Chinese manufacturer Thomson (TMS) has an interesting offering for us. TMS is offering another MP4 player (PMP), this time with a sliding action, revealing the unique control panel. The panel has four-directional keys, volume up and down, select, home and another set of four keys using the four letters in the alphabet X, Y, A, B. The slide out control pad allows the screen to be as wide as possible while keeping the PMP more portable. The V888 boasts a 4-inch TFT screen with 16 million colors. It plays videos, music, views photos and has games support. A downside of the V888 design is the weight distribution of the screen and the control pad on your hands. You normally hold the control pad with your hands; meanwhile, the screen, which looks heavier than the control pad would not be easy to hold up to the eyes without something to prop it up. The lack of balance may put a lot of consumers off, especially Chinese consumers.

Video support: MPEG, Mpeg4, Divx (3.11,4. X, 5.x) Xvid, MOV, WMV (7.8), AVI, ASF.VOB, H.263 video
Audio: MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC lossless
Photo: PEG / BMP / PNG / TIFF / GIF
Additional media support: TXT, html, PDF, game emulator

Price: A definite upside is that while its close competitor, the iRiver G10, has yet to have a release date and will probably costs above $250, you can get the TMS V888 now at only 999 yuan or just under $132.

[via zol, pconline]