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You know the holiday shopping season is coming up when devices from strange companies start showing up.  Not strange in terms of questionable, but strange as in companies not usually associated with the device in question.  Usually it means a large number of personal media players or other small gadgets like e-book readers.  The latest of these devices comes from none other than ViewSonic.

ViewSonic, a company not usually known for personal devices, today has announced it’s new personal media player, the MovieBook.  ViewSonic claims the devcie will be perfect for music, HD video (up to 720p), photos, voice memos and “reading digital books.”  It sports a 4.3 inch 800x480 screen, and a battery that will provide 12 hours of audio playback and six hours of video.  It also includes a remote and can easily plug into a PC or TV for easy viewing of video of photos.

The MovieBook does support a wide range of formats, including lesser used ones such as MKV, RM/RMVB (for video) and FLAC (for audio), which is always welcome.  With a price of $129.99 for 8GB of storage (more with microSD), it might be good enough to sway a few people from buying an iPod this holiday.  However, the fact that it isn’t an iPod would be a big detriment to ViewSonic in selling much of the MovieBook.  It might do well among those who just want to watch video while traveling, but for normal usage, it doesn’t sound too great compared to an iPod touch, just cheaper.  There’s also the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, the iPod touch for the Android population.

Read [Lewis Wire]