Sony throws down a new Walkman
posted Sep 8th 2005 12:13AM
Well, well, well — Sony is officially rebirthing the WALKMAN in this device, which'll be rolling out in Q4 in sizes of 6GB (NW-A1000) and 20GB (NW-A3000). It features an organic EL display that makes the readout appear fairly seamless with the rest of the player. On the software side it's got a bunch of bells and whistles to help automagically DJ for you: 'My Favorite Shuffle' will randomly play the 100 most listened to songs, 'Time Machine Shuffle' picks a year at random and plays all the songs from that timeframe, and other functions are available to search and play songs by a number of parameters such as rating, genre, artist, recently transferred, etc. The 20GB version will be available in violet and silver, with the 6GB coming in pink and blue, and all with matching headphones. As far as codec support goes, don't expect anything revolutionary — just MP3 and of course, ever-lovin' ATRAC3plus. Still and all, we must profess excitement at the prospect of this thing.
[Thanks, jedda]
UPDATE: Looking at the Japanese press release, it likewise fails to mention the battery life of
either model. But it does say the A3000’s battery will recharge to 80% capacity in about 2 hours using the AC adapter,
and the A1000 will take 1 hour. A full charge takes 3 hours and 2 hours, respectively. USB recharging is also
supported, and a full recharge on the A3000 will take 7 hours, and A1000, 4 hours. We’ve also seen reports that Sony
plans to add WMA