Meizu M8 / miniOne Pricing.

We're not sure when a CEO heading to a forum to make an official announcement became standard practice, but apparently Meizu CEO J. Wong does it all the time. On what was presumably his most recent visit, Mr. Wong posted pricing information on the suprisingly very real and upcoming M8 (also known as the miniOne).

The 4GB and 8GB iPhone-looking players/phones will be available with and without the 3-megapixel camera for the following prices: $195 (4GB without camera), $310 (4GB with camera), $285 (8GB without camera), and $400 (8GB with camera). We're still a bit hesitant to completely get rid of the "rumor" label this thing has been wearing since the summer, but the info is coming from the CEO. And we hobnob with B. Gates and S. Jobs in forums often enough to be able to spot the unequivocal truth when we see it.

Sweex Blaze MP4 Player.

Dutch company Sweex has loaded its 1GB ($93) and 2GB ($117) Blaze MP4 players with the film's trailer.

Sure, the Blaze bears a striking resemblance to the Soap, but there are only so many ways to fit a 1.8" TFT display and control pad on a 3.5" x 1.7" x 0.5" piece of black or pink plastic. The "MP4" player only supports videos in WMV format, but it's got a voice recorder, games, photo viewer, ebook reader, and non-removable battery rated at 7 hours for music (MP3, WMA, WAV) and 2.5 hours for video.

Meizu M8 / miniOne Pricing.

We're not sure when a CEO heading to a forum to make an official announcement became standard practice, but apparently Meizu CEO J. Wong does it all the time. On what was presumably his most recent visit, Mr. Wong posted pricing information on the suprisingly very real and upcoming M8 (also known as the miniOne).

The 4GB and 8GB iPhone-looking players/phones will be available with and without the 3-megapixel camera for the following prices: $195 (4GB without camera), $310 (4GB with camera), $285 (8GB without camera), and $400 (8GB with camera). We're still a bit hesitant to completely get rid of the "rumor" label this thing has been wearing since the summer, but the info is coming from the CEO. And we hobnob with B. Gates and S. Jobs in forums often enough to be able to spot the unequivocal truth when we see it.

Kenwood M1GD55 M1GD55 M2GD50 M2GD55 Media Keg

A choice of two alternative designs are offered for the latest Media Keg digital audio player, both of which possess identical feature sets. Kenwood claims, by the same token as their hard drive players, that the 1GB and 2GB M2GD55/M1GD55 (pictured left) and M2GD50/M1GD50 (right) focus on high sound quality.

Format support is limited to MP3 and WMA (DRM) which can respectively play for 21 hours and 16 hours on a single charge and be transferred with both MTP and MSC (UMS) protocols. Four lines of text can be displayed on the monochrome OLED (looking very similar to Panasonic D-Snap SV-SD950N). Both designs come with a pair of Kenwood canal phones and will go on sale in Japan next month

Dell 30 GB Juke Box.

Dell quietly rolled out a new 30GB version of their Digital Jukebox MP3 player. If you didn't like what they were doing before this isn't going to turn you around, since it's essentially just their 20GB player with a higher-capacity drive, but this new 30GB model does retail for $299 and have a 1.92-inch LCD screen, 12 hours of battery life, and support for WMA and WAV as well as MP3.

GODOT M8570 And M8670.

Taiwanese OEM GoDot recently released two new "JukeBoxes", the M8570 (seen here) and the M8670. Both are 20GB, 1.8-inch hard drive based players — the big difference between them is the addition of a color LCD screen on the m8570 (the M8670 just has a monochrome backlit one). Both also have an FM tuner and recording, play MP3, WMA and OGG, and promise 10 hours of battery life. But don't expect to see these over here, GoDot's products mostly show up in Europe and Asia under the a variety of other brand names.

Iriver Releases X20.

We're not sure why it didn't hit Korea first, but the iriver X20 will soon be up for the taking in Japan.

Beginning on February 23rd, the 2.2" screened player, which supports MPEG-4/WMV and iriver's standard set of audio formats, will sell for $157 (2GB), $191 (4GB), and $250 (8GB). Not too shabby for a pocket-friendly (3.88" x 1.93" x 0.58") device that packs in a lot of features (FM radio, voice recorder, photo viewer) without sacrificing battery life, which is rated at an impressive 22 hours for music playback.