CES 2009 - iriver dials up voice, video phones

LAS VEGAS - Best known for flooding the world with MP3 players, Reigncom is expanding its iriver multimedia products line to include a VoIP phone and a video phone.

First launched in South Korea, Reigncom's home turf, the iriver W10 "Multimedia Internet Phone" has a 3-inch TFT LCD touch-screen, WiFi connectivity, high-quality sound (high-end MP3 player history, duh), 4GB of memory and support for Adobe Flash Light. In addition to phone and SMS capabilities, the device can download music, play music and videos, show photos, and it has an electronic dictionary and support for Flash games. Oh yes, and there's a FM radio built-in.

New ground is broken with the UNIT 2-S, a "Next Generation Multimedia Communications Home Device." The IP video phone includes a base station with a wireless handset, a 7-inch LCD with touch screen, 1.3Mpixel camera, 2.5 watt stereo speaker, USB 2.0 port plus an SD slot, and a 10/100 Ethernet port for broadband connectivity. When not being used as a video phone, the UNIT can also be used to send SMS messages, surf the web, show photos, listen to FM radio, and to play music, videos, internet radio and Flash games.

Further details were unavailable at press time, but supporting Flash and rolling out a video phone can only auger good things for Adobe and startup Vidtel -- as well as Reigncom