Zicplay touted this player at the IFA in Berlin as the smallest MP3 player currently available, measuring just 43mm long, 15mm wide and weighing 18 grams. It appears to have a very simple interface consisting of a couple buttons on the front that control moving tracks forward and back and also controls the volume.

The Microkey supports playback of MP3 and WMA files giving up to 6 hours of listening time on a single charge of the battery. It also connects to your PC via USB 2.0 for transferring files and reportedly has “touch screen interface capabilities”, although we’re not sure how that comes into play.

There was no pricing or dates of availability yet, but you can watch the Zicplay site for more info and we’ll let you know when we hear more.

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These colorful units are the newly announced ML-300 MP3 players by Korean-based MPIO. Less than the size of a credit card (28.2×19.3×65.9mm, for those that have their rulers handy) and weighing 23 grams, it supports MP3, WMA and WAV files and you get a nice-sized 10-12 hours of battery life from your single AAA battery. Also thrown in is voice recording, eight equalizer presets and a built-in FM radio.

While it’s only got a monochrome display it is backlit in a nice blue and the graphics are detailed, if a bit tiny. Two models are available in Japan, a 1GB ($43) and 2GB ($61), and in three color choices (pumpkin orange, lime green, dark grey.) Of course there’s no Bluetooth support (all your uploading is done via USB) but for this economical price point you shouldn’t care.

SanDisk announced the release of the final version of the Sansa View today, apparently dumping the original View design the company had unveiled earlier this year. This new design however may make a serious challenger for the latest iPod Nano from Apple with a larger 2.4″ display, up to 16GB of storage and more.

The View supports playback of MP3, protected and unprotected WMA, WAV, audio along with MPEG4, WMV, H.264 and DivX video playback at a nice 30 frames per second. It will also show JPEG photos and play Audible files. In addition to just playing your stored media, this player also packs in an FM tuner with the ability to remember up to 20 preset stations, and also houses a voice recorder with a built-in microphone. And, the storage can even expanded from that already impressive 16GB of storage with a microSD/SDHC slot. The 2.4-inch TFT color display has a 320×240 resolution and the rechargeable battery promises 35 hours of continuous audio playback, or 7 hours of video.

Along with quietly rolling out the Insignia Pilot, Best Buy also took the wraps off of the Insignia Sport “sporting” a similar but scaled down feature set with a scaled down price. Coming with an internal memory capacity of 2GB or 4GB, the Sport is also Bluetooth compatible letting you listen with your wireless Bluetooth headset. It supports playback of MP3, WMA, WMA Lossless, WMA DRM and OGG music formats along with slightly choppy (15fps) MPEG4 video and JPEG still images.

The player has 1.7″ color LCD screen and an FM tuner with RDS so you can see the artist and song names from participating stations, and lets you save the RDS data of songs you like for later when you want to get online and download them. Speaking of saving song related information, this player also lets you rates songs that you play from your media with a dedicated ratings button.

Last weekend Best Buy made a quiet release of their latest line of the budget-minded Insignia media players, one of which being the 4GB Insignia Pilot. The Insignia players have always been somewhat in the background, offering decent “Best-Buy brand” players at affordable prices, but this latest release has some competitive features at a very competitive price which should give a lot of more popular brands a run for their money.

The player supports playback of MP3, WMA, WMA Lossless, WMA DRM, WMA Pro, OGG, WAV and Audible audio files along with MPEG4 (30 fps) and WMV (30 fps) for video. It will also support viewing JPEG still images. Users can watch video and view images on a nice-sized 2.4″ widescreen LCD and it offers up to 25 hours of audio playback on a single charge.

Cowon introduced the iAudio U5 media player at IFA this week and while it has a slimmer and simpler design than the iAudio 7 that Cowon released in June, we don’t find the looks of the U5 quite as appealing.

The player is an audio player only, sporting a 1.8″ TFT LCD with 128×160 resolution and uses an on board equalizer to fine tune MP3 and WMA files. You can also use it to record the FM radio through a built-in tuner or do direct voice recording to the player through its microphone. The iAudio U5 has a rechargeable battery with as much as 20 hours of playback and comes in capacities of 2GB, 4GB and 8GB and can double as mass storage through a USB 2.0 connection.

iRiver has announced the launch of the DP250, its first MP3 player through recently acquired Siren. The player is branded as a Siren product but definitely has taken on the iRiver look. The Siren DP250 is a somewhat smaller MP3 player measuring 102mm x 30.5mm x 12.7mm. The DAP will launch in Japan September 7 in 1GB and 2GB capacities for $85 and $120, respectively.

Archos, maker of a number of cool, higher-end media players, is now bringing its smaller 5th generation Archos 105 to the U.S. adding to the already-high competition present in this mini media player market.

