iRiver Wave – a mp3 player/phone hybrid device. It'll never catch on.
In the lovely Korean girl’s hand above is the iRiver Wave. It’s a gasp phone made by an MP3 player manufacturer. The world is imploding. Silliness aside, it’s beautiful, has specs to die for, and the wonderful embedded £2-a-month, all-you-can-stream Bugs Music Service embedded. However, I’m forced to add the phrase that makes any Western techie weep – “Only available in Korea”. Full specs over the jump.
The device is based around a 3″, 480 x 272, touchscreen. It’s got Wi-Fi, blazing-fast cellular internet access, FM radio, video and music player and ‘multiple dictionaries’. Always important having more than one copy of the OED to hand. There’s also handwriting recognition and the aforementioned Bugs Music Service acesss.
Internal storage is 4GB, with a miniSD slot to increase that. The device weighs 103g and measures 110.5 x 52.5 x 15.5mm. The MP3 player will play just about anything you throw at it, including OGG files. Pricing isn’t confirmed, but presumably it’ll depend on contract. Korean network KT get it exclusively for a while, then other Korean providers will get access too.
I don’t even need to say it, but there’s no plans yet for any release in the West. Sadface.
iRiver (via Hallyu Tech)
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