New competition for iPod at CES

Host of new players and accessories on show

Companies looking to challenge Apple's dominance in the media player space have been lining up at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has been hyping a revamped Zune player, while traffic to the Zune website tripled this Christmas, according to Hitwise.

Meanwhile, the mobile phone companies are keen to push their vision of converged devices with new music handsets.

Nokia has launched the 8GB N95 HSDPA multimedia phone in the US for the first time at the show, pushing its music and video applications.

"Today's savvy consumer wants an all-in-one device that enables them to customise and share content immediately with their social communities," said Bill Plummer, vice president of go-to-market at Nokia Americas.

Samsung has been making much of its new SGH-i450 music phone, and Motorola has the new Rokr E8 and a couple of wireless speaker accessories.

Motorola has also been getting into the mobile TV market with the paperback-sized DH01 which streams live TV via the DVB-H standard.

The device has a 4.3in screen and a claimed battery life of around four hours, playing video recorded onto SD cards or streamed via DVB-H.

"Mobile TV is expected to grow significantly in 2008 and beyond," said Navin Mehta, vice president of mobile TV and applications services at Motorola.

"Motorola is in a unique position to mobilise the TV experience to deliver broadcast and personalised content wherever and whenever consumers want."