iriver E50 hits the Nano where it hurts

Apple’s clever little iPod Nanos aren’t the be all and end all of flash-based MP3 players – there’s plenty of rivals out there for the title, and the newest contender from Korea, the iriver E50, easily matches it for substance and style.

The E50 is iriver’s first aluminium model, and certainly looks well worth the wait. The brushed metal, minimalist shell is so smooth you’ll want to polish it along with the silver war, and can easily camouflage itself on fancy coffee tables. The panel’s only a 1.8-inch LCD so we can’t imagine movie watching will be anything remotely near comfortable, but the screens seem to suggest it’ll handle video anyway. The real USP looks to be its music abilities’, with a rumoured, massive, 52 hours of juice eeked from each charge.

Two, four and eight gigabyte models are expected in the new year starting from around $90 or just under £60, putting it on a par with the iPod Shuffle in pricing. The catch? These specs aren’t confirmed, and we don’t even know if this will see a European release but given its rather polished looks, we certainly hope so.

(Via Engadget)

What will £60 get you on these shores right now? Here’s three top PMPs in the same price range.

Creative Zen 4GB Black, £54 – Plenty of storage and a 2.5 inch screen (The same as an iPod Classic) big enough to watch what you like on, but without the added bulk or pricetag.

Samsung YP-Q1 – Samsung’s latest flash media player offers BBC iPlayer playback for less than £50 on Amazon.

SanDisk Sansa Fuze 8GB – You can’t get more space for this much anywhere else, and you can always expand it with the microSD memory card slot.

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