Tech.Wapline

Just a few short weeks after an August announcement, Nokia has officially committed to flipping the switch on the UK outpost of its Music Store tomorrow, November 1. The company — perhaps realizing that it faces an uphill battle against its pretty well-entrenched competitors who shall remain unnamed for the purposes of this story — is aggressively pricing tunes at 80 pence per track and full albums from £8 (about $16.50). The launch of the store goes hand-in-hand with Nokia’s two fresh high-capacity devices, the N81 8GB and N95 8GB, both of which also officially launch (even though they’re already readily available in many locales) come tomorrow. Most tracks are said to be 192kbps WMA, so the quality shouldn’t be too shabby; let us know what you think if you decided to give it a shot, k?

Meet LG’s latest DAP, the UP3. That name gives a hint as to the device’s objective to double-up as both a USB drive and MP3 player.

Of course, the vast majority of all MP3 players already do this — something apparently lost on LG’s marketing department. The all metal UP3 shares the stylings of their FM37 touch-screen player and comes packing 1GB, 2GB, 4GB of storage; an FM radio; MP3, WMA, and OGG audio and ASF video support; and an itty bitty OLED display of unspecified dimensions supporting 65,000 colors. 4GB will cost you just 84,000 (about $92) whenever these pop for retail.

Everybody’s favorite IP duplication engine is back in the news. Meizu’s M8 Mini One iPhone clone just received an iPod touch makeover in a bid for protection from Apple’s lawyers.

See, the M8 is a phone, the touch is an MP3 player — so toootally different your honor. They’ve also bumped the display from 3.3- to 3.4-inches with pricing still pegged at about $265 / $320 / $400 for the 4GB / 8GB / 16GB models if they ever make it Stateside… or locally to China for that matter. We’re at 10 months and counting since it was announced.