iRiver Announces 40G Player & Previews 2004 Line

slavitos writes: "Just as we've finished our discussions of OGG support in iRiver players, the company has announced it will soon release a 40G HD player. According to this source, the new model will differ slightly from the previous 20G one - for example, the 40G player will be 3 mm thicker and 12 grams heavier. The cost of the device has not yet been determined." While we're on the topic of iRiver, thopo notes: "iRiver presented their new products coming spring 2004, here are pictures from the show, including pictures (and specs) of all new models. Especially noteworthy is the IHP-300 which comes with a 2" color TFT LCD and a very classy design. This thing got 'iPod Killer' written all over it." The page is in Korean, but most of the product descriptions in the pictures are in English.

Comments

iPod killer???

[acey72]

"This thing got 'iPod Killer' written all over it." - nope, it's got iPod rip-off written all over it! I know imitation is flattery and all that, but wrap an iPod in carbon fibre and make the buttons square.....

ACey

Re:I'm looking very closely...

[Darren Winsper]

Do you have any idea about the history of Ogg? MP3 is patented in countries which allow such silliness. When people started getting nasty letters about paying for an MP3 encoder they wrote from scratch, somebody noticed and decided to build something completely free.

Formats such as Ogg prevent the big companies from charging extortionate licensing fees, since everyone would just follow Epic's lead and go to Ogg if Microsoft and the MPEG group started charging through the roof.

Oh, and how's this for a deal breaker; Ogg support, twice the battery life, a better remote control, an FM radio and a built-in microphone? Ogg support alone was what swung me to get an iRiver, since I'm not going to re-encode all my Oggs just so I can use an iPod, especially since, being a Linux user, I don't get the benefit of iTunes.

Re:...and Jobs is an objective observer

[BitGeek]

Tells me you've never used one.

Or you're the typical slashdot idiot who thinks "Good ui" is a fullsized keyboard and unix shell commands.

The amazing thing is Apple has just released an iPod based on a 4G microdrive for $250. Nobody has noticed that just buying a 4G microdrive from Amazon.com costs $500!

So the player is half the cost of the drive.

They've driven down prices for that form factor....

But you guys are apparently terminally incapable of noticing that the form factor is different.

A player based on a 3.5 inch drive is a better deal according to you guys because even though it weighs 2 pounds, its got more storage for less money.