Freestyle Audio has made one super tough MP3 player that’s built to handle just about any extreme activities you can dish out. They show examples of using it while surfing, swimming and they have a video below showing it being dropped off of a 3rd story building onto concrete (they drop and iPod nano as well). The results of the video shows the Freestyle MP3 player turn on, but it really doesn’t say if it still plays music. Either way the fact that it didn’t break apart and still powered up is impressive.

Features of the Freestyle MP3 player are nothing spectacular – On/Off, Volume and skip ahead songs in the loaded media. It has associated software for managing music and works with a Mac and a PC. The DMP comes is capacities of …

Creative Labs rolls out the Zen Stone, their fancy way of saying “Look at our new MP3 player.” Weighing less than a pound and with a storage capacity of 1 GB (that’s about 250 songs at 4 minutes each), it comes in 6 different colors and looks a little like a compact digital camera.

Dimensions are 2.1” by 1.4” by 0.5” so it’s small enough to slip into your shirt or jeans pockets or even attached to your car keys (there is a keychain accessory that you can also buy.) The Zen Stone plays MP3, WMA, WAV and audible formats and the rechargeable Li-ion battery gives you 10 hours of playtime as you shuffle through your selection or playback your favorite tune for hours at a time.

Creative has software on its website that you can download to better manage your ZS …

Say you’re a DJ chillin’ out with your crew when the urge to start a rave overtakes you. While our attempt at rhyming may sound as implausible to you as the likelihood of a rave spontaneously occurring within your vicinity, Hercules’ new Mobile DJ MP3 lets you indulge in your fantasy and make it easy to mix your beats.

Visually this baby looks like it fell from the same molded white plastic future presented in “2001: A Space Odyssey” but its main asset is the unit’s lack of cords letting it be totally free from stationary decks and thus makes for easy travel from your place to wherever the party is getting started. The dual mixing deck lets you mix, loop, fade in, distort and insert special audio effects and then plug it in to a computer for later downloading as MP3 or WAV files …

Gadgets for young kids are way cooler now then they were when I was young. Within just the last few months we’ve seen a new Kidizoom digital camera, a kid-tough FP3 player and now Sandisk, wanting to make sure they have something for everyone, has released the Sandisk Sansa Shaker MP3 player targeting the smaller tykes.

The Sansa Shaker isn’t necessarily high on tech but it might meet the wants of parents who are tired of kids that always want to borrow their $200 iPod and fill it up with songs from High School Musical and Hanna Montana. This kid-targeted MP3 player retails at just under $40, comes with a 512MB SD card (would you expect another medium from Sandisk?) and has some unique methods for navigating music.

The name “Shaker” comes from the fact that users of the player can actually give it a …

Siren of Japan has new MP3 player called the DP100, designed in a compact frame for personal audio on the go. The player comes with a lanyard that fits through a loop hole built into the frame of the player so it’s easy and secure to carry around.

The Siren DP100 comes in 3 capacities of 512MB, 1GB and 2GB and has an internal rechargeable battery that allows up to 18 hours of continuous playback. A USB connection allows the transfer of music files, and the DP100 can double as a mass storage device to hold files of any type through a simple drag and drop from Windows. That same USB connection charges the battery, and an AC adapter is included for a straight AC charge if needed.

The OLED display looks to be nothing fancy, showing active file information and the remaining charge on …

This MP3 player from TASCCAM is designed with the guitar player in mind, housing many features which make it easier for the up and coming talent to jam along with the player.

The MP-GT1 model from TASCAM is an MP3 player small enough to fit into your pocket but large enough to run for 9 hours on one set of batteries and hold 240 songs. Music files can be loaded through a USB connection from your computer straight to the player.

Features of this specialized musicians MP3 player include the ability to slow down the playback without changing pitch, looping playback to hear a particular “riff” repeatedly, and the ability to manually change the pitch of a song to match that of your guitar. Having no ear for pitch whatsoever, I have to assume this is a good feature.

The player also has a …

This MP3 player from Qoolqee does have a funny name, but we won’t hold that against it. The Qoolqee X Sports player is a slim, simple, easy to use digital audio player designed with the athlete in mind.

The Qoolqee X is not really loaded with features, and the price is fairly reflective. This MP3 player does have a couple of features that help it find its place in the personal audio player market, however. One of these features is the fact that the Qoolqee X is water resistant. Having the player clipped on your body while you sweat up a storm won’t shut it down or ruin its appearance.

Another design aspect that caters this gadget to the work out fanatic is the big “blister” buttons. The buttons make it easy to switch tracks and volume by touch, avoiding the need to stop your …

BLU:sens is unveiling an MP3 player called the G14 which has some significant features that should bring it a little attention in the PMP world. What makes this player extra special is that the attention is not due to them copying someone else’s design.

