RSSSony Unveils New Walkman Lineup
By Nate Mook | Published October 12, 2006, 12:11 PM
In its continuing effort to win market share away from Apple's ubiquitous iPod, Sony on Thursday took the wraps off a new line of Walkman portable audio players, which the company says offers features not found in competing devices.
Five new Walkman models will debut before the end of the year, offering capacities up to 4GB. The players are shaped like a small perfume bottle, with the high-end model priced at 29,000 yen ($240) in Japan. But Sony acknowledges it has a long way to go if it wants to unseat Apple.
"Sony has a lot of strengths that Apple doesn't have," said Hiroshi Yoshioka, senior vice president of Sony's audio division in a press conference Thursday. "This is a device that takes advantage of them." Yoshioka added that Sony expects to double its market share from 10 to 20 percent.
The new Walkman lineup includes the ability to upload music directly from a CD player, as well as a built-in noise cancellation feature. Battery life is just three hours after only three minutes of charging, and the players come in four colors.
Sony is also preparing a Walkman with video capabilities, Yoshioka said. ""We are developing a product that handles images, but I cannot make any comment on specific plans," he said, refusing to elaborate further.
Apple has seen great success with its video-capable iPod, and continue to hold over 75 percent of the digital audio player market, according to market research group NPD, which counts retail sales of products.
It could be a nice MP3 player, but I still won't be able to music on it with there DRM filled horsesh-t SonicStage.
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|Will it have blue rayz, lol
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|Typical childish comments from anti-Sony zealots..
Why on earth would a Walkman have Blu-Ray???
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|It was a joke pro-Sony fangirl.
Get a grip.
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|Why has no MP3 player added hi-fi recording from external line and microphone? This would really set any such machine apart.
A sorely missing feature!
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|Because portable media players by definition are not sound recording devices.
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|The iAudio X5 has a line-in, but not a mic in. Although it does have a built-in mic. I own the 60gb version and it's great.
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|My old Creative Jukebox 3 had recording capabilities to WAV and MP3, from line-in and mic-in
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|That was my first MP3 player. It was good, but I didn't like the you couldn't drag and drop and also that it was pretty big (it's about the same size as a regular CD player). Although it did used a standard 2.5" laptop hard drive, you could put a 120gb one in if you want (or how ever big they are now).
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|Sony still makes portable music devices?
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|This player will flop, and it'll flop hard. Sony will make this player as proprietary as possible, just like they did with the NetMD.
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|I like the really mis-informed posts like this.
My Sony NW-A300 supports the following file formats:
ATRAC (obviously) - DRM and DRM free versions.
MP3
WMA - DRM and DRM free versions.
WAV
AAC - DRM free versions.
Out of those formats, only ATRAC is the proprietary one. That said however, ATRAC offers the best compression and features (gapless playback for example).
So despite what the ant-zealots think about Sony forcing proprietary on people, here is a classic example of how much choice I have in formats. Infact, I challenge people to find a personal MP3 player that offers MORE choice in file formats.
Perhaps one of the usual anti-Sony zealots want to show me how by buying Walkman I am being forced into using Sony proprietary formats.
I suspect this post won't get any useful replies, as they will be too busy preaching that Sony are forcing Blu-Ray on PS3 owners.....
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|Don't forget the countless mini discs.
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|Which of course has nothing to do with these products.
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|Errm, my Sony MP3 player does not play Mini-Discs, nor do any other Sony Walkman.
If you're going to post, try not to make yourself look like a complete idiot by posting irellevent comments like this.
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|Errm, Sony calls all there music players a walkman... even there Minidisc's. For example this one http://www.minidisco.com...H1?sc=7&category=10
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|For the love of all things holy, dump sonicstage and integrate into the operating systems... windows, osx and linux. I love my Sony MP3 player, but really loathe SonicStage... there really is no need for it.
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|Indeed, the desktop software the only bit that sucks on my NW-A3000. I wish they give up with the SonicStage/Connect fiasco, and simply implemtn Microsoft "Plays For Sure". This is the ONLY way Sony will gain any marketshare...
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|Battery life must be improved.
Need to make it easier to use.
I have trouble when trying to copy the music from computer to memory card and play it in the sony ericson mobile phone. it did not play. It need the mobile phone and the software to upload it. It is stupid move. we need to be able to transfer the file easy, not difficult.
Sony have good advantage in the music Industry, they need to use it to make it more sucess.
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|I get over 30 hours out of my Sony NW-A3000, which I find to be VERY good..
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|Which model is it? Mine is SE K800i, no a big fan of Sony from the fact that their product is WAY expensive comparing to others, but I do admit SE phone is very good value. Maybe you should try File Transfer Mode when connecting to a PC (the phone becomes external drive) and put it inside the Music folder but the downside is the phone function is turn-off completely..
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|iPod is far from unseatable. Anyone who thinks so is not a student of history. I, for one, will never buy an iPod. It may be a "portable 8-track," but I'll buy Zune, Zen, or anything else first.
No, I don't hate Apple. I merely hate their music business model--which is catching *TONS* of grief, and even protests, in Europe. This is one case where Americans are [again] being not as bright as the rest of the world.
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|I didn't say I liked the iPod, I think it's an overpriced status symbol. However overpriced status symbols are what the sheeple want.
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|I suppose that's easier to believe than Apple actually creating something worth owning.
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|The iPod is certainly beatable, but not with its current clueless competition.
As for the business model... I don't know about you, but it seems to be quite successful. If you're complaining about DRM, blame the music industry, not Apple.
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|And I suppose it's the music industry's fault that you can't shop for DRM'd music that will play on an iPod unless you shop at iTunes?
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|Pretty much, yeah. The entire concept of DRM is locking content to a specific device or devices. Apple doesn't exactly make friends when they limit who can buy from their store. They do it because their product suppliers (the music industry) will not do business with them otherwise.
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|sony's mp3 players arent that bad but they just need better on pc software. i have a vaio player which is not bud but the software is horendis and acording to sonys site for switzerland(where i bought it) the player dosnt exist
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|Sony may as well try to sell portable 8-track players at this point. That goes for Microsoft and their Zune thing too.
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|Too little, too late. I can't imagine another hashed version of Sonicstage trying to handle video files....
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|Hmmm.... what audio format do you suppose these devices are going to be limited to?
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|Apple has 95% of the digital music market, therefore it's status symbol ( according to one contributor ) Microsoft has 95% of the operating system market. Using the same logic it then follows that Windows is a status symbol. I know which status symbol I prefer. If competitors can't keep up with Apple, that's their problem. I think Sony have been turning out more and more rubbish over the past few years, probably in a vain attempt to out do Microsoft, let alone compete with Apple
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|For clarification, Ipod has a 79% market share. I would argue that % market-share has NOTHING to do with something being a status symbol. I think that you are making HUGE leaps in logic here. "Ipods are at the high end of mp3 players, therefore you would consider them a luxery mp3 . A luxery product in your mind seems to have something to do with status".
I think that Sony will have a challenge competing with anyone, considering their strength is in the product, and mp3 players tend to have a joint dependency on their software. Sony has had REAL trouble develop software in the past (SonicStage sucks the big one).
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