Portable Players Get Creative

Apple Computer did not attend the International Consumer Electronics Show here, but as far as digital music is concerned, the computer giant still dominated the event.

The many portable digital music players introduced at the annual confab certainly added to the range of available devices, but none come close to threatening Apple's position.

However, the desire to chip away at Apple's lead has led to some interesting innovations that may pay dividends in the future. Of particular note are several multimedia players that feature both digital photo and video playback capabilities.

Creative Labs won the Best of CES Award in the portable audio category with its Zen Micro Photo digital music/photo device. The 6 GB product can store up to 7,500 JPEG images or 3,000 MP3 or WMA music tracks. The company also introduced 1 GB and 4 GB models of its flagship Zen Micro player.

Entering the digital music player market for the first time is digital photo giant Olympus with its M:robe product line. The banner product for the new music player series is the M:robe 500i, which is a combination 1.22 megapixel digital camera and music player with a 20 GB hard drive. It features a 3.7-inch navigation touch screen and the capability to mix music with stored photos.

Samsung Electronics America introduced a range of hard-drive and flash-based digital media players. They include the 5 GB YH-820 HDD Jukebox & Photo Album and the 20 GB YH-925 Audio/Photo File Player. Both feature Microsoft's Janus portable subscription protection software.

MP3 player pioneer Rio was relatively quiet, simply introducing a new color shell for its existing Carbon player. It also previewed a lower-end, 2.5 GB model called the ce2100. There was still no word on when to expect large-capacity, hard-drive-based devices from the manufacturer, but Rio did mention that color-display devices will be available soon.

Other players were introduced by such manufacturers as iRiver, Panasonic, BenQ, Archos, RCA, Lexar, X2, Ovideon, Nyko and LG Electronics.

Innovative design, increased functionality and lower price points are expected to result in a banner 2005 for the MP3 player market. The Consumer Electronics Assn. projects 10 million digital music players will be sold this year in the United States, a market of $1.7 billion.