Dreameo

Dreameo is a young French-Chinese company that started up a few months ago with the PVP, a Portable Media Center player. It will soon be replaced by the Enza, which is even more compact and has a 1.8" (4.6 cm), 20 GB hard disk. Its looks are as pleasing as its price - it's one of the first PMPs to slip under the $400 (400-euro) mark.

Dreameo's Solo is more original because it's one of the rare portable players on the market to offer a Windows Media CE solution. That makes navigation exactly the same as on your PC. The Solo will have a 20 GB 1.8" (4.6 cm) hard disk and a 3.5" (8.9 cm) screen in 16 million colors. A version equipped with a 1.3-million-pixel digital camera is also in the works.

IAudio

iAudio offers a portable player that's quite original because of the size of its screen. The Cowon A2 has a 4" display in 16/9 format. The resolution is 480 x 272 pixels. Yet it's very compact and has a storage capacity of 20 or 30 GB. It's compatible with MP3, WMA, DivX and Xvid. It can also record television up to a resolution of 720 x 480.

Medion

Medion is now working on convergence via GPS navigation. The PNA 2000 is a very compact autonomous GPS solution with a 3.5" screen. But in addition to its navigation function, it's also an audio/video player. It can play WMA, MP3 and WMV files. Since there's no hard disk, storage has to be on an SD card. The PNA 2000 can take cards up to 1 GB. It'll even be possible to add a Wi-Fi module to it.