After two months since we outed the Cowon J3, the highly anticipated and sought after MP3 player has started rearing its head in the US of A. Even though Europe has been blessed with the player since early April, US shipments caught us by surprise.

Unfortunately, our predictions on price were rather bullish; even though the similarities between the J3 and S9 are minute, it’s not to say that the prices should reflect these similarities (according to Cowon at least). That’s right. Where as the Cowon S9 16GB version will set you back $179.99, the newer J3 will cost a pricier $239.

Pick them up now any large online retailer.  Amazon are offering the 16GB Black version for $239.99 and the 8GB Silver (aka White) version for $199.99. If you’re undecided on whether to dip your hands into your pocket for this one, check out a video of the Cowon J3 in action available below.

What’s better than an MP3 player? A camouflaged player, of course.  The funky-looking design has been released as part of Sony’s new Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Walkman also known as the NWZ-W252.

The player features a 2GB storage capacity with an admirable 11 hours of playback, but this player is all about the charge time. After just 3 minutes of charging, the player will offer 90 minutes of audio playback. All of these features are combined with the player’s water resistance making it a good companion for outdoor exercise on a rainy day or those more-sweaty-than-usual gym sessions.

The player is set for a June release date to coincide with release of the upcoming PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. In fact, the player comes bundled with the video game’s title track and an official MGS stamp.

[via Blast]

Phililps’ recently released Spark 2 and Activa haven’t really lived up to our wishes for a fully-featured audio and video media player. Thankfully, we have a bit more to shout about. That’s right, Philips has revamped (in sorts) both its GoGear Ariaz and Vibe MP3 Players.

Other than an update in the aesthetics with the move to an Aluminium enclosure, there’s not all that much to write home about.

The Ariaz still offers a 2.4-inch screen, a battery life of 5 hours of video or whopping 45 hours of continuous audio, an FM tuner, 16 GB of storage, and support for MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC and APE file types. Keeping in line with the Ariaz, the Vibe hasn’t strayed either keeping its 1.5-inch display, 4 and 8 GB of storage capacity, FM tuner and support for MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC and APE file types.  No word on price or a release date.

Check out the product pages for further details…

[via gmp3]

Since being spotted in a certificate of approval by the Korean Radio Research Agency, the previously unknown Samsung YP-RB MP3 player has been spotted in a product catalog (May/June 2010) with full details disclosed, a catalog made available to official Samsung distributors.

The RB will feature a healthy 3-inch (400 x 200) WQVGA TFT LCD touchscreen display coupled with a T-DMB tuner while being available in either 4GB, 8GB or 16GB of storage. The trademarked DNSe Sound Alive technology will make an audible difference to any audio pumped out of the player with its support for a whole host of propriety and closed formats: MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC, and AAC audio; AVI, WMV, MP4, ASF, H.264, and DivX video; and JPEG, BMP, PNG, and GIF images.

The big news with this player is not the real-estate available on the screen, but the player’s battery life. That’s right – Samsung are reporting that the RB is capable of 10 hours of video or a whopping 60 hours of audio on a single charge. That battery life comes at a cost in the form of a device weight of 97.9 grams.

Available in either Black or Pink, the RB measures in at 52.4 x 101.2 x 11.4 mm. Now let’s just hope we see a stateside release date…

[via GMP3 and Naver]

Even since the Teclast T58 was purported to be the first Android PMP, a slew of manufacturers have jumped on the band-wagon and released Google-powered Android media players (not limited to the Philips GoGear Connect, Archos’ new tablets, and even the iRiver K2).

In an unprecedented move by the Korean-based firm, Cowon are about to ride the Android wave with their yet-to-be-released Cowon D3 according to Journal Du Geek. We’re not too sure whether this is a good or bad thing – check out the sentiments shared by anythingbutipod.

Half-baked attempts to integrate Android within mobile phones have been seen in devices like the HTC Magic (even though the firmware improved over time with new revisions). Cowon’s attempt to appease Google could come at a price to the respected Cowon brand.

The D3 is purported to be slated for a summer release, following just behind the recently released S9 and J3 players.

It’s only been a matter of days since the Zune HD OpenZDK was announced, but we’re already starting to see the fruits of the all work that has gone into creating a publicly available development kit.

Arguably, one of the world’s most favorite video games, Doom, has been ported onto the Zune HD courtesy of Glenn Anderson. The famous first-person shooter showcases the power of the embedded NVidia Tegra CPU/Graphics processor. Unfortunately, we’re not keen on a FPS that relies on touchscreen controls but that is besides the point…

We’ve been following the development quite closely, and we reckon that there are some exciting “developments” in the pipeline. There are already attempts being made to port a flavor of Linux onto the media player.

Video of Doom on the Zune HD after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

There have been all sort of rumors surrounding the release of a Zune HD2, but with little evidence to support these claims. With another story to possibly add to the rumor pile, Zunited are reporting the unearthing of a new Microsoft player appropriately nicknamed the Zune HD2.

While at a recent “The Microsoft Experience” event, two lucky individuals got to lay their hands and eyes on some of the latest Microsoft tech. One of those gadgets just “happened” to be the new Zune HD2. While we have no means of verification of the story, the rumors possibly offer some truth.

Other than a name, no further details have provided which makes the story all a bit sketchy. The question beckons: has the player been mistaken for the Microsoft Zune 64GB?

[via Slashgear]

Although we came across several new Samsung media players at CES, there has been no sign from the likes of the icetouch, myfit, and tictoc since. Nevertheless, Samsung has already moved onto its next MP3 player.

The last time we saw a certificate similar to the one seen above come to surface was when there were rumors of an iriver K1. Discovered by a Korean blogger, a new player dubbed the Samsung YP-RB has been awarded a certificate of approval (awarded on April 15th) by the Korean Radio Research Agency.

Breaking the tradition of a name involving a letter/number combination, the mysterious RB is purported to feature a DMB tuner. Little is known about the upcoming player – our lack of understanding Korean doesn’t do us any favors.

[via gmp3]