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.

Both …

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.

It would appear that someone was paying more attention in their high school shop class than myself. Captain Odegard of the anything but ipod forums has managed to create a zen stone… out of a felled tree. Made out of pine, the good captain shaped and molded the Zen and then Burned the lettering and control buttons in with a hot knife.

Coming in at 8.25 X 5.5 X 2 inches the device most certainly won’t fit in your pocket, but i would imagine it attracts more attention than its little brother. And as a side note to Creative, sorry gentlemen the internal components are not that of the zen stone due to the steep price in Norway. The wood stone tries to make up for it’s size by providing four times the memory of it’s plastic counterpart via a 4GB SD …

Trekstor is gearing up to show off some new media players at the IFA show in Berlin in about a week with one of the more impressive ones being the i.Beat blaxx. Measuring only 34mm tall and 8mm thin, this sleek looking player sports a 1.3″ TFT color display at 128 x 160 resolution, provides up to 15 hours of continuous playback from one charge and comes in capacities of either 2 or 4GB. The blaxx supports some standard audio file types including MP3, WMA, Ogg, and WAV as well as SMV video. It also has a built-in FM tuner, line in recording and transfers files via USB. You can get the i.Beat blaxx for 119.99 (2GB) or 149.99 (4GB) and both come with Sennheiser earphones.

i.Beat blaxx via DAPreview

UPDATE: German based Trekstor has announced that they are changing the name of …

The new X2 AIO portable media player from Viliv comes completely packed with cool features all viewable through it’s 4.3-inch display. It carries the ability to playback pictures, music and videos, and has a built-in digital TV tuner (T-DMB). It even supports picture-in-picture letting you use things like its GPS capabilities or its on-board dictionary while watching a live television program in the corner.

The Viliv X2 AIO comes in two versions: a 30GB costing $585 and a 60GB at about $640. If the T-DMB support wasn’t clue enough, unfortunately we had to convert these prices from Korean Won’s since that’s where this player will be available.

via AkihabaraNews

You may not have heard of Venzero before but this is the 8th player the company has released, this one called the Venzero LINQ. Just like the name sounds this little media player is packing WiFi to allow streaming media from your PC via Windows Media player 11. It also supports wirelessly playing internet radio stations which will likely bring more attention to this player compared to its predecessors.

On top of the WiFi connection the LINQ player houses some of the more standard features found in a portable media player these days including an FM tuner, voice recording and supports multiple file formats including MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, and WAV audio’s along with video support for AVI’s and MPEG-4’s. Media is stored on 4GB of internal flash memory and there’s also …

Klegg Electronics, another on the fringes electronics company trying to eek a living out of the iPod dominated portable audio player market, announced earlier this week an updated version of its Mini MP3 player. This model is available in three body colors for around $60.

The Klegg Mini MP3 player offers up 1GB of storage, which is enough to hold between 300 to 500 songs as well as lots of digital images. This player has a small color display on the front side and is itself a small device, measuring 1.8-inches x 1.5-inches x 0.6-inches. You also get a built-in FM radio with the ability to record FM broadcasts.

Hmmm…does this portable media player design seem familiar? It’s not who you think it is - a company by the name of Scotty Media Players surfaced on our radar today announcing a “fifth generation” of MP3/MP4 players. These look to be available now at $79 for 4GB, $99 for 8GB and $159 for 60GB.

Let’s focus on the 60GB model (note though as well on the company’s Web site the smaller players). Interesting design similarities aside we find this Scotty Media Player to be pretty well loaded with features. It’s designed to sync with your music and movies through Windows Media Player. It has a touch sensitive “click wheel” for navigation and a 1.8-inch OLED display. This PMP is compatible with AMV, MP2, MP3, WMA, WMV, ASF, WAV, AVI, DivX, ASF, MPEG, QuickTime and RealMedia and offers a reported 55 hours of battery life.

iRiver has released some more detailed specs about the GPS device/media player formerly known as the M10, but now would like to be called the iRiver NV.

The NV has some cool features in a nice looking package which helps it stand out of the crowd a little bit. It’s a SIRF Star III GPS device along with a audio and video media player and houses DMB-T and FM tuners. According to MobileWhack the iRiver NV supports an impressive list of media formats: “AVI (Divx, Xvid, MPEG-4 720×480 @ 30fps) /H.264 (352×288 @30fps), ASF, WMV, MPG, MPEG, DAT, MP3, WMA, OGG, AC3, BSAC”. It even has a GPS tagging 1.3 megapixel camera built in.

Aside from not yet knowing what this thing will retail for the only real bad side we see to this nice list of features is that the NV is only shipping in Korea …

X-Micro has another media player its throwing into the market, this one called the X-Micro X-VDO F510. The basic feature rundown for the F510 includes the ability to play MP3/WMA, video, FM radio, still images, ebooks and work as a voice recorder and mass storage device through the USB connection.

The gadget comes in capacities of 512MB, 1GB, 2GB and 4GB with a 1.8″ TFT screen for watching videos and photos. The FM radio has 20 station presets and not only can the device record voice but it can also record directly from the FM tuner. X-Micro is claiming up to 15 hours of continuous music playback through the X-VDO F510, and there is no built-in speaker but you can still share you music with one other with the dual headphone jacks.

No info yet on pricing or when this MP4 player will be available …

Check out this portable CD player concept by Yong-Seong Kim we found over at Yanko Designs. The device looks a little longer than the radius of a CD and can store and play MP3’s just like a normal portable MP3 player might. If you have a CD that for some odd reason you haven’t ripped to MP3’s (maybe you want that original, old-school CD quality sound) you can spread out the arms of the MP3 player, slide in a CD and play away. It would also be really cool if you could use it to read data from a CD or rip your CD’s directly to the device.

via RGS