Samsung Portable Media Players

Samsung upped the stakes in portable media players and released the SWT-W100K. The 4.3-inch touchscreen device is built to replace not just most handhelds but also some PCs, courtesy of its fourth-generation Internet access. The W100K is one of the few devices to support WiBro (known as WiMAX in the West) on the go and pulls data more quickly than some landline connections: it can download up to 13Mbps and has enough upload speed for high-quality video calls with a built-in front camera. A back 2-megapixel camera with autofocus takes on video capture.

The Korean company also sets up the W100K as an in-car companion and supplies it with both a GPS receiver for mapping duties and a DMB tuner for catching over-the-air digital TV in its native Korea. As a media player, the device ships with 8GB of built-in flash and plays H.264, MPEG-4, WMV, and XviD video clips as well as several audio-only formats.

Samsung plans to ship the device soon for the equivalent of $525 in its home country; it has not announced any plans for an international launch, though the anticipated full launch of Sprint's Xohm WiMAX network this year would allow the device to run on an American network without the DMB tuner.