Philips GoGear Muse PMP

When it comes to portable music players, there is no question who the
leaders in the industry happen top be. Actually, it would seem that
there's a near monopoly when it comes to PMPs and most consumers
couldn't be happier. When Philips announced that they would be replacing
the Opus as the flagship model in their GoGear line of PMPs with the new
GoGear Muse it didn't come with nearly as much fanfare and anticipation
as, say, the new iPod Touch with integrated camera, but let us not be
stayed from our goal of delivering the inside scoop.
Today, Philips Electronics announced that it would be releasing the
newly minted GoGear Muse portable music player and that it would be
taking the place of their previous category leader, the GoGear Opus. The
Muse does have some improvements over its now defunct older sibling. It
offers a marginally bigger 3-in LCD full-color LCD screen and for those
of you that are keeping track, that's 0.2-in larger than the screen on
the Opus. The file support of the Muse has also gotten a makeover with
the inclusion of BMP, GIF, PNG, Ogg Vorbis, APE, Real Video, and Real
Audio formats.
The GoGear Muse is just a bit smaller than the Opus and this reduction
in size seems to have come at the expense of its battery life. According
to the fine folks at Philips (I'm such a sucker for alliteration) the
Muse is capable of up to 25-hrs of audio playback or 5-hrs with video.
You also get a 20-station preset FM tuner.
The Philips GoGear Muse comes complete with a set of in-ear noise
canceling headphones so you can get going right out of the box.
Retailing for about $233 and only available in major electronic stores
in Singapore, the rest of the world will have to wait for Philips to
announce broader availability.