It comes in colors of black, red and silver and in only a single capacity configuration of 2GB. Inside the super-slim 0.3″ frame the player supports playback of MP3, WMA and WAV audio files. What really makes this player is the fact that it also takes advantage of a 1.8” OLED display at 160 x 128 dpi with 262,000 colors to play WMV files so you can take your recorded TV episodes with you. And of course you can view still JPEG’s with it, too.

Along with yesterday’s release of the new video Walkman’s from Sony, they also released a smaller, non-video line of Walkmans which were somewhat overshadowed in the announcement. Although the new NWZ-B100 series do not have video, they do have a 3-line color LCD display to show functions and tracks playing.

The small Walkman supports playing MP3 and WMA audio files and is compatible with Microsoft’s PlayForSure music service. It also has a FM tuner with the ability to set as many as 30 preset stations, and it can record the radio broadcast directly to the player as MP3′s. It also has a microphone built-in should you want to record your own, personally sung songs to the player for future easy-listening.

Today’s the day Sony decided to unveil video Walkmans to the US for the first time with the NWZ-A810 and NWZ-S610 series Walkman media players. Both players support an open platform for downloading and saving music and video content to coincide with Sony phasing out its CONNECT music service.

The players come in capacities of 2GB, 4GB and 8GB and in colors of black, pink, red and silver. The higher end NWZ-A810 model has a 2-inch QVGA (320 by 240) LCD, comes packaged with some high-end noise isolation earbuds and has a battery life that supports video playback of up to 8 continuous hours. The NWZ-A810 is targeting a little bit younger crowd with a 1.8-inch LCD and features an FM tuner and a little more battery life for continuous video of 9.5 hours. Both models promise to provide an impressive 33 hours of continuous music playback.

As you might notice by the additional little logo on the front, Panasonic has upgraded its D-Snap MP3 player to now include Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity. The new D-Snap SV-SD950N has also added a couple buttons on the front to let its player hook up wirelessly with your Bluetooth phone, hands-free car unit or a Bluetooth stereo headset.

Aside from the added connectivity the D-Snap appears to be the same, still featuring its special noise canceling and comes packaged with a 1GB SD card. The only other changes, which are not quite as cool, are a decreased battery life due to the Bluetooth running and an increased price. The D-Snap SV-SD950N is expected to hit shelves in Japan on September 21.

Source (translated)

Two new additions to Samsung’s line of digital media players have made their introduction to the world. The YP-P2 and YP-T10 are ultra-slim (0.3 for the first, 0.4 inches for the latter) and both have built-in Bluetooth 2.0 capability so you can listen via wireless Bluetooth 2.0 headphones or speakers.

The T10 is the lesser spec’ed of the pair with a 16:9 2.0-inch display screen (240 x 320), battery life for up to 30 hours of music listening or 4 hours of watching a movie and 4 GB of NAND flash memory. The P2 can be picked up in either a 4 GB or 8 GB size and squeezes another 5 hours of music listening/1 hour of video from its batteries, has a 3-inch wide screen (480 x 272) and has a sleep timer and auto-off feature not found in its sibling.

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Sony is set to unveil next month a portable video player which works with HDV or standard mini-DV video tapes. The Sony GV-HD700 Video Walkman will be available in September for around $1,300.

The GV-HD700 features a seven-inch widescreen display designed to ensure all of the recorded frame area is displayed. It is capable of recording HDV and DV signals from an external source for backup purposes and can also transfer digital still images from tapes to Memory Sticks.

Amazon has released some early photos and specs of the new Creative Zen shortly before the IFA in Berlin which starts in a few days. The listing is pricing it very reasonably at $149, $199 and $299 for the 4GB, 8GB and 16GB models, respectively. It’s available for pre-order now and they aren’t saying quite yet when it will actually ship.

The new Zen so far looks like it’s only available in black and is touted as a credit card sized MP3 player that supports playing music, video, viewing photos and picking up FM radio. The display consists of a 2.5″ TFT supporting 16.7 million colors and the internal memory is expandable through an available SD card slot. The Creative Zen looks pretty sharp and at this price will no doubt make its own thin space in the market and many pockets in the coming months….

Another competitor trying to rob market share from the Apple iPod was busy today announcing a larger version of its portable media player. Wolverine Data said it is now shipping the ESP Model 5250 for around $650.

The Wolverine ESP Model 5250 sports a 250GB hard drive and 3.6-inch color TFT LCD display. It supports a variety of media file formats including MP3, WMA, AAC, MPEG-4 and WMV. It can also be used to display JPEG or RAW images directly from a digital camera of memory card via the built-in 7-in-1 memory card reader.