Here’s an MP3 player from Thanko that can be hand-cranked, so you can enjoy your music no matter where you are, and not have to worry about batteries or the sun for power. They say that a single minute of cranking will get you 10 minutes worth of music. The device is capable of storing up to 1GB worth of audio, and supports MP3 and WMA formats. It even has a built-in flash light for when you are rocking out in the dark. The player retails for about 40 Euros. It’s not heavy on style and it won’t win mp3 player of the year by a long shot, but it gets the job done.

Walletex, the makers of the credit card sized MP3 players now have some neat Christmas versions available. Both Christmas and Hanukkah. The Hanukkah version features a dreidel and candles, while the Christmas version has classic scenes. Just store the MP3 player in your wallet. You could even give them out as expensive greeting cards, by putting photos and music on them.

Get them in 4GB,2GB,1GB,512mb and 128mb versions. The 4GB sells for $106. Needless to say, these make perfect stocking stuffers.

Toshiba is expanding its line of gigabeat MP3 players, the company announced today. It is introducing the new gigabeat T400, a flash-based player priced at around $120.

The Toshiba gigabeat T400, said the company, is its first flash player “high-end audio H2C audio enhancement technology and support for WMA Lossless audio files.” It has 4GB of memory, enough to hold up to 1,000 songs, and its rechargeable battery delivers up to 16 hours of playback. The T400 is also capable of playing video on its 2.4-inch LCD color display.

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.

How tiny is the Sansa Clip, SanDisk’s latest MP3 player? That photo above doesn’t lie: the Clip is double the height of a quarter or almost the same size as your average golf ball. The Sansa Clip plays just MP3 and WMA formats but it does have a nice selection of features including a built-in FM radio, voice recorder, OLED screen and a 15-hour battery life.

It will come in four colors (black, pink, red and blue) and arrive in stores next month in either 1 GB ($40) or 2 GB ($60) models, and its trim size may do a lot to take away some sales from a certain company that is named after a red fruit. With a device this small you may need to pick up a couple of them just in case you leave one in your pants …

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 …

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 …

SanDisk has released another new MP3 player to their Sansa line of devices. The Sansa Connect is a 4GB MP3 player with WiFi connectivity and a 2.2″ TFT display screen.

The Connect allows the user to play music and share it with a built-in speaker as well as view photos. Internet radio can also be streamed through the WiFi connection along with downloading music through any open WiFi network and with Microsoft PlayForSure. There is also an SD card slot to transfer and store additional files beyond the internal 4GB capacity.

“It’s about accessing music of your choice wherever you are. If you’re listening to new songs from a music service and find ones you want to keep, you can bring them into your library and don’t have to wait until you get back to your PC. If you want to tell …

This new MP3 player from Sony definitely has the athlete in mind when they designed it. When you look at the NW-S205 Walkman it has athlete written all over it, beginning with the small and sleek design.

The NW-S205 (part of the new NW-S200 series from Sony) is only 3.8 inches long and has a diameter of .6 inches. The trade off for having something this small is the interface. It only has a one line small visual interface for reading the information, and some small twist and rocker controls to navigate, but once you get it running you are set.

For transferring data to the Walkman, there is a small USB port on the end that you can hook up to your PC and use the supplied software (SonicStage) to manage the data transfer. Some features of the NW-S205 Walkman:

The NW-S205 can hold up …

SanDisk has come out with a cool new MP3 player. This player, which is not far behind the iPOD works off of flash memory of course, since SanDisk is way into the flash memory business, and is available in a 1GB and a 2GB version.

The Sansa c200 has a color screen and allows you to play music, view photos and listen to FM radio. The Sansa supports MP3, WMA and WAV files and syncs up to Microsofts PlaysForSure subscription music. It interfaces to your PC with USB and has a MicroSD slot for additional memory.

This is a nice MP3 player and at the time of this post is under $100 which makes it relatively affordable. One thing to note is that the Playforsure music subscription from Microsoft will require Windows XP and Windows Media Player 10+. If you don’t have these you …