PMP Today

Korean manufacturer Axxen just came out with a new lightweight portable media player. At a mere 25g, the Pleigo X3 has a 65k color OLED display, a 5-band equalizer, and support for MPEG 1 / 2 / 3, ASF, JPEG, AVI, and WMA formats. Its lithium polymer battery has up to eight hours of playback. The Pleigo X3 comes in 512MB, 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB and is available in black and white. No word on pricing details yet.

[via i4u]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbfZHUbFRno[/youtube]

Like to know how PSP is doing nowadays? I don’t mean how it’s doing in Japan, everyone knows PSP is now number one (numero uno) in Japan. I mean, in case you want to watch a clip with PSP on it, I’ve got a treat for you. Warning, if you like TV a lot and you live in the U.S., you might have seen this ad already. It’s titled “Dude Get Your Own.” There’s an entire series of them. See a few of them when you click the link.

One more video after the break.

[via generationpsp] Read the rest »

Chinese PMP maker Onda will unleash a new PMP inspired by the LG Shine. Though Chocolate remains in vogue among Chinese cloners, it takes a step back for the Shine to take the limelight. There is not much yet that is known of Onda’s VX888 (to be differentiated with TMS’s gaming PMP), but it at least plays music and the metallic casing does indeed have a 2.0-inch screen there somewhere (oh, how it blends nicely to its surrounding) and it’s supposed to have a decent 260k-color support.

[via zol]

We’ll soon find out, officially. Though a study done by a 17-yeard-old suggests iPods when turned on close to pacemakers make them skip a beat, the medical community has yet to conduct their own “official” study.

Medical researchers at the Children’s Hospital in Boston will begin a major study on how iPods and three other MP3 player brands affect patients with pacemakers. They will prove their hypothesis that “the close approximation of portable MP3 players interfere with the appropriate sensing and recording of pacemakers.”

[via i4u]

While some products try to get noticed by by imitating existing devices, the PF500 from Sysbay International attempts to add a little class to the PMP market by, well, adding little graphics (are those vines?) to the corners of the screen’s border. Including some cutting-edge feature would probably have worked better, though.

Well, appearance aside, the device does AVI (at 352×288 pixels), MPEG-4, Xvid and DivX videos, and MP3, WAV and WMA audio files. If you were thinking that the 7-inch TFT screen with a resolution of 480×234 pixels that displays in 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios would be perfect for JPEGs and BMPs, images in these formats are indeed supported. The PF500 also has a built-in speaker, an AV-out jack and a USB 2.0 port with OTG capability. Internal memory is flash, and up to 2GB in capacity.

[via global sources]

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker says that the international mobile phone market grew steadily during the third quarter of 2007. Wordwide venders have shipped a total of 289.1 million units–9% more than the previous quarter and 13.8% than the same quarter a year ago. The growth was affected by high-volume shipments of affordable handsets into emerging markets, and feature-packed, high-end units into mature markets.

Nokia is at number one of the top five mobile phone vendors, shipping over 100 million units during the third quarter and the last one. Considering that the company was handicapped by component shortages, this is very impressive. The high volume of entry level models like the 1110 and the 1116, however, allowed Nokia to realize operating margin improvement due to lowered cost structures, scalability, distribution, and brand recognition.

Coming up behind is Samsung and Motorola. Samsung is at the number two spot over Motorola by 5.4 million units. The former realized it’s double-digit profit margin by selling more high-end devices. Motorola improved sales despite its consecutive operating losses by coming out with the Motorola U9, Z6, and the RAZR 2. Sony Ericsson is at the fourth place, thanks to the high-end Walkman branded phones and mid-tier phones like the W200. Bringing up the rear is LG Electronic, which fell behind Sony Ericsson by just 4 million units. Up until today, LG relies on entry level devices to attract first time users, which negatively impacts their profits.

[via cellular news]

The D9280C from Natural Sounds Enterprise doesn’t sport a very user-friendly design, with its buttons placed seemingly haphazardly all around the front. While consumers do appreciate a non cookie-cutter appearance, compromising usability doesn’t seem like the best way to do it. Maybe actual use would prove to be better.

Anyway, if this hasn’t turned you off (and you want to find out how it feels to operate), the D9280C supports ASF videos, and MP3, WMA and WAV audio files with lyric display. It has a 2-inch TFT screen, multiple EQ settings and voice recording functionality. A USB 2.0 port and a slot for SD and MMC cards are built-in, as is a single speaker.

[via global sources]

The Zune Phone is already here. If you own a phone with an MSN service and access to Zune Marketplace, then that, my friend, is the Zune Phone, or so says the rumor. Now, what kind of rumor would suggest a rumored device - the Zune Phone - is after all already in the market, it’s just not how we imagined it to be. Ah, Microsoft rumors!

We also take this opportunity to note that Zune Marketplace will be soon be accessible via Zune player and Windows Mobile 6 cellphones. That will be in the upcoming Zune update, which will coincide with Windows Mobile 6.1 release.

[via mobilemag]

I don’t know if this matters a lot to Zune owners. Before you can only get 200 x 200-pixel or 240 x 240-pixel album art from Zune Marketplace. Now, Zune Marketplace is offering better quality album art with 800 x 800-pixel resolution. This would look bettern on the new 3-inch Zune 30 and 3.2-inch Zune 80 screens or even the old one. It’ll definitely look better than the pictures above.

[via zune-online]

If you’ve heard rumors about what are supposed to be spy shots of an iPhone Nano–take it easy. I’m not saying that there won’t be an iPhone Nano, but the alleged spy shots are probably Photoshopped fakes. What point would there be for Apple to sell a miniature version of the iPhone with absolutely no changes to the design at least? The source insists that the shots are absolutely real and were taken from inside Apple, but really–don’t believe it til Steve says it.

[via engadget]