January 11, 2008

iRiver UNIT-2: The All in One Kitchen Sink Media Player/Streamer

We have fallen in love with iRiver since they just make the coolest devices around. We bought the iRiver clix2 awhile back and have been in love with it, it does so many things right and makes us forget all about our nasty iPod. They really have spent a lot of time thinking not only about design, but about functionality and have really pushed the innovation of portable music. Well they were at it again at CES with their UNIT-2 announcement. They really have put everything they could think of into this new device. It is hard to fully describe it since it is so many different things in one. It is a standalone boombox with a built in CD/DVD player with two decent sized speakers and a nice 7-inch screen. This will play video and music back from a variety of sources including the CD/DVD drive, the internal 30GB hard drive, Internet radio stations or streamed from a connected computer on your network.

As if this wasn't enough iRiver is claiming that they will have VoIP phone capabilities, with video mind you, as well as the ability to surf the web so it can become the center of so many different areas of your life. Since there has been no actual release date or price set for this we have no idea the time table iRiver is looking at and if they will be able to get all of this functionality crammed into this device for a reasonable price. Time will tell, but if their track record is anything to go by then you should be getting very excited about the coming year for iRiver.

Oh did we mention that the 7" inch screen on the device detaches and can be carried around while you watch streaming movies or surf the web, yeah sorry about that :) Trust us we will scouring the web looking for any more concrete info about this and we'll let you know the minute we have more information.

via ehomeupgrade

Read More in: Audio Streaming | CES 2008 | Internet Radio | Video Streaming