Sony announced on Tuesday the latest addition to its family of Sony WALKMAN MP3 players.

The new Sony WALKMAN has built-in flash memory, with models ranging in capacity from 512MB to 1GB and 2GB.

It offers a quick-charge function which, the company claims gives three hours of battery life in three minutes.

The Sony WALKMAN range also features playback, with 28 hours playback when using the ATRAC3 format and 27 hours with MP3, using the internal Lithium-ion rechargeable battery, according to Sony.

The latest product is furthermore compatible with most commonly used digital music formats like MP3, ATRAC and unsecured WMA files.

It offers easy download capabilities by direct connection through the USB port.Each player comes with the latest SonicStage 3.4 software version for easy music management and transfer.

With the 1GB and 512MB players, an FM Tuner is also optionally available.

The latest WALKMAN MP3 player from Sony will be available from the end of April 2006 across Europe.