IStation's T3 to Become an IPod Touch Killer

Although HDD manufacturing companies have announced that they will produce cheaper notebook hard drives in order to lower laptop prices and iRiver's latest announcements only present us with MP3 players sporting limited features, we can still find companies which are not scared of the recession and release products which feature the latest possible technological developments.

Such a company is iStation, a brand owned by Digital Cube. On the 24th of December, the company announced a new portable multimedia player based on the Windows CE 5.0 operating system, the T3 model. The device will feature a 4.3-inch LCD with a 480x272 pixels resolution, complemented by a touch control user interface.

The T3 will support the popular MP3 format, together with WMA, WAV, OGG, FLAC, APE and AC3. You can tell by the device's screen size that it will also come with some sort of video file support. And you'd be right in doing so. The T3 will be able to play AVI, MPEG-4, DIVX, XVID and WMV video formats. Even more, by using the TV out port installed on the player, users won't be forced in watching entire movies on a tiny screen, since they will be able to output the video to an external TV. Just don't expect any HD stuff.

Other features include a dictionary application and and FM radio tuner in case you get bored by your own tracks. The only drawback of the device is the 10 hour battery. 10 hours isn't exactly my ideal solution when it comes to battery (plus, the iPod's battery is rated for up to 36 hours when it comes to audio).

Pricing and out-of-Korea availability are still foggy, unfortunately.