Confirmed: iriver D5 user interface still in Korean
If the recent appearance of the iriver D5 multimedia e-dictionary at the iriver America e-store had you thinking that the original Korean user interface was replaced by an English one, then you’re not alone. Why else would the official US store sell the tiny clamshell without mentioning anywhere on the product page (see below) that unless you could read Korean, everything appearing on screen would look like indecipherable lines and boxes? I don’t know but unfortunately, that’s what the company is doing.
Since many e-dictionaries, including my iriver D26, don’t include an English option and the D5 was clearly running Korean firmware when shown at CES, I contacted iriver to find out for sure. This is what they said: "Yes. User interface is in Korean. It is not able to be changed into English. At this point, we don’t know when D5 that is compatible with English will come out."
So, that’s that. The D5 now available at the iriver America e-store is not in English.
Wow that really sucks. How irresponsible of iRiver not to tell customers that on the product page. I bet there are many angry customers out there.
Thanks for saving me the headache of buying one, staring in disbelief at all the Korean characters when I got it, and dealing with iRiver to return it.