Handheld Entertainment has announced its budget-friendly, video-capable Zvue 260 portable media player is available now through Walmart.com at a price under $100—$98.76, to be exact.
The Zvue 260 looks to take on budget media players like the iPod shuffle by bringing portable video beneath the magical $100 price point. The Zvue 260 sports a 2.5-inch, 320 by 240 pixel active matrix LCD display and supports video at up to 30 frames per second in XviD, MPEG 4, and WMV (with DRM) formats. The device also supports MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and MP audio playback, and can display JPEG and BMP images. But rather than relying on flash memory, the Zvue stores media on SD cards: the unit comes with a 1 GB card, and cards are currently available in capacities up to 8 GB.
The Zvue 260 comes with HandHeld’s Zapp Media Manager software, which scours user’s computers for media and lets users easily select what items will be transfered to their players. The software also enables owners to grab content from Handheld’s spate of user-generated content sites, like putfile.com, unoriginal.co.ok, and (we aren’t making this up) dorks.com. The sites collectively offer more than half a million videos, including premium music videos, anime features, television shows, and oher programming from Sony BMG, Showtime, IMG Media, CBC, and other providers. HandHeld has also set up partnerships with eMusic and Rhapsody digital music services.
The Zvue 260 comes with a 90-day limited warranty, and should land at Wal-Mart retail locations shortly.
