Iriver yesterday announced that they will release their first phone, called the Wave, which was exhibited as a concept at CES in back in January. The phone features a large touchscreen, personal media player, WiFi, a dictionary and will have access to an online music store much like Apple’s iPhone does with iTunes and Google’s G1 does with Amazon.

The Wave will be available in Korea from March 9th next year through cell phone carrier KT. The touchphone, coupled with its “Bugs Music Service” is sure to compete directly with the iPhone and G1. No word on a US/UK launch, but I guess that will be determined by its popularity in Korea.

The phone will also feature handwriting-recognition software and a BlackBerry-like trackball. Specs are limited (even in the press release), but the Wave should include 4GB of internal storage and a miniSD slot.

The player will be capable of using a range of media file formats including WMA, MP3, OGG, MPEG 1/2/2.5 for audio as well as MPEG 4 for video. The measurements are 110.5mm (4.35″) x 52.5mm (2.06″) x 15.5mm (0.61″) with a weight of 103g (0.23lbs).

Sources:
UnwiredView and Hallyutech and Press Release (Korean)