The good people at Sharp went out and unveiled a couple of new MP3 players today. In a market dominated by color screens, rechargeable lithium batteries, and squinty-eyed video playback, the Sharp MP-S700 and MP-S800 digital audio players seem to come up a little short.

Sure, they’re attractive enough with their metallic silver exterior accented by your choice of colorful tones like red and white, but when you throw down such a simple-looking monochrome display, you’re going to hear a few moans. On the upside, there is an integrated FM tuner for when you get tired of your own library of MP3, WMA and WMA DRM9 files. Travellers will appreciate the convenience of battery replacement, given that these players (which are identical, apart from their storage capacity) run on a single AAA dry cell. That battery is enough for 14.5 hours of WMA play.

No word on pricing or availability, but we should be expecting the 512MB MP-S700 and 1GB MP-S800 to hit shelves soon. Not that you care.