Think of it as an alternative to the iPod touch: the Smart HD features a 3.5-inch screen and a touch-based interface that can be customized and added to with the use of onscreen widgets. The battery is listed to last for up to 18 hours of audio and 6 hours of video, giving you enough juice to go through around 3 regular movies or two runs of The Fellowship of the Ring. As a bonus for kids (Korean kids, at least), it’s also designed for educational purposes with built-in support for reading copy-protected eBooks.

An entry-level 8GB model starts at $203 in Korea, while a 16GB version that’s preloaded with educational content sells for $265. We’re not quite sure if Korean educational content makes sense for anyone else outside the country though. A model equipped with Wi-fi is also available for $310. The prices are all based on the local (Korean) release, but the rest of the world should see international-friendly versions of the Smart HD soon.

Chinon has just released the AVi, an iPod dock that comes with stereo speakers, a 7-inch LCD screen, and a digital TV and FM Radio tuner. The LCD screen on the front sports a 480 x 234 resolution displays videos and photo slideshows stored on the connected iPod (at least for the models that support the TV out feature), as well as for showing digital TV broadcasts.

The AVi also comes with other minor features that make it handy in a college dorm room, such as an alarm clock to let users wake up to the sound of a preset iPod track or to radio and TV stations. The compact digital “boombox” comes with an aux in connection for plugging in other audio sources, as well as RCA AV outputs. These connections also let the AVi to work as an digital-to-analog converter, allowing users to show digital TV broadcasts onto older analog TVs.

It’s pretty portable as well, listed to run for up to three hours on battery power.

The Chinon AVi is available now for $200.

FLO TV, the Qualcomm subsidiary that offers the FLO TV live mobile TV service, has unveiled the Personal Television, a compact device that’s dedicated to streaming in the company’s live broadcast streams. Featuring a 3.5-inch capacitive touch-screen (for channel-surfing with a finger), the device receives live and time-shifted content over the dedicated multicast network with no buffering, downloading or waiting to view content.

The device is also built with a stand for tabletop viewing, and built-in speakers. A 3.5mm audio connection is also present for connecting a headset or multimedia speakers. Battery life is rated for more than five hours of live TV streaming.

The FLO TV Personal Television is expected to ship this coming holiday season for $250. It needs a subscription to the FLO TV subscription service that starts at $8.99 per month.

After rolling out the cam-toting 5th-gen iPod nano, Apple also updated the iPod shuffle with new colors and the iPod classic with a larger capacity.

The updates didn’t involve anything in terms of tech or new features, but the iPod shuffle now has three more colors—blue, green, and pink–in addition to the original black and silver bodies. The 4GB shuffle’s price stayed at $79, but has added a smaller 2GB option for $59. Another 4GB shuffle in stainless steel has also been added as an Apple Store exclusive for $99.

The iPod classic didn’t get new colors, but received a capacity upgrade, going from 120GB to 160GB without having to gain in weight or proportions. Best of all, the price remained at $249.

Samsung has announced that they’ll be releasing the YP-BR1 Beat media player this month. The player sports a 2.6-inch touchscreen display that can play movies encoded in the DivX format, and Samsung’s widget-based TouchWiz interface usually found on their touchscreen smartphones.

Available in 8 and 16GB capacities, the YP-R1 also features a Beat DJ feature that lets users add audio clips to music, including recorded voices, effects, or “scratch” the record using an onscreen virtual turntable.

Pricing info for the YP-R1 hasn’t been released, but the player is expected to arrive in Europe first, followed by Russia, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

A “final” release date (September 15th) and a couple of package photos for Microsoft’s upcoming Zune HD player have been posted over at Gizmodo. It’s pretty interesting because a preorder page for the porta-player has also sprung up on Amazon that gives out the preorder prices for the 16GB ($220) and 32GB ($290) models, so the leaks look like they’re likely to happen. If the reported prices hold, that makes the Zune HD significantly cheaper than Apple’s $300-400 iPod Touch, which is what the touchscreen-equipped Zune HD looks to be targeting.

As it is right now (that is, until Apple comes out with an update), both devices match up pretty well, although the Zune HD looks to have a better spec on paper. Both devices sport Wi-fi connections and HD-capable screens, but the Zune HD’s screen has a higher 720p resolution.

Creative has just unveiled their newest portable media player, a touchscreen-based device dubbed as the Creative Zii Egg. Packed with a 3.5-inch, 480 x 320 resolution multi-touch display that can play music and videos as well as view photos and web pages, you can be forgiven if you thought it was just another Apple clone. It’s going to be marketed as something different though, with a Linux-based OS that welcomes open-source thinking.

The Zii Egg is being pushed as a mobile development platform, running on the Zii Plaszma Platform that provides developers, integrators, OEMs and ODMs with the tools to create apps and tools for their own purposes. It runs on a ZiiLABS ZMS-05 media-rich applications processor that offers 24 floating-point processors for up to 8 Gigaflops of processing power, and a graphics processor that can handle mobile 3D apps and games as well as 1080p HD video. The Plaszma Platform also supports Google’s Android OS.

The device is still pretty flush with built-in tech, with a 1080p HD-Out port that allows it to be plugged straight into an HDTV, dual cameras (VGA on the front and HD cam at the back), an SDHC card slot for adding up to 64GBs of storage, and a GPS receiver. It also features Wi-fi 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth connectivity, a 3-Axis Accelerometer, and a 1200mAH battery.

There’s no word if Creative will actually ship it with their brand on it or if we’ll see it packaged in a lot of different builds under several brands (which is what seems to be the plan).

LaCie, makers of stylized storage solutions, have announced a new portable multimedia player/hard drive that’s designed to take the shakes of life on the road, the LaCie Rugged HD. Featuring a compact frame that’s built with a scratch-resistant aluminum shell with rubber “bumpers” and internal shock absorbers, the new rugged player does seem to be able to take the usual bumps and grinds. Now all we need is a rugged TV that fits in a backpack, and we’re good to go.

Seriously though, it’s designed so you can pack your HD movies and play them in hotel rooms anywhere, so the design should still appeal to frequent travelers. The LaCinema Rugged comes with a 500GB hard drive, an HDMI connection, and a USB interface for connecting to PCs and Macs for loading up content. The drive also supports most standard and high-definition video formats, including H.264, MKV, WMV9 and MPEG-4, photos, and digital music formats.

The LaCinema Rugged HD is packaged with it’s own remote, and is now available through LaCie’s online store for $349.99.