The Samsung YP-Z5 is ready for its close-up.

The latest portable music player from the South Korean electronics giant will hit US retail stores next week, with its eyes squarely on the iPod juggernaut, namely the pencil-thin iPod nano.

The flash memory-based YP-Z5 is Samsung's direct answer to the nano, Apple's hugely popular mini player that comes with storage capacities of 1GB (250 songs), 2GB, and 4GB (1,000 songs). Samsung isn't rolling out a 1GB model but is charging the same price as Apple, $199 for its 2GB and $249 for the 4GB.

Samsung is touting the durable aluminum body of the YP-Z5, a clear dig at the reportedly scratch-prone screens of the nano that have made Apple the recipient of a heap of lawsuits from disgruntled nano owners. The YP-Z5, which Samsung first unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, also boasts a longer battery life, 24 hours compared to 14 hours, and a 1.8-inch color display, slightly larger than the 1.5-inch screen of the nano.

"The YP-Z5 displays Samsung's commitment to expanding the market possibilities in the portable digital audio space," Samsung's Mark Farish told Agence France Press. "With its 1.8-inch quality LCD screen, a slim, durable body, and extended battery life, the YP-Z5 stands above the competition."

Samsung has made no bones about its focus on the iPod. To help craft the YP-Z5, it brought in Iventor, a Palo Alto, California-based software design company led by former Apple employee Paul Mercer, who helped make the software for the original iPod, according to The New York Times.

The company clearly faces an uphill battle, with the iPod holding 78 percent market share, according to the most recent data from NPD Group. Samsung has less than 4 percent market share.

Even if a device manages to catch consumers' fancy like the iPod has, many industry experts say that it would also need seamless integration with a music download service to match the ease of use between the iTunes store and the iPod player.

Samsung's players are designed to work seamlessly with Microsoft's PlaysForSure digital rights management (DRM) technology, which applies usage restrictions to the music downloaded through services like Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo Music Unlimited, which all use Microsoft's file format and DRM.

Napster CEO Chris Gorog complained this week that the lack of a viable competitor to the iPod was holding back subscription services like that of his firm.

"Consumers are choosing digital music subscription services, and Samsung supports this trend with the first 4GB flash player to offer subscription capabilities," Farish said in a statement.

Last year, Choi Gee-sung, the president of Samsung's digital media division, told the Korea Times newspaper that his company was working on an iTunes competitor, citing Samsung's strong sales numbers in Asian countries where iTunes is not offered. The company later retracted those comments, saying only that Samsung merely plans to offer technical support to marketing partners like Yahoo, Microsoft, and Napster.

But he noted at the time, "Our partners have failed to provide competitive software like iTunes."