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BenQ Readies IPod Rival

Hard-drive based digital audio player will be available by the end of the year.

Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

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CHIBA, JAPAN -- Taiwanese hardware maker BenQ is planning to launch a new hard drive-based digital media player later this year, the company said at the Ceatec Japan 2004 exhibition this week.

The player will be part of its Joybee range of digital media players. It contains a 4GB hard drive and accepts SD (Secure Digital) memory cards, says Noriyuki Kitamura, a product manager for digital audio products at BenQ Japan.

On its front panel is a TFT LCD panel and, under that, a touch-sensitive control panel.

New Look

The player is a redesigned version of a prototype that was shown by the company at the Computex exhibition in Taiwan earlier this year.

With its shape, white exterior, LCD, and circular control dial, the earlier player resembled Apple Computer's IPod at first glance, but the new player has lost some of these influences.

It is now silver in color and features a square touch-sensitive control panel under the main display.

It will support playback of MP3, Windows Media Audio, and WAV format audio files and JPEG images, says Kitamura.

It will go on sale worldwide in December and will cost around $300, he says.

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