If the market for flash memory-based MP3 players wasn’t overcrowded enough, big name electronics company Hitachi have decided to steam in with a collection of their own.
As exciting as a wet weekend at an old people’s home in Bognor, Hitachi’s new trio of i.µ (iMuze) players look decidedly underwhelming.
The bar-shaped Hitachi HMP-F3 looks like, well, every other cheapo USB player, with 512MB of flash memory, a dull design, two-colour LCD display and a line-in port.
Also offering 512MB memory is the HMP-D3 player, which at least comes in a vaguely interesting teardrop shape (we’re trying to get a bit excited here, but we haven’t got a lot to work with).
Both players are USB 2.0 compliant with files transferred via Windows Media Player or drag and drop.
Wrapping up the trio is the HMP-S3, housed in a slightly squashed square form factor and available in yellow or white (you could never accuse the Hitachi designers of being too ambitious with this range).
Offering no on-board memory of its own and only USB 1.1 support, users will have to reach for their SD cards to get a peep out of the thing.
All of the players can knock out MP3, WMA and WAV tunes, there’s support for DRM 9/10 and Hitachi claim a 35 hour battery life.
There doesn’t appear to be anything as interesting as a radio onboard, so unless these players are priced at the bargain basement end of the market, we don’t imagine there’s any prospect of cash till meltdowns taking place.
We haven’t heard word on pricing yet, although the units are expected to start appearing in the shops during in late April.
I reckon we’ll be able to bear the wait on this one.
Back in our day, the only round thing that kids had in their pockets were marbles, conkers and gobstoppers, but German MP3 player maker Maxfield wants kids to shell out for their Max-Joy digital music player. 
There’s 256MB of on-board storage, with the option to add more song space via a SD memory card slot. 
The Max-Joy runs off a single AAA battery, which the makers claim will give up to 19 hours’ playback time, offering plenty of potential for parents to get a bit of peace. 
French outfit Archos has launched what they claim is the first portable digital TV receiver/ recorder combining portable video recorder (PVR) functionality and two DTT (Digtial Terrestrail Television) tuners. 
The built-in DVR records digital TV directly to the hard disk in MPEG2 TS format, and there’s an onboard Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) for scheduled recordings (so long as you can get reception, natch). 
An optional 100GB version offers even more storage, which equates to, err, lots more videos, songs and stuff. 
We reckon that someone whipping out a large, expensive multimedia device on a London train would soon have no trouble imagining filling in an insurance claim, but with no UK launch announced, perhaps the muggers will have to wait for now. 
Slimmer than a stick insect with the runs, the new world’s thinnest phone comes in the shape of the EV-K100 handset, an ultra-thin gizmo made by Korean cell phone makers KTF Technologies. 
“We substantially cut down the thickness of the antenna incorporated into the EV-K100 and instead extended its length to secure all the necessary functions,” said a KTF spokesman. 
The company intend to market the bar-type EV-K100, codenamed “No. 7,” from next week via its parent firm KTF for around 400,000 won ($412). 
Microsoft appear to be trying the doors of the lucrative movie download business for the Xbox360 with the announcement of a video content deal with music label Epic Records. 
Videos and “exclusive artist content” will also be made available for download from the Xbox site. 
Epic has already dished out music videos for the Xbox 360 from the likes of Franz Ferdinand and Audioslave, and their catalogue also includes acts like Shakira, Matisyahu, Jennifer Lopez and Antipodean dandruff shakers, AC/DC. 
With a veritable orgy of announcements, BenQ Mobile rolled out six new mobile phones at the CeBIT trade show in Germany.
VoIP calls are made possible through the built in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi connectivity and pre-loaded Skype software.
Also announced was the flagship EL71, a tri-band, 16.5mm thin slider phone with a metal casing in brushed aluminium finish. Designed for the “young professional,” the phone sports a 2-inch, 260,000-color QVGA display.
The CL71 slide phone is another slim number (17.8mm) with built-in 1.3-megapixel camera, MP3 player and radio with a 2-inch TFT 262k display offering 176 x 220 picture resolution.
Finally, the wedge shaped E61 comes in orange, yellow, or silver, with a built-in VGA camera with 2x/4x digital zoom.
Currently hovering betwixt prototype and retail status, Advance Tech Communications new Windows Mobile smartphone market looks hot! hot! hot!
On board storage is taken care of courtesy of a generous 8GB hard disk, backed up by 512MB RAM and 512MB ROM, with a micro-SD expansion card slot.
Instead, the company are proclaiming their new device to be a “laptop computer miniaturised to the size of a handheld device,” which perhaps isn’t the snappiest description they could have come up with.
Samsung has announced the world’s first 8GB Hard Disk embedded smartphone, the SGH-i310, which is expected to start shipping in Europe during the second half of this year.
The smartphone seems pretty pocketable too, measuring 111.9 x 48.5 x 19.8 mm and weighing 120g.
With a multitude of third party manufacturers making a mint from a multiplicity of iPod accessories, Apple has decided to cut itself a slice of the action with their own high-end Apple iPod Hi-Fi speaker system.
With portability in mind, the iPod Hi-Fi features big handles on either side (but no central grip which is a bit odd). 
That shiny finish looks a bit scratchable to us too and we can’t imagine many death metal loving teenagers wanting a great big white box in their satanic bedrooms either.
Mind you, Steve Jobs was suitably enthusiastic, declaring it as the, “home stereo reinvented for the iPod age”. 
Due to hit the shelves in March, Samsung Electronics’ new YP-Z5 MP3 player is causing a stir because it was designed by Paul Mercer – the very same programming genius who created the interface for Apple’s runaway success, the iPod.
At $199 (~e167, ~£113) to $249 the pricing is similar Apple’s product, and – crucially – Samsung is promising a seamless connection between player and download service via Microsoft’s PlaysForSure digital music standard.”