A look at new portable media players for Fall 2010 that aren't iPods

Apple's annual iPod refresh has taken place in the first week of September for the last five years, and the event coincides with back-to-school Mac and iPod promotions. Since the iPod has held a dominant share of the United States' portable media player (PMP) market, this is often the time of year when other consumer electronics companies debut new PMPs for the back-to-school season too.

This year, in the days surrounding Apple's September 1 event, Sandisk, Phillips, Archos, and Samsung have all revealed new media players that will compete against the newly-refreshed 2010-2011 iPod line.

Milpitas, California-based flash memory giant Sandisk is one of Apple's principal competitors in the sub-$100 media player space. On Tuesday, the company announced its updated Sansa Fuze+ media player which strikes at Apple's new Nano and undercuts it by just about $60. This year's model replaces the Fuze's clickwheel with a capacitive touch panel, and eliminates the proprietary dock connector in favor of a MicroUSB port. It is available in various colors and capacities: the 4GB model costs $79, 8GB costs $89, and 16GB costs $119.As usual, they all come equipped with MicroSD slots for Sandisk's storage and slotRadio cards.

Archos is charging ahead with a full line of Android-powered devices this fall. Because all of the devices are equipped with 802.11b/g/n, Archos classes them as "Internet tablets." The 28IT has a 2.8" touchscreen, a 600MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and 4GB of storage, it will be available in September starting at $99. The 32IT has a 3.2" touchscreen, an 800MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and 8GB of storage, it also has a video camera and will launch in mid-September for $149. The 43IT has a 4.3" resistive touchscreen, a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 8GB of storage, an HD video camera, Micro SD slot and HDMI output. The Archos 43IT will launch in October for $279. All of the devices will ship with FroYo, the most current version of the Android operating system.

Archos isn't the only company aligning with Android in its line of media players. At IFA in Berlin, Phillips announced its 3.2" touchscreen GoGear Connect Mp4 player will ship with "the full Android experience" at the end of October in the US, Western Europe and China. In addition to offering Wi-fi connectivity, a video and still camera, and sound isolation headphones, Phillips bundles the experience with the powerful Songbird desktop media manager software.

Samsung has added two new media players to its long list of devices, the YP-Q3 and YP-U6, which it will also be showing off at IFA in Berlin this week. Samsung has only revealed a little bit about these devices so far, but more info is coming. The YP-Q3 supports 5.1 channel audio output and a battery that promises 45 hours of continuous music playback thanks to the SoundAlive sound processing technology. The YP-U6 is designed for workout use and includes "fitness mode" with a calorimeter and voice feedback. It promises to have a 20 hour battery life.