Say it ain't so! America's most loyal advocate for Microsoft's Zune is apparently throwing in the towel. Of course, we should warn you that this could very well be a simple ploy for attention, but if the man keeps his word, he will soon be covering his Zune tattoos with... something else. Curiously, he didn't say whether or not he would be playing the traitor card and picking up some sort of iPod, but considering that more people have seen this guy's body art in the wild than actual Zunes, the general public should know soon enough. You fought a good fight, Zune Guy, but consider yourself expelled from The Social.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

It was inevitable. We just knew Gemei couldn't hold its own forever, and now it seems the resistance to copying other interfaces has finally failed. The all-too-familiar X780 comes equipped with a 3-inch 400 x 280 resolution display, 4GB of internal memory, a miniSD expansion slot, FM tuner, built-in microphone, TV output and an unspecified emulator for gaming it up. As expected, this thing can handle just about every format known to man including WMA, APE, FLAC, MP3, WAV, ASF, MPEG, AVI, FLV, VOD, PNG, JPG, etc. No one's talking about pricing just yet, but we have a feeling it'll be somewhere between cheap and really cheap.

[Via PMPToday]

Happy 3rd birthday mister Walkman phone. To celebrate, Sony Ericsson is getting official with its W902 "Patti" (pictured), W595 slider, and W302 candybar Walkman handsets. We knew the celebration was coming with the exception of Patti making a last minute substitution for Alicia. SE's quad-band GSM/EDGE W902 is the all-singing, all-media workhorse with UMTS/HSDPA 2100 data, 5 megapixel camera, 8GB of M2 memory, and 2.2-inch, 240 x 320 pixel display. It comes bundled with a pair of premium HPM-77 headphones and the promise of a clear audio, bass-thumpin' experience similar to that offered by SE's W980. The W595 shares the same radios but packs in stereo speakers, 2GB of M2 memory, a 3.2 megapixel camera, motion sensing Shake control, and a stereo Share jack to split the music with a friend. The quad-band GSM/EDGE W302 neglects 3G entirely in favor of a low price tag and dreams of mass adoption. As such, it offers a number of middling specs like a 2 megapixel camera, 512MB of M2 memory, FM radio, and stereo Bluetooth. All three Walkmans will hit select markets in Q4.

Not a ton's changed with Creative's ZEN X-Fi -- which we all well know at this point -- so for right now we're just paying closer attention to its innards all broken out like a science fair project. Careful, the teardown link below contains graphic representations of disrobed consumer electronics.

[Thanks, Josh and Mindy]

Read - Zen X-Fi teardown
Read - Anything But iPod's review
Read - Pocketables review

It's not that Electro Box's miShake PMP looks especially like anything else we've seen, but it sure takes an awful lot of cues from, shall we say, more popular brands. We won't even bother explaining the miShake name, but what is important to note is the 2.4-inch touchscreen, "explosive external loudspeaker," 4GB of internal memory, miniSD expansion slot and support for a multitude of audio / video file formats. Oh, and don't even bother fiddling through that questionable user interface to change tracks -- just give it a good jerk (you know, like Sony's Shake control) to hear the next jam begin abruptly. So much merriment for just £119.95 ($240).

[Via Pocket-lint]

The New York Times is reporting that Amazon is scrapping its Unbox service in favor of a new online TV and movie store called Amazon Video on Demand. Unlike iTunes and Unbox, Amazon's new digital store-front will stream any of 40,000 movies and television programs to customers. According to Bill Carr, Amazon's VP for digital media, "Our goal is to create an immersive experience where people can't help but get caught up in how exciting it is to simply watch a movie right from Amazon.com with a click of the button." In this regard, the first 2 minutes of every video will begin to play when customers visit the video's product page. Movies can be purchased and downloaded to your hard drive or stored in an Amazon video library allowing you to stream the content to other (any?) Internet connected devices. Films and TV shows from "almost all the major studios and television networks" will be available for sale or rental in the US at undisclosed prices -- only Disney and its ABC subsidiary are holding out for uh, obvious reasons (Steve Jobs is Disney's largest individual shareholder).

