Japanese Olympus Corp. said it would launch a portable music player equipped with a hard disc drive, entering an increasingly crowded field now dominated by Apple Computer's iPod.

Olympus said it would launch two portable music players in November, one with a 20 gigabyte hard drive able to hold about 5,000 songs and another equipped with a five gigabyte drive that can store around 1,200 songs.

The company, the world's third-best selling digital camera brand, said the 20 gigabyte player would also be equipped with a camera and be able to store about 20,000 pictures that can be viewed on a 3.7-inch liquid crystal display screen.

It did not say how much the players will cost, but said it planned to produce a combined 16,000 units per month.

From YahooTech Asia