Panasonic rolls out 100-hour D-Snap player, stereos

Panasonic today expanded its D-Snap line with a new player and stereos to match. The SD870N is billed as one of the longest-lived digital audio players and boosts the run time from an already long 80 hours in the SD850 to 100 hours. With the line's signature active noise cancelation turned on to block 83 percent of outside sound, the player still runs for 60 hours, Panasonic estimates. The updated player also comes with a larger 2GB SD card to store more music out of the box and headroom for up to a 16GB SDHC card.

The device is capable of playing AAC, MP3, and WMA songs, and should ship in five colors by April 18th at a price roughly equal to $206 in Japan.

Two D-dock stereos serve as homes for the new D-Snap player. The 2.1-channel PM870 and the 2.0-channel PM670 both put out 30W of sound and eliminate nearly all the need for a computer; each can rip CDs directly to SD cards at 8X actual playback time and sport Ethernet connectors to pull CDDB track titles from the Internet. The stereos will also play AAC, MP3, and WMA directly from SD cards and include both a MiniDisc deck for the format still used in Japan as well as the option of an iPod dock.

Both D-docks will ship the same day as the new D-Snap and should be priced at $515 for the top PM870 and $443 for the slightly downscaled PM670. Neither these nor the D-Snap player are expected to ship directly to the US.

SD870

PM870

PM670