| iRiver Spinn (U30) | |
| Aka: | U30 |
| Manufacturer: | iRiver |
| Type: | PMP |
| Connectivity: | 3.5 mm jack, Properietary data/power USB cable |
| Power: | Li-Ion battery |
| Cpu: | Telechips TCC7901[1] |
| Release Date: | August 2008 |
| Media: | 4–16 GB flash memory |
| Input: | SPINN System, Touch |
| Display: | 480 × 272 px, 3.20NaN0, color AMOLED, touchscreen |
| Predecessor: | iRiver Clix 2 |
The iRiver Spinn (stylised iriver SPINN) is a portable media player that was developed and sold by iRiver. It was announced at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show[2] and shipped later that year. It was a successor to the iRiver Clix 2.[3]
The Spinn is fully made of metal[4] and features a resistive touchscreen AMOLED display along with an analogue wheel knob. Both the screen and the wheel have haptic feedback.[4]
The Spinn has sound customisability in the SRS WOW HD 3D, as was seen previously on the iRiver Lplayer.[4] Some features have been carried over including a voice recorder and Flash Lite games, but the Spinn also has Bluetooth.[4] iRiver officially rates a 25 hour battery life for audio, or 5 hours for video.[4]
In some regions such as the UK, it came with a DAB radio tuner.[3]
It supports the audio formats MP3, WMA, Ogg, APE, ASF and FLAC, and videos in the formats MPEG 4 Simple Profile and WMV.[4]
The iRiver Spinn's distinct feature is its user operability. It has a modern user interface that can be both operated by both the touchscreen or the physical analogue spindle,[4] [5] which is officially called the SPINN System (Analog Toggle Wheel).[5] The wheel lets the user navigate left and right, and it can be clicked to select.[6]
Trusted Reviews thought that the Spinn was "excellent and innovative", but that it could be niche in the market.[5] The Register commented that it provides good sound quality as with previous iRiver players, but that it lacks in the video department and that the UI is "half-baked".[4] The CNET review (with a score of 7 out of 10) liked the build quality, interface and support for audio codecs, but criticised the high price and the lack of certain features for the price.[7] Engadget liked the "beautiful" hardware design, the display and the wheel, but did not like the high price and the software.[8] In What Hi-Fi?'s review, the Spinn's design was praised but otherwise commented that for listening to music other products were better.[9]
In South Korea, the Spinn failed to generate enough sales to recover against its rivals, Cowon and Samsung. IRiver did release another U device in 2011, the U100.[10]