Tuesday, July 29,2008 @ 7:55am
iRiver tries touchscreen players with SPINN
iRiver today officially unveiled its turn at a touchscreen device with the Korean appearance of the SPINN. The machined aluminum player earns its name through a dial that allows quick scrolling through a radio-like interface, tuning built-in FM radio or DMB mobile TV, and scrubbing through video. However, it also hands over control in many areas to a more advanced, 3.3-inch active matrix OLED (or AMOLED) touchscreen that produces more colors and better blacks than an LCD.
Aside from its input and mobile broadcast features, the SPINN plays videos in MPEG-4 and WMV as well as audio in rarer formats like APE, FLAC, and OGG in addition to MP3 and WMA. It can also handle offline Flash games and other content through Flash Lite 2.1.
The player's debut in its home country sees it ship in models with 4GB or 8GB of flash storage at prices equivalent to $256 and $296 respectively. International releases haven't been revealed, though the iRiver device has been spotted in FCC testing that would clear it for use in the US. North American versions of iRiver players typically strip out DMB TV when present and lower the price.
