Sony Debuts 20 Gigabyte Walkman to Silence IPod

smackbunnybaby

got this from a website.it sounds very excellent!!



Sony Debuts 20 Gigabyte Walkman to Silence IPod

Sony Corp. said on Thursday it is launching a Walkman digital music player capable of storing far more songs than Apple Computer Inc.'s market-leading iPod, while also undercutting iPod's price.
The Japanese consumer electronics maker said the 20-gigabyte device, which is its second hard-disk drive gadget aimed at unseating Apple and can store 13,000 songs, will be launched on July 10 in Japan, by mid-August in the United States and in September in Europe.
Dubbed the Network Walkman NW-HD1, it marks a major upgrade to the legendary Walkman brand and the announcement comes on the 25th anniversary of the introduction of Sony's groundbreaking portable music player -- July 1, 1979.
It is expected to sell for around 53,000 yen ($487) in Japan and less than $400 in the United States, Sony said, undercutting Apple's 40-gigabyte device, which sells for $499 and can hold up to 10,000 songs.
Sony said it packed more songs in a smaller storage space by using advanced compression technology.
"Sony has consistently changed the economics of the portable music player business," said Richard Dougherty, lead analyst with Envisioneering Group of Seaford, New York. "But Apple has trumped it for the past 30 months."
Because Sony uses the same 20-gigabyte hard drives across many of its product lines, including computers, it stands to benefit from massive price discounts for buying these devices in volume.
"Prices could fall by as much as 50 percent in the next 12-18 months," Dougherty said.
Sony President Kunitake Ando said at a reception to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Walkman that he was determined to take the spotlight in the market for portable music players away from iPod.
"I don't know if we can take this market back in a year ... But this launch is our message that we will work hard to put an end to the dominance by just one company," Ando said.
Sony declined to comment on sales targets. It has sold 340 million units of the Walkman over the past 25 years, including CD- and MD-based models.
ONLINE MUSIC
The latest product joins the "Vaio pocket," a digital player Sony unveiled in Japan in May. The Vaio pocket has a similar storage capacity and also carries a 53,000 yen price tag.
Sony views a high-capacity, hard-drive player as a crucial addition to its range of products in boosting usage of its online music store Sony Connect. It is hoping the cachet of the Walkman name will help it close the gap on the iPod and Apple's iTunes download service.
Since Apple launched iPod three years ago it has dominated the digital music player market, outselling all competitors by nearly a two-to-one margin. Apple has an even larger lead in downloads, selling over 85 million digital tracks.
"This very clearly completes the range for us," said Robert Ashcroft, senior vice president of Sony network services Europe, a division of Sony Electronics.
Ashcroft said Sony Connect was due to be launched in Europe next week, beginning with the French market. He said that with the NW-HD1, Sony now had over a dozen digital players compatible with Sony Connect.
Assembling a large installed base of consumers with digital music players is considered crucial to survival in the brutally competitive digital download market.
As with Sony's other players, the NW-HD1 plays songs in the company's proprietary ATRAC format only, meaning it is not compatible with other online stores and cannot play tunes in the popular MP3 format.
Sony, well-regarded by gadget lovers for its design prowess, said the NW-HD1 will be the smallest 20-GB player on the market. It is slightly larger than a credit card and 12.6 mm thick -- less than half an inch.
Sony said Toshiba Corp. developed the hard drives and the rest of the gadget was designed by Sony engineers.
The battery lasts 30 hours, at least three times longer than the iPod's -- a selling point that Sony plans to play up in promoting the device.
The NW-HD1 also employs shock-resistant technology that protects the hard drive if is dropped.
"We couldn't come up with something using the Walkman brand until it survived the 1 meter (3 ft 3.37 in) drop test," said Ashcroft.
Shares in Sony closed up 1.22 percent at 4,160 yen, outperforming the benchmark Nikkei average, which rose 0.31 percent. (Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in New York and Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo) ($1=108.78 Yen)

ChipZilla

I would buy one if it wasn't for crappy ATRAC and the need to convert your tunes before you can listen to them

Makaveli

Originally posted by smackbunnybaby

The Japanese consumer electronics maker said the 20-gigabyte device, which is its second hard-disk drive gadget aimed at unseating Apple and can store 13,000 songs
...

As with Sony's other players, the NW-HD1 plays songs in the company's proprietary ATRAC format only, meaning it is not compatible with other online stores and cannot play tunes in the popular MP3 format.

ATRAC only, sucks indeed.
13,000 tracks on 20gb, wouldn't that require a lot of compression and a major loss in quality?

Xithus

yea same here, im a big sony fan but I wont be arsed using atrac. They shoud have just stuck with mp3 :rolleyes:

Greenman

Heres a bit more about it with pics http://www.i4u.com/article1734.html

tman

Sony dropped the ball big time there

attrac is fine if you have the alternative option of mp3's, or if it's on a removable media (netMD)
a 20gig mp3 player that only does attrac???!?!?!!!
dumbasses

Michael Collins

Ah yes as I suspected NO ONE actually wants a stupid proprietry player. What are Sony thinking? I can't see any benefits of using the ATRAC format except maybe for a few quid on licencing. So many people arn't going to buy it becuase of this. Sony and their damn changing stuff, Memory Stick, bah!

From,
A happy iRiver H-120 user

ZENER

There was a section on Moncrief on Newstalk 106 today where a lad from Dixons spoke about the iPod and explained it's virtues. A bloke from SONY came on - heavy American accent !! - and spoke about Sonys version but made out like it could play mp3 and any other format that was currently available !! Was he telling porkies ??? Some points in his "speech" were factually wrong, for example he said the Sony offering could play more than the iPods "10 hours" of music !!

As an aside I was in Dixons on Thursday evening drooling over the new iPod when a saleswoman approached me and asked if I was interested in buying one and told me I would need firewire on my computer (wrong USB2 is also supported) I told her that I used a Mac and I would be able to use it if I could afford one to which she replied along the lines oh then you will have to buy a USB2 or Firewire card as the Mac does not have them !!! WTF are they thought in that place ??

ZEN

Guy:Incognito

Originally posted by ZENER
for example he said the Sony offering could play more than the iPods "10 hours" of music !!

I'd assume he was talking bout the ipods battery life being around 10hours, which a lot of other players beat hands down.

ChipZilla

Originally posted by ZENER
A bloke from SONY came on - heavy American accent !! - and spoke about Sonys version but made out like it could play mp3 and any other format that was currently available !! Was he telling porkies ??? Some points in his "speech" were factually wrong, for example he said the Sony offering could play more than the iPods "10 hours" of music !!

It'll play mp3s if you convert them to ATRAC format. Which means it doesn't natively handle mp3s at all.:dunno:

ZENER

I know they will save a few quid on the licensing but I think this will flop.

Converting from MP3 to ATRAC or any lossy format to another will result in unacceptable distortion of the music which will be apparent to anyone who knows sound - and if pushed too far even to those who don't.

In my opinion a bad move by Sony which they will have to correct sooner rather than later !

I'm a huge fan of Sony gear and would probably have bought this device except for this pitfall.

ZEN

rabbitinlights

HDD players should be multi-format, the bigger the better, not for the quantity of songs but the quality, I will only rip CD's @ 192Kbps at least, normally much higher. Sony are retarted, Years ago I bought a NetMD assuming it would be possible to crack it to play what i wanted, not such luck, gave it to the girlfriend and bought an Ipod instead.

Very doubtful it will silence anyone.......

Sean

tman

Originally posted by rabbitinlights
Years ago I bought a NetMD assuming it would be possible to crack it to play what i wanted, not such luck, gave it to the girlfriend and bought an Ipod instead.

i thought you could copy any DA type to the net md's as long as you converted to .wav first?