[Thanks, setteB.IT]

Believe it or not, JATY is far from being the first gadget maker to think of stuffing a breathalyzer into something completely unrelated (like a wristwatch), but this do-it-all navigator really has included everything save for the kitchen sink (and an N64 emulator, but you get the point). Specs wise, you're looking at a 7-inch touchscreen, 533MHz CPU, WinCE 5.0, 64MB of NAND Flash / SDRAM, an SD expansion slot, built-in GPS / T-DMB receivers, USB connectivity, integrated speakers and support for MP3, WMV, OGG, AC3, MPEG1/2/4, DivX, XviD, AVI and JPG formats (just to name a few). Chances are you'll never see this on US soil, so you're looking at a flight to Seoul in addition to ₩296,000 ($294) in order to procure one.

[Via Tech Digest]

It's one thing to say "available now." It's another thing to give consumers a "Buy Now" button. For those of you anxious to plunk down a few bills and some spare change to bring home one of Creative's new WiFi-equipped ZEN X-Fi units, today's your lucky day. The 16GB edition is shipping now from Amazon for $199.99, while the 32GB sibling demands $279.99. Order away... or not, totally up to you.

[Thanks, Mickey J.]

Read - 16GB ZEN X-Fi
Read - 32GB ZEN X-Fi

For the three of you who don't either have $10 for 2.0 or didn't already grab the leaked version for free, Apple has released iPod touch firmware version 1.1.5. There's little word as to what the point revision does (we assume stability fixes and what-not), but we do know that it doesn't include the App Store. In the end, that might be a good thing for those of you who just use your iPod touch as an iPod and aren't interested in all that AIM and Monkey Ball craziness, which we respect. Really. The direct link to the file is in the Read link -- use at your own discretion.

[Via iPod touch fans]

Some serious time has passed since Ainol rolled out its abominable V1000, and while we reckon the V2000 was lost somewhere in the mix, the V3000 is pretty enough to note -- if but for a moment. Details are pretty slim on this one, but we are told that the widescreen unit packs an expansive 4.3-inch LTPS display with an 800 x 480 native resolution. Seriously though, you aren't about to fly to China to claim one of these as your own, so just be satisfied with seeing Spidey behind all sorts of weirdly applied reflections.

[Via MP4Nation]

Word on the street is that Sanrio was looking for new Hello Kitty designers on the West Coast earlier last week, and if this sad little 1seg portable TV is any indication, we can see why the company's in search of fresh talent. Seriously, this is the least cute Hello Kitty gadget we've seen in a while, and we're basically suckers for the lil' imp. Japan-only, and your ¥21,000 ($197) doesn't get you anything special on the inside, either, just a 2.4-inch QVGA screen and built-in stereo speakers with a 4.5-hour battery life. Come on, Kitty -- make us love you again.

Quite a bit went down before Creative decided to really fess up about its ZEN X-Fi (at least in the US), but if you've managed to resist the urge to believe this thing was real, here's the documentation you've been yearning for. The ZEN X-Fi (8GB; $149.99) and ZEN X-Fi with Wireless (16GB; $199.99 / 32GB; $299.99) are both being made official today, and while the latter is available now from an array of reputable e-tailers, the WiFi-less iteration won't hit stores until "later this month." You can also expect a ZEN X-Fi docking speaker station to emerge sometime this summer for $49.99. For those curious to see how this critter looks in the flesh (not to mention how it performs), head on down to the links below -- oh, and there's a video of the bugger waiting after the jump.

[Via PMP Today]

Read - Creative ZEN X-Fi press release
Read - Creative ZEN X-Fi review / in the wild

Hey you -- you looking for a quarter of the iPod touch experience for a little less than a quarter of the price? Yeah? Well, how does dropping $73 on the depressingly derivative Teclast M26 grab you? Seriously, this thing looked like it had a glimmer of potential when it was first announced, so it's kind of sad to see it getting priced like the throwaway crap it turned out to be -- we should definitely know better by now.

[Via PMP Today]