Kenwood’s Foray into PMPs

posted by Andrew Harris D55

[images courtesy of Kenwood]

Kenwood’s leap into the competitive market of portable media players (PMPs) is a slim, minimally design, and visually attractive offering. The Kenwood “Media Keg’s” claim to fame is the high attention to sound quality that is synonymous with Kenwood, plus they don’t skimp on the output end. The headset is an ear canal type, not cinchy “earbuds” so once the unit is paid for you don’t have to replace the supplied equipment in order to get the full enjoyment of the player. Music/Data transfer is drag and drop or uses Windows Media Player. Supported file formats are MP3 & WMA with DRM compliancy. The “Kegs” will come in 1&2 Gigs capacities (M1G/M2G)and two design configurations (D55/D50). The D55’s seem to be a more seamless in their look and come in sliver, black, and red…D50's D50

are a bit bubblier and are available in red, white, and blue. The new PMPs’ prices are listed as “open” by Kenwood. Contrary to what the color line up would suggest the U.S. market availability has not been announced, but Kenwood’s new PMPs are being rolled out in Japan this month. Looks like you’ll have to get on Facebook and hit up your Japanese friends if you want to be an early catcher of one of these.