The iRiver Wave Home is a wireless gadget with a touchscreen that relies on a constant stream of web widgets that offer up tiny-bits of tasty, digestible media content.
Sound familiar?
It should, because it’s basically the exact same device as the Chumby, which came out last year to wide acclaim (and a healthy amount of hype). The only difference between them is that the Wave Home appears to be less cuddly and more prone to die from a fall in the kitchen.
Ok, fine, there are more differences. The Wave comes with a separate control that also serves as a wireless phone handset used for VoIP calls, though you can actually use the 7-inch (800 x 480 pixel) touch display as a virtual keypad. Also, the original Chumby (right) did not support certain codecs of video playback (the current versions uses Flash Lite 3 capabilities), but this one is supposed to be play pretty much everything.
Like the Chumby, it’s perforated with the usual SD, Ethernet, and USB ports, but this one comes with a 1.3-megapixel CMOS camera. The picture quality of the cam, however, will probably look dated by the end of the year.
When we reviewed the Chumby, we noted that the best part about it was the quality of the streams from internet radio and when music played from our iPod, and part of that was due to its quality speakers. The iRiver is also touting the Wave Home’s speakers as one its integral parts – if they doesn’t work just as good, expect a lot of disappointed ears in the G-Lab when it comes in for a review.
IRiver is not releasing the price yet, but the rumor is that it will come down to about $400. It will launch next month in Korea and in the U.S. by mid-year.
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