We mentioned back in January that Samsung would be splashing its ultra slim YP-K3 DAP with lime and cherry paint, and the company made good on its promise (though not for the North American market). We're revisiting the news today because the players freshest from the factory will now ship with a color-coordinated graphical user interface. So the green K3 will have a tangy lime UI, the red K3 will have a sweet cherry UI, and the black K3 . . . well, that one stays the same. We're not sure if all the colors will be preloaded onto all the players, but that would actually make the most sense and offer consumers the most choice.

The extra color will also be available for current users through a firmware upgrade.

[AVING USA]

The Samsung K3 is basically a K5 sans the speaker. However, the K3 now has an optional add-on speaker going by the name of DS200. The speaker has a built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery. The official specs on battery time are not yet disclosed, but based on tests of the K5 I would estimate it to be around 6 hours. It should be available sometime in March and retail for around $50.

Also from the K3 news department… The K3 will be released in two additional colors: lime and red. These will be hitting the shelves in March and May, respectively.

More photos from CES 2007 below.

We all knew it was coming, but today Samsung officially announced their upcoming YP-K3 digital audio player (also known as the watered-down version of the K5).

Pricing and availability are still unknown, but we've at least got a lot more details about the 0.27-inch thin player, most notably that there'll be 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB (!) models to choose from.

The other specs are pretty common fare (and most really only serve to confirm what we already knew), but it's still worth mentioning that the device will feature touchscreen controls to navigate between tunes broadcast on the FM tuner or stored on the internal flash memory in MP3, WMA, and PlaysForSure formats.

The 1.8-inch OLED display should be fine for basic track information, but that's about it. The player will likely have some sort of photo-viewing capabilities as well, but on a screen of this size and this quality, we won't break out the box of tissues if it doesn't.

[Engadget]

Looks like the rumblings we heard earlier this month about a downgraded Samsung K5 may very well be true.

Information about the upcoming YP-K3 is coming at us at a very slow trickle, but it seems the DAP will so far feature a 1.8-inch OLED and FM tuner. Nothing to get excited about yet, but assuming this isn't a concept photo, it's decent-looking in a candybar phone sort of way. Basically, it's just a K5 without the speakers, but it's still thin and shiny. And that's gotta count for something.

If this is an actual product photo, then official word (including full specs and answers to the ever-important "What's the storage capacity?" and "How much does it cost?" questions) from Samsung is definitely imminent.

[Engadget | more photos at GenMP3]