PHOTOS: Philips touchscreen GoGear Muse hands on

24 February 2010 9:43 GMT / By Dan Sung

Philips has dragged its GoGear media players into the 21st century by adding in touchscreen control and ditching Windows Media Player as the default supporting software. The upgrades to the GoGear Muse range will hit in April and will also introduce a 720p level HDMI-out port to offer good resolution video playback onto your HD TV.

As before the player will include a 3.2-inch HVGA screen, an FM radio, iPlayer, Audible, FLAC and APE support. As well as Philips Full Sound MP3 enhancing technology and noise isolating headphones. They come in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB sizes all expandable by a further 32GB with the microSD slot.

Just as interesting as the hardware itself is the introduction of Songbird which will come bundled with all Philips portable players in the future. The open source software will automatically import songs bought from iTunes as well as your current library and you can use add-ons for Last.fm and 7digital as well.

On top of that, Songbird will pull in information on the artists you're listening to. It'll use your location to help you buy gig tickets and find relevant band photos from Flickr as well. It'll even auto-Tweet what you're listening to - so long as you don't mind.

No prices as yet but Philips was adamant about looking to provide the best option at around the £100-£120 range.