Sharp has a new MP3/WMA player coming out, with a 9.4mm thick body and integrated FM transmitter. It appears to be standard beyond these two items.

I sort of wish Sharp put o­ne of their awesome color LCDs o­n this unit. Sharp knows how to make a nice screen, but the o­ne they put o­n this thing is a bit of a disappointment.

Sharp Corporation will release the "MP-A100/A200" silicon audio players with integrated FM transmitter o­n April 15th. Two models are available, at 256MB and 512MB capacities, where chea is available in white and red body colors. Each is listed at Open Price, but estimates indicate the 256MB model will be around 15,000 yen, and the 512MB model around 25,000 yen.

This is a silicon audio player with external dimensions of 54 x 85.6 x 9.4mm (W x D x H) and weight of 70g including rechargeable battery. The most notable characteristic of the player is its integrated FM transmitter. Not o­nly can music be listened to using earphones, but it can be transmitted uses FM frequencies for playback o­n car stereos, in the home, and so o­n.

Supported playback formats are MP3 and WMA, where WMA DRM is also supported. The bitrates that can be played for MP3 are from 8 to 320kbps (VBR support), and for WMA, 32 to 192kbps. ID3 tag display is also supported, and Japanese display of song/artist names is also supported. Finally, the player can display lyrics; a tool for editing the lyrics of WMA files is included. This software is supported under Windows XP.

The LCD is 10 characters x 5 rows, and it has a backlight. The unit has a large "scroll key," so that it can be easily operated although it is quite small.

An MP3 encoding function is also available. This can be done using the internal mic for voice recording, using the FM tuner for radio recording, or using the line-in for direct recording.

A 6-mode equalizer is available for adjusting audio settings. It includes normal, jazz, rock, classic, pop and bass settings. Also included is an "Auto Listing Function" to automatically create album and artist lists based o­n information read from ID3 tags. Though the unit does not contain functionality to have multiple user-created playlists, it does supported programmed playback.

Connection with a PC is done using USB 2.0. It supports the USB Storage class, so files can be transferred without the use of drivers. Windows 98 SE, Me, 2000 and XP are supported.

An internal rechargeable lithium polymer battery supplies power to the unit. It can maintain consistent playback for about 20 hours, but when using the FM transmitter, this figure will drop to roughly 5 hours. Recharging takes roughly 4 hours. It can be recharged by using either AC adapter or USB port.

Inspired by:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20050331/sharp.htm

Press Release:
http://www.sharp.co.jp/corporate/news/050331-a.html