What will the next iteration of the proverbial Swiss Army knife come with? This Swiss Army Knife comes with an MP3 player in 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB capacities, a LCD screen, and a Victorinox logo-shaped remote control. The 1GB and 2GB versions will cost $200 and $250 respectively, while the 4GB version will be released next spring. File formats supported are MP3, WMA, and OGG.

From: Ubergizmo.com
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Having a Bluetooth logo right on front is usually a good sign, and Stormblue’s just announced the A9, a brand new portable media player with built-in Bluetooth so you can rock wireless headphones (at least that’s what we’re assuming, so far we can’t find anything confirming that it supports A2DP or any other stereo Bluetooth profile). It’s a little on the chunky side for a flash player (at least these days), but the A9 does have a 220 x 176 pixel, 260,000 color, 2.2-inch LCD, up to 2GB of memory, an SD card slot for adding more memory, and support for playback of MP3, WMA, and OGG audio files and MPEG4, DivX, and AVI video files. No word on price or availability here in the States, but it should be out in South Korea early next month.

From: Engadget.com

More pictures here.

Sony’s NW-A1000, barely a month old, is already getting a bump from 6 to 8GB (which makes this one of the first 8GB 1-inch drive based portable music players we’ve yet seen). The new NW-A1200 will go on sale exclusively in Japan via their SonyStyle website, available in any color you want as long as you want gold or black.

Source: akihabaranews.com and engadget.com

Portable audio enthusiast site The MP3 Players has a side-by-side comparitive gallery featuring the iPod nano and the rebranded Dyne Telecom Tuny8 (which is being sold in China as the Cube T8). For those of you just tuning in, the Tuny8 is/was a smallish DAP with video playback that bears some resemblence to Olympus’ m:robe MR-100 (the one that arrived with a bang and disappeared with a whimper). As you can see, the T8 is smaller but thicker than the nano, although it makes good use of that extra space by including an FM tuner and a bigger, more colorful screen than Apple’s darling. For more style and less money (and availibility in the US), though, the nano seems like the way to go.

From: Engadget.com
For more size comparison pictures, click here.

With a capacity of 60GB, the new Iomega Screenplay is well suited for playing back the majority of today’s media on any RCA or S-Video equipped television. With the exception of H.264 and WMV, nearly all the popular video formats are supported, including MPEG-1/2/4, VOB, DivX and the open-source XviD codec.
Music enthusiasts can shuffle through their MP3 collection, and photographers can also get their fix as both progressive and baseline JPEG pictures up to 8 megapixels can be displayed. Best of all, the ScreenPlay’s interface can be controled through at a distance via a remote, and directly controlled by media buttons on the top of the unit for when you realize you left the remote on the couch two states back.
When off the road, the drive can also be used as a regular external USB 2.0 hard drive, backing up files at a moderate 4200RPM. Iomega currently lists the ScreenPlay at $219 on their website.

From: Everythingusb.com
Pictures from: Engadget.com

Taking a page out of 80’s marketing, Maxtor just announced their new OneTouch III Turbo edition (don’t tell us extreme finally got played!). Er, vroom vroom. This Mac and PC compatible external storage solution actually sounds promising offering up to 1TB of “easy-to-understand” RAID 0/1 storage using two 3.5-inch 7200RPM ATA drives, FireWire 800/400 and USB 2.0 interfaces, and of course their OneTouch backup. It also includes new tools to synch data between two or more computers and a System Rollback feature to revert PCs back to a healthier state. No, it is not network accessible but it is available this December at $550 for 600GB or $900 for 1TB.

From: Engadget. com
Pictures from: Gizmodo.com
Official’s site: Maxtor

Sporting a 2.5-inch screen, Apple’s new video-enabled iPod will be available in 20 and 60 GB versions – complete with a nano style visual makeover and iTunes 6 for video purchases.
Apple today introduced the latest addition to the company’s wildly popular iPod line, sporting a long-rumoured and much-anticipated ability to play back videos. Although still first and foremost a music player, the device offers a 2.5-inch display and a choice of either 20 or 60 GB of storage capacity, running in tandem with iTunes 6 which was also announced today.

Having received an iPod nano-style visual makeover, the new iPod – which bears no particular moniker – is available in either white and black, supporting all previous iPod capabilities including the ability to play music, audio books and podcasts. Also present is USB 2.0 for high speed data transfers, along with photo viewing.

The highlight of the new iPod is its video support, as the QVGA (324 x 240) pixel resolution widescreen display enables playback of video in MPEG4 and H.264 formats at 30 FPS. Owners will be able to download music videos from iTunes, and in addition Apple has also struck agreements with Pixar, ABC and Disney Channel to provide shorts and series such as ‘Lost’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’ for purchase at $2 USD apiece.

In addition to playing back video content and photo slideshows on the internal screen, the new iPod will also come with a video out option to enable TV playback. Claiming up to 14 hours of music playback for the 30 GB model and up to 20 hours for the 60 GB model, Apple did not list expected playback times for video content.

The new iPods will begin shipping next week for a suggested retail price of $300 USD for the 30 GB model and $400 USD for the 60 GB model. Both models will require a minimum configuration of iTunes 6 running atop OS X 10.3.9 or Windows 2000/XP.

From: Infosyncworld.com
Image taken from Engadget.com and Apple.com