, and a Linux-based UI that is practically mimics the iPhone feature for feature. The actual hardware is quite similar to iriver's own W7. According to PC Mag, the phone has 4GB of flash storage, Rhapsody and other media support, a two megapixel camera (with video, take that Apple), Adobe Flash support, GPS and mobile TV (it's unclear what type). While we're not sure what sort of wireless options this has, like WiFi or 3G, and what carriers will support it, iriver has committed to bring this to the States. Iriver's Owen Kwon promises the phone will be "more affordable" than the iPhone, but otherwise there's no other info on release. There's video of the phone after the break.