Dell rolls out holiday goodies!

SAN FRANCISCO: Dell Inc. rolled out its products for the holiday shopping season, including plasma televisions, new printers and a slimmed-down digital music player aimed at the iPod mini.

The Dell Pocket DJ weighs 4.4 ounces and has a capacity of 5 gigabytes, the equivalent of approximately 2,500 songs. It has a sleeker silver and black design with trimmer features than the current Dell DJ, the company said. It is smaller than a deck of cards and costs $199.

By contrast, the iPod Mini from Apple Computer Inc. is about the length and width of a business card, weighs 3.6 ounces, has 4 gigabytes of capacity, the equivalent of 1,000 songs, and costs $249.

According to market research firm NPD Group, Apple has more than 90 percent of the market for digital music players that use hard disk drives as the storage medium.

Dell said its Pocket DJ would be available next month, as would its 20-gigabyte Dell DJ model holding 9,900 songs, which has a price of $249.

The Round Rock, Texas-based company also announced its first plasma televisions. The 42-inch high-definition and enhanced definition model has a price of $3,499. The 42-inch model without high definition and enhanced definition carries a price of $2,229.

Dell's build-to-order and direct business model in the PC and notebook market means it carries basically no inventory and it can pass cost savings onto its customers. It is the No. 1 PC company.

Dell also announced two new photo printers, which it resells under its own brand name under a partnership with printer maker Lexmark International Inc.

The Photo Printer 540 sells for $189 and Dell said it creates photo lab-quality prints without a PC. The Dell Photo All-in-One Printer 942 starts at $149 and lets home and small office users print, copy, fax and scan.