Thanks to Pocketables reader pk, I just learned that iriver America has quietly begun selling the metallic D5 multimedia e-dictionary at their online store. Available in both black and white, the 2GB ($299.99) and 4GB ($349.99) clamshell media players are the first e-dictionaries in the company’s Dicple series to ever be sold in the US.
Iriver doesn’t mention whether the UI is in Korean [Update: It is], as it was when I played with it at CES 2008 and as it should be given its intended audience, but they do reveal that the tiny handheld ships with a pouch, earphones, USB 2.0 cable, installation CD, and printed start guide.
I’ve gone over the specs of the device before, but here they are again:
- 3-inch 480 x 272 TFT display
- 52-key QWERTY keyboard
- Dictionaries: Korean-English, English-English, Korean-Japanese, Korean-Chinese
- Audio: MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG
- Video: AVI (MPEG-4 SP)
- Photo: JPG (3600 x 2400), GIFT (1024 x 768), BMP (1024 x 768)
- Text viewer
- FM radio
- Voice recorder
The iriver D5 is undoubtedly overpriced, but it’s actually a bit cheaper than I thought it would be. You might remember that when the unit was revealed last summer, I expected prices to fall between the $350 and $450 range. I spent about that much to import the lesser-featured iriver D26 last year, so the idea of spending $300 for what would just be a 2GB PMP to anyone who wouldn’t use the dictionary function doesn’t sound that unreasonable to me.
Thanks, pk!
Hey Jenn,
The D5 has been available at iriver america for a few months now. I purchased one from Korea and it did not have english firmware. I’m assuming (hoping) the units they are selling have english firmware.
For Jeff: I guess no one else knew that because Engadget and CrunchGear picked up the news today too. It’s puzzling why iriver didn’t make an announcement.
The UI should be in English but the product page says something like “doesn’t this make you want to learn Korean”. It seems dumb for it to be in Korean but that’s what it sounds like. Maybe Jenn will buy one and let us know.
@ Jeff: You mean I could’ve had that lovely metallic clamshell in my hands for months already? I can’t believe it!
I’m waiting to hear back from iriver about the firmware. It doesn’t make sense for it to be sold in the US without an English interface, especially since there’s no mention of it on the product page, but who knows.
I’d love for them to have an english firmware available for download on their site. I use the D5 but only because i’ve gone through a bunch of trial and error to find out where everything is and then remember the sequence to get there. Nice little machine.
Bad news, Jeff.
I am shocked to hear this news why iriver didn’t make an announcement.I guess thats why no one else knew this.