I have never heard of Elecom Japan, which isn’t that suprising seeing how in the US all you really hear about is the mp3 players from Apple, Creative and iRiver. However, I will make sure to pay them a little bit more attention since they seem to be taking Apple’s cue by releasing products with a bit of style, although awkward looking in their implementation.

The PLP-P01 supports PLEO (PC Less Easy Operation). Files can be transferred onto a SD card using the PLC-2 wire which rips tracks from audio CDs and stores them on the SD card. It offers a 128×64 pixel monochrome display and can do 16 hours of continuous playback on a single charge.

It will sell around $90-$95.

The PLP-H01 is exactly what it looks like, headphones with a Mini SD card slot. It offers 8 hours of continuous playback and connects to clients via USB and will sell for around $90.

Two interesting products, but nothing that even make me look twice or even consider moving away from Apple’s offerings. Apple’s stylings combined with the elegance of iTunes just makes for a package too complete for anyone to compete with in the near future I believe.

– via New Launches