iRiver to Launch Tiny U10 Video Player

Digital media device manufacturer iRiver plans to channel the simplicity of the iPod for its U10, a tiny player that is completely controlled by pressing the edges of the unit. The device is not much more than 2 inches high and just over 3 inches wide.

The U10 is capable of displaying video in AVI and MPEG4, as well as the Windows Media Video format. In a demo for BetaNews last week, the device had no visible lag time or sluggishness and picture quality was quite impressive.

iRiver said that while the player wouldn't be PlaysForSure compatible at launch -- scheduled for this week -- the company planned to add the feature through a firmware upgrade in January.

Even without PlaysForSure, the U10 still has a considerable list of features, including support MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG formats, FM radio with the option to record, voice and line-in recording, a text viewer, and a 2.22-inch QVGA color display.

This display also makes the iRiver U10 capable of displaying photos in most popular formats.

In addition, the U10 will be the first digital media device to support Flash Lite games, available from Macromedia. Flash Lite is a smaller version of the popular animation tool first made available earlier this summer as part of Flash 8.

iRiver told BetaNews that the company would make the Flash Lite SDK available to users of the device so they could create games on their own. The U10 will have the capability to play Flash animations as well.

To access media on the U10, a user would navigate through the menus on the device by pressing the edges. For example, pressing the top or bottom allows for scrolling up and down, while pressing the sides would allow a user to drill down into each of the feature menus.

Although pricing has not been officially announced as of yet, BetaNews has learned that iRiver will likely offer the U10 for $199 with 512MB USD of storage, and $249 USD for the 1GB model.