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Micro-Star debuts solar MP3 player

Fans of MP3 players might find it frustrating when the batteries run out in the middle of listening to their favorite tunes. Help is at hand, however, as a local company has produced a solution to battery-life problems, which it will unveil at the CeBIT technology and communications trade show next week in Hanover, Germany.

Micro-Star International Co (微星科技), the nation's No. 3 motherboard maker, is developing a prototype, which will make use of solar energy to prolong the battery life of MP3 players by another six hours.

"There are just too many MP3 players available on the market presently, and with Apple's iPods taking the market by storm, we have to make our products stand out somehow," Vincent Lai (賴玉琳), Micro-Star's marketing director, said yesterday.

The prototype MP3 player will have a small solar cell that supplies power the unit. This will come in handy as a support option in addition to the standard electrical charging mechanism, he said.

In the near future, the company has plans to produce MP3 players that run entirely on solar power, replacing electricity altogether, added Ryan Yang (楊順益), a product marketing manager overseeing barebone systems and consumer electronics.

The new MP3 player, whose production costs will be 10 percent higher than other players in the same category, is expected to come with a 1.8-inch liquid-crystal-display screen and hard drive options of 4GB and 8GB.

"The prototype will make its debut at the CeBIT show in Germany next week, and depending on the response and the number of orders, we intend to introduce it locally around the middle of this year. Production will start on a small scale initially," Yang said.

MP3 players are not the first Micro-Star product to make use of solar energy, as the company has previously experimented with using it on portable computers, which were unveiled in January at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The second-generation of notebooks now come with a separate, modular solar cell instead of a bulky attached cell, which will make the battery recharging easier and increase performance, according to Lai.

However, the notebooks are still in the "concept product" stage, and they are not expected to be mass produced in the near term until the technology is more mature, he added.

In a bid to diversify the company's business portfolio, the motherboard maker started to tap into the consumer electronics segment in 2003, unveiling MP3 players, portable media players and notebooks.

The segment now contributes over 10 percent to the company's total revenues and the percentage is expected to pass the 20 percent mark sometime this year, Lai said.

Motherboards and graphics cards still make up the bulk of revenues contribution at over 60 percent, he added.
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