Japan's Kenwood Corp. plans to begin selling soon what it claims is the smallest portable music player based on a hard-disk drive.
The HD10GB7 "Media Keg" contains a 10G-byte hard-disk drive, measures just 44 millimeters by 62mm by 17mm and weighs 78 grams. It has a 1.5-inch OLED display on its front with a small keypad positioned directly under the display.
It plays MP3, WAV and Windows Media audio files including those with Windows Media DRM10 digital rights management. That means it can play tracks purchased on many Internet music stores.
Battery life for the player is 24 hours for MP3 files and 20 hours for Windows Media files, according to Kenwood. It can also display JPEG images and the user interface can be switched between Japanese, English, French, Italian, German, Dutch and Spanish.
It will go on sale in Japan in early December for around ¥40,000 (US$344). Kenwood didn't announce plans to put it on sale outside Japan.
