Korean electronics manufacturer iRiver has today announced the new H300 series portable music and photo player. The unit will come in two flavors, the 20 GB H320 and the 40 GB H340. The big difference with this unit compared to several other on the market (including the recently announced Sony) is that it act as a USB 2.0 host allow you to connect any mass storage device (such as a digital camera or card reader) directly and have the unit transfer directly. The upside is that you won't need special card adapters and won't need to remove the storage card from the camera, the downside will be that the majority of digital cameras still only support USB 1.1 (which is pretty slow), the unit itself has no card slots, you will need to carry a USB cable and it can't display RAW files. The H320 will retail for 47,800 YEN (approx. $430), the H340 for 59,800 YEN (approx. $540).

Click here for the iRiver H300 page (Japanese)

iRiver H300 Series specifications

Official preliminary information:

Release: May - June 2004

iRiver H300 Main Features

• 2" Color LCD Display - At Last, an MP3player with an cool color display.
   
• USB 2.0 - Transfer files fast with USB 2.0
   
• USB On The Go -Connect other USB On The Go units and use them together without the need of an computer. For example if you have a digital camera with USB OTG, connect it to the H300 Series and transfer the images from the camera to the H300.

Included Accessories

• Earphones
• Remote Controller Without Display
• Installation CD
• User's Manual
• Carrying case
• USB 2.0 Cable
• AC Adapter (DC 5.0V, 2A)
• External Mic.
• Line-in/out Cable
• Quick Start Guide
• Cradle (iHP-340)
• External Battery Pack