We've been waiting for Acer's MP-500 PMP for some time now and, if a product page on Acer's German website is anything to go by, it seems that the launch day may be very close.

The MP-500's key features are a 3.5 inch QVGA screen with 320 x 240 resolution, a 20GB 1.8 inch hard drive for storage along with an SD slot, dimensions of 126 x 82 x 24 mm and a weight of 220g (including the replaceable Li-Ion battery).

The 1800mAh battery has a claimed life of four hours when you watch video and eight hours when you listen to music. Format support is comprehensive with DivX, Xvid, MPEG2, MPEG4 and WMV9 for video, MP3 and WMA for audio and JPEG, BMP and GIF for pictures.

The unit is priced at €350 (£189), however, we're not sure this PMP will ever make the UK market. For one thing there doesn't seem to be much point in a product "range" that contains a single product.

The other problem is that the MP-500 doesn't have an obvious killer feature or unique selling point which puts it in direct competition with Apple, Archos, Cowon, Creative, PQI and Lord knows how many other PMP manufacturers.

We'll just have to wait and see. ®