Digital Home Thoughts: Samsung to Build MP3 Players with XM

"Satellite radio service XM announced on Tuesday that it would partner with Samsung to introduce MP3 players with satellite radio capability by year's end. The players would use XM's Connect-and-Play technology and come with a home accessory kit to allow access to the satellite radio. The devices would also allow the user to record XM radio content when it is connected to a home or car accessory kit. Unconnected, it would act as a normal MP3 player, but would also allow playback of recorded content, as well as MP3 or WMA files. With the Samsung players, users would be able to select certain songs to download after hearing them on an XM radio channel."

Looks like they are building their answer to the iTunes/iPod combo. Be interested in seeing what the unit looks like and what kind of battery life it gets. I seem to remember reading a while back that the portable XM radio's did not get very good battery life. More interesting will be how they price the downloads, what they use in the way of security, and whether the downloaded files can be used on other devices/burned to a CD.