Panasonic isn't the first name you think of when starting a conversation about MP3 players, but the gentle Japanese giant seems to want a piece of the pie, following news of the attractively-titled D-Snap SV-SD870N.

Strangely, the new player doesn't have any internal memory, and must instead rely on SDHC cards; which, with capacities approaching 32GB, shouldn't be a problem if it's priced cheaply enough.

There's also no colour screen, which means no video or photo playback, but it does seem to have a bit of flair on the music front, with built-in noise reduction (which we've already seen on some Sony players) that allegedly reduces background noise by up to 83 percent.

You'll also find line-in recording and AAC support, along with touch-sensitive controls, but this doesn't seem enough to even make a dent in the market when it arrives over here.

Panasonic does have one trump card to play however, which comes in the unlikely form of the battery life. From a full 3-hour charge you can expect to get around 100 hours of playback, which far exceeds the majority of competitors and could well score it some points with commuters and long-haul travellers. There's no confirmed release date for Europe yet, but it'll be hitting the shelves in Japan around mid-April.