Buzzsonic.com

If we tried to feature just three Far Eastern MP3 manufacturers here a day, it would take over a year to squeeze all of them in. Recent reports suggest that including smaller low volume operators there could be as many as 1000 manufacturers in China alone. We decided to look at a few of the more unusual, ugly or just plain odd MP3 players being churned out in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, some of them you’ll never find in the West some of them will find their way to mainland Europe, the UK and USA eventually.

The Zarva MM comes in four sizes of 128/256/512 and 1GB of flash memory, supports the usual MP3, WMA, Wav and ASF, has a recordable FM tuner, USB 2.0, voice recorder and a choice of three body colors, silver, blue and red. Its ‘big brother’, the Z-Pod M200 has a 20gb HDD, FM radio, voice recorder support for MP3/WMA/WAV and OGG Vorbis. It clocks in at 186grams, 66.5�99.5�22mm dimensions and has a 160 x 105 LCD display.

The Korean Woodi brand boast a big range of flash players including the funky looking 256mb Swing WD M400 model pictured here in white/grey (see also below). Still in Korea, iBead (or T Mode as its known for the Korean home market) have a number of smaller flash models and the larger iBead 1000 which has a 1.5gb HDD, support for MP3, WMA and Ogg, 128 x 128 pixel color screen, USB 2.0, FM radio and voice recorder which are standard features on even the smallest models in Korea and China.

Ann are another Korean manufacturer with a range of flash players including the 128mb FM 7000.Chinese manufacturer EZMax have a nice looking range of flash players including the EZMP 3100 model in a choice of red and silver and 128/256mb capacity. Hong Kong’s WeWa have a big range of models ranging from bog standard 128mb models to the king size 20gb HD 200. Gemei, Pisa, Koky and BeAll are just another handful of the army of firms popping up in China by the day it seems. In the flash player market ‘war’ things will be hotting up a tad in the new year should Apple announce their own entry in the flash player market as expected at Mac World Expo , something which will not only boost Apple’s own profile but also have a ripple effect on some of the more promising newcomers.

Related Reading
The Chinese MP3 Invasion [MusicbizNews24.com]
Whats Hot and Whats Not in the MP3 Market [Chosun Korea]
Sales of MP3 Mobile Phones to Break 5 Million at Home This Year [Chosun Korea]

Far EastTech Sites
Ez iT [Ezit.com.cn]
MPLove Korea
IMP3 [IMP3.net China]
MPNavi [MPNavi China]
PC Online Digital Audio [PC Online China]