UK budget consumer electronics maker Goodmans is set to launch an updated portable video player early next year.

As its name suggests, the new model, the GPDR40, packs in a 40GB hard drive ready to store music, movies and photos. The unit sports a 3.6in, 320 x 240 16-bit LCD on which all this content can be viewed, though it also has a TV-out port. There's a built-in speaker and an earphone socket.

Getting material onto the player is simply a matter of hooking it up to a TV, VCR, PVR or DVD unit and recording the input. The GPDR40 supports video at 320 x 240, running at 15 or 30fps, and 640 x 480 at 30fps. It can play MPEG, AVI and ASF video files. On the audio front, it can handle MP3, WMA and WAV tracks.

There's also a USB 2.0 port to enable the unit to be wired up to a PC, to which it appears as a generic USB Mass Storage device. Content can also be copied over on SD cards, for which the GDPR40 has the appropriate slottage.

Borrowing from the iPod, the player will also sync up with Microsoft Outlook, allowing users to take their address book and diaries with them wherever they go.

The 11 x 8 x 3cm unit is due to go on sale in January 2005. Pricing has yet to be set. ®

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