iRiver K1 Smart HD Media Player

Filed under: Portable Audio > Portable Audio Players



iRiver's latest portable media player appears to be a little bit iPod Touch, and a little bit Cowon S9. The K1 Smart HD's party piece is support for the popular Matroska container (.mkv), which is the format of choice for HD video. Given the support for HD file formats and the name you might expect a high def screen, but you would be mistaken. The Smart HD internally scales high resolution video files down to its native 480x320 pixel 3.5" screen.

In addition to .mkv, the Smart HD also supports AVI, WMV, MP4, TP, MPG, and ASF, and the usual selection of audio formats. The Smart HD has built in WiFi and optional DMB, but there's no word yet on whether it can output HD video files in their native resolutions to a TV, or whether it will ever come to the US. Korean prices are around $204 for the 8GB version, and $266 for 16GB.