The BLU:sens G14 supports WiFi and has no DRM. Individually these two items have their own significance, but combined they equate to wireless sharing of MP3 files between players without restrictions. This will no doubt catch the eye of the Microsoft Zune team, where the Zune only allows the sharing of approved record labels.

The overall look and additional features of the G14 aren’t too shabby either, as it supports Bluetooth along with the WiFi, as well as DivX, MP3, WMA and OGG and it sports a 2 inch 256K color display. …

Brando has a new 2GB MP4 player that it lists as a “novel and fashionable design”. We would have to agree with the fashionable part, but the rest we’re not so sure.

The 2GB flash memory based SOAP MP4 player supports MP3, WMA, WMV, ASF and WAV files, has a voice recorder that can record up to 8 hours in an MP3 format, and has a built-in FM tuner. It connects via USB 2.0 and has a preset equalizer with seven settings.

Not a bad DAP for a price tag of $99 but none of these features stand out as spectacular, which is quite possibly what they were thinking when they designed the SOAP MP4 player. The part that does stand out to us in this gadget is the fact that it comes in colors of black and white, has white earbuds …

Transcend has a new MP3 player with a few extra twists to the common feature list of the average DAP, including variable speed play, E-books and help with karaoke.

The T.sonic 820 series MP3 player has the ability to transfer and play music files like most other digital audio players, formats including MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM10 and WAV. When listening to music the navigation allows you to control the playback speed and an A-B repeat function enables continuous repeating of a section of a track. There may not be a lot of applications for this other than maybe making your own personal one-time remix or as Transcend suggests this feature may be helpful in listening to a language learning track.

The T-sonic supports reading text (.txt) files and therefore displays the text to read E-books right on the 1.5 inch OLED display. Due to …

Walletex has taken their credit card sized flash memory card to another level with the Wallatex MP3 player. Using the same flash memory technology to store between 128MB and 2GB of data, they are developing an MP3 player that has the same dimensions as a credit card, according to Krunker.
The player has a very simple user interface of buttons to control playing MP3 files and the volume, and it has a single USB interface which is used to charge the player, transfer data and connect headphones. Krunker, who obtained these early photos of this Walletex MP3 player, also stated that the player has a large double-sided area for printing, which may imply that this device may have plans to be inexpensive enough to use as a promotional item and allow companies to apply their own branding to …

The NOVOMAX Joypot C210 is a little digital audio player that could give the iPod Shuffle a run for it’s money, depending on the money of course. There isn’t word as to the price of this little interface-free player, but it may provide some competition due to it’s similar size, capacity and increased functionality.

This digital audio player will be available with internal memory capacities from 1GB down to no memory whatsoever. You can then add external memory in the form of an SD or MMC card.

Since the Joypot C210 connects to a PC via USB 2.0 and it takes external memory it can double as a card reader to transfer any data from a the memory card to a PC. Charging the JP C210 will not happen the the USB cable however; it runs of a single AAA battery.

A full battery will give the …

A new cold war of sorts is brewing in the online music industry. The Russian music store AllofMP3.com is planning to continue business as usual even as US lawsuits are pending.

The US music industry is claiming that AllofMP3.com is operating illegally. AllofMP3 claims that it is following all Russian laws.

AllofMP3 offers MP3 downloads that are free of DRM (Digital Rights Management) schemes that most US music download sites use. The company also charges much lower rates sometimes by as much as half or lower. For instance, we found Gwen Stefani’s “Wind It Up” for 42 cents on AllofMP3 versus 99 cents on iTunes (www.applie.com/itunes).

In a recent post on its blog AllofMP3 claimed that the court case against AllofMP3 was “imprudent.”

They continued:

“AllofMP3 understands that several US record label

…

If you are not interested in blindly following the iPod crowd, the LG UP3Flat will certainly set you apart. Yes it’s a small MP3 player, about the size of a lighter according to CNET. It also doesn’t have a display interface, but that certainly doesn’t rule it out of the cool category.

To avoid the need of a cable or docking station to transfer data from the MP3 player to your PC, a USB connection extends directly out of the player itself so the only cord you really need to have with you is the one for your headphones. Personally I like that feature since it avoids having one more cord hanging out of my computer, but of course if you don’t have easy access to a USB port this could be a significant inconvenience. The UP3Flat also has the ability to record voice directly …

Little kids like to enjoy their music too, but most parents might be a little hesitant to let their 5 year old handle the expensive MP3 player they just bought. Probably due to this very reason, the Kid-Tough FP3 Player from Fisher Price has been a popular item this year for youngsters. It works very similarly to most MP3 players, but like the name says it’s built “kid-tough” so it can stand the multiple drops and banging around that is bound to happen. It’s also big enough that it won’t easily be lost like a smaller MP3 player might, and has a kid-friendly grip and interface.

Fisher Price even offers a website where you can browse, preview and download FP3 songs and stories specifically for kids directly to the FP3 player through your Windows PC (no Mac’s). Kid-Tough FP3 player can hold …