Sony's New Walkman

JPA

Anyone see this baby from Sony? Not out for a while yet but it looks like Sony are going down the cool route this time.

Clicky

Creamy Goodness

looks absolutely awful.

this line just shows they are trying to fight apple

"And, of course, even the headphones are colour coordinated."

give me a player the size of the ipod nano with the functionality of an iriver and you'll have me singing praises from some tall mountain

JPA

The purple one is horrible but the silver is not bad.
I quite like it!

Creamy Goodness

to me they just look too gimicky.

but i'll be impressed if they fit a 20gig hard drive in there, a good sign of things to come.

Wertz

I usually like Sony's design ethic, but these are just horrible. The OLED is a nice touch and no doubt it's small but TBH the desgn has just gone way downhill from the HD1/3...HD5 was a step down, and this is a skydive further.

New Walkman phone is more my idea of a sony product. Most likely has it's faults but I like what I see...

melekalikimaka

hey i have that phone, picked it up in amsterdam last week, its sweet, no problems yet. My friend upgraded his K750 to it, he flashed it and bought a W800 cover on ebay, doesnt have the same jacks but part from that its the same, cheaper too

Wertz

How much you give for it? I'm off over there meself on monday for a few day's debauchery...

melekalikimaka

I got it for 360, pretty much a last minute thing, ran into a phone shop and got it.

Bakha

You really don't like the design? I think it is very nice. If this player comes to the stores it will just be the only one catching eyes amont all other similar coloured and shaped players. To me it looks sexy.

Cremo wrote:

looks absolutely awful.

this line just shows they are trying to fight apple

"And, of course, even the headphones are colour coordinated."

give me a player the size of the ipod nano with the functionality of an iriver and you'll have me singing praises from some tall mountain

jozi

Did sony not release a sqaure looking player not to long ago??
I caught a glympse of that thing at the toys for boys show, taught it was an bigger than average flash memory based player but i guess its hd based.
Dont like the purple color thou

byte

it is available in other colours too.

Not a fan of it myself either but I see Sony are advertising it plenty anyway!

Wertz

Comes in black/grey in the 20gb model....still not grown on me at all.

bloodninja

seems like a gadget that would scratch very easy. and software is not very good, (i know this only by word of mouth so do not take as fact). Only for these 2 glitches I'm close to buying one.

What I'd be interested to know is how difficult or tedious is changing the format to and from atrac to transfer between computers??

Wertz

It supports native mp3 (but it applies a DRM wrap during transfer) You don't have to use atrac if you don't want to....a tip on these too is to use sonic stage instead of Connect (which is apparently buggy)

Franky Boy

I got the new nwe407.It;s not bad but it's only 1gb.

Nala

I like the colours.*



*I'm a girl.

byte

Wertz wrote:

It supports native mp3 (but it applies a DRM wrap during transfer) You don't have to use atrac if you don't want to....a tip on these too is to use sonic stage instead of Connect (which is apparently buggy)

Yes, Sony had sent us an email regarding the software for these. They say you must update the software online to get the latest version which apparenlty irons out the flaws.

Slice

I think Sony are in for a suprise if they think they can crash Apple's party with a player like that - they're horrid - plus the adverts for these are a little arrogant compared to those for the ipod

Nala

i saw them in person in a sony shop the other day. purple colour was gorgeous but buttons look very small. couldn't see the screen either.

*off topic* why in the name if good do Sony still make tape walkmans?

Guy:Incognito

Nala wrote:

*off topic* why in the name if good do Sony still make tape walkmans?

Because people still buy them. Theyre hardly going to keep making something they dont sell.

Maybe they're stockpiling for a post-apocalyptic, digital -free era.:)

byte

Yeah, oddly enough, some people still buy cassette walkmans. Though, of course, sales of these are getting much rarer year on year.

RuggieBear

software with them is the usual sony **** up....that frustrates you till you want to throw the thing in a fire. Having had all sorts of issues with my netMD, there is no way i'll buy any sony mp3 product till there is an acceptable hack

Bard

I've some of these on order in work so I was speaking to Sony Digital today to find out when we're getting them. They don't yet know when these will be available in retail outlets in Ireland. I've to ring them back next Tuesday (!)

byte

We've got a few A3000 and A1000 in stock at the moment, but they did take a long time in coming.

Another product that doesn't have enough supply to satisfy Christmas demand!

lomb

nice looker, but how is this any better than a hd1?
the same ridiculous copyright protection as the hd1 in a plastic case with a nice oled display.
soney needs to cop themselves on, and get rid of the wrapping of the mp3s on transfer meaning no transfer back. a crash of a computer and reinstallation renders all the transferred mp3s useless if u want to transfer more from the reinstalled pc due to the mp3 player no longer recongnising the pc, meaning a full wipe of the mp3 player and reformat. crazy stuff..
incidentally the hd1 is probably the finest player ever compromised by this crazy protection and encoding restrictions. otherwise slaughters an ipod at 1/2 the size and double the battery life, suberb sound and magnesium case.

byte

Yeah, personally I preferred all the previous HD series over the new NW-A models. The HDx felt a lot more robust too.

Bard

The 20GB just came into stock in my place at the weekend. Only got 5 and sold 4 already. Sony would want to get the finger out and fill their orders properly if they want this new product to have any impact at all this Christmas.

The NW-A is a fairly funky looking thing with a nice battery life ... but doesn't compete well features-wise with the other players in its price range.

Energizer

Have sony stopped making the nw-hd5.
I just bought it a couple of months ago and its brilliant. Why replace it with this thing?

Wertz

Bard wrote:

The 20GB just came into stock in my place at the weekend. Only got 5 and sold 4 already. Sony would want to get the finger out and fill their orders properly if they want this new product to have any impact at all this Christmas.

The NW-A is a fairly funky looking thing with a nice battery life ... but doesn't compete well features-wise with the other players in its price range.

Any idea what the volume's like on it? I'm getting tired of my vaio's low levels (even with the limiter switched off)....either that or I'm going deaf...

byte

Yes, as far as I'm aware the HD5 has been replaced with the NW-A1000 and NW-A3000, both 6 and 20 gigabytes respectively. Personally, I preferred the HD5 but there ya go. This new one has "Walkman" branding which, uhm, well means very little I suppose, though Sony seem to think otherwise. Similarly, they've also released a "Walkman" branded Sony Ericsson mobile phone/mp3 player.

wheresmybeaver

I played around with an A3000 the other day and I have to say its a solid piece of cool. Small, fairly well built, screen is good. Lack of a remote is a bummer but apparently there'll be one available soon. Battery life is a key thing for me too. Damn iPod is pissing me off.

I hear the software (Connect) is pants alright, but once you load your music onto the mp3 player you can forget about it then.

Oh yeah and the volume isn't an issue. If you think its too quiet (coz of EU sound limiting), you can increase the volume through a menu hack (google it).

Silver or black looks like the best colour to me