iRiver has announced that they are working on in-dash car MP3 players. I love the idea and remain a huge fan of the Empeg / Rio Car — too bad I had to sell both of mine to raise cash during my unemployed period. Given the declining prices of XScale / ARM components and laptop drives I think it may finally be possible to profitable sell a single-DIN 40GB car player of Empeg quality and capabilities for $500-$600. Maybe even squeeze a CD/DVD player in there. Switch to iPod-style 1.8″ drives, forget about optical drives, and go with a retractable LCD for perhaps $800-$1200.
But I don’t think iRiver is planning anything that cool. The article says the units “integrate an MP3 player, satellite radio and email functionalities on a single-chip solution.” To me that suggests a specialty chip not running a common embedded OS. More like a Neo Car than a Rio Car. Low-end, not as cool as an iPod or even a Zen.
The Dension DH100 retails for $650 / 40GB and appears to have decent UI / controls, but it smells like it runs on a PIC (or other very low-end processor) with an MP3 decoder chip.
[via Slashdot]
