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Philips:

One company which unveiled a rather large stable of new players was Philips. The well known manufacturer showed off five interesting models – three designed more for the active lifestyle under their Nike co-brand, one hard drive based unit and a model which has built in speakers.

The PSS110 portable Philips Personal Sound System (April - $159.99) offers up 256 MB of flash memory and is capable of supporting USB 2.0 file transfers of MP3 and WMA music files. The PS110’s most interesting function though comes with its built in speakers which, according to Philips, are bass enhanced and capable of delivering enough quality sound to fill a room. To accompany these built in speakers and music file playback, a rechargeable battery offers up to ten hours of playing time and a built in FM radio is included as well.

Philips’ hard drive based unit is the new HDD084. This model, when it arrives on store shelves in June for $179, will offer up a 3 GB drive which can store and play MP3 and WMA files. The player’s size is something of note, with Philips calling it “the length and width of a credit card”. It will also offer USB 2.0 high speed transfers, act as a storage device for other types of files and provide for voice recording.

Under their active lifestyle deal with Nike, Philips launched the PSA 225, 235 and 245 models. Each unit, with flash based memory amounts of 256 MB, 512 MB and 1 GB respectively, will appear for consumers in June and range in price from $129 to $199. All three models will sport non-moving parts, durable construction, an integrated stopwatch with voice feedback regarding workout duration and an SD memory card slot to allow for the ability to load up on additional tunes.

Toshiba:

In the Toshiba corner at CES 2005 there was fan fare regarding the company’s announced gigabeat line of large capacity digital audio players. The units, which will offer options of 10 GB (MEG-F10: $299), 20 GB (MEG-F20: $349), 40 GB (MEG-F40: no announced price) and 60 GB (MEG-F60: $549), will have crisp QVGA color LCD screens for viewing of JPEG photos and related album cover art.

The gigabeats, according to Toshiba, will offer up stylish looks and a number of other useful features besides the previously mentioned photo viewing. Some of the more interesting ones of note include a touch sensor navigation control, 12 hour playtime on a single battery charge and the ability to rip music from CDs directly to the player when it is connected to a computer (the players support MP3 and WMA files).

Samsung:

Samsung, not to be outdone by the size of rival Philips’ new lineup, pulled out quite an array of players themselves. Four new models, including several which double as photo viewers, will soon appear on store shelves.

The YH-820 is one of those models which will offer photo viewing. It will sport a wafer thin design and 1.6” color LCD when it launches this month for $229.99. It will support a number of audio and photo file types for playback and display on its 5 GB hard drive, including MP3, WMA, OGG and JPEG. The YH-820 will also support direct ripping of music CDs from a player, provide USB 2.0 file transfers and provide hours of playtime on a rechargeable battery.

Another player sharing the audio/photo spotlight is the YH-925. This 20 GB model, with a launch date of this month and a $299.99 price tag does many of the same audio play back and photo viewing functions as the YH-820. What is perhaps most impressive with this player is the size. While it is larger then its sibling, it is still small enough to weigh a mere seven ounces. It can also serve as a USB host for the performance of file sharing functions.

On the flash memory side, the YP-T7 and YP-MT6 both promise to give similar players a run for their money. The YP-T7, available this month with a price tag of $149 for 512 MB and $199 for 1 GB, will do dual roles as an audio player and photo viewer. It can handle JPEG photos, text files, MP3, WMA and OGG music files and sports, among other things, an alarm clock and integrated voice recorder.

Samsung’s YP-MT6 model, meanwhile, will hit store shelves around the same time and offer several memory configurations up to 1 GB at a starting price of $99.99. It shares many of the same functions as the YP-T7, though it lacks photo viewing capabilities. Playback time looks to be solid however, with an estimated 45 hours on a single AA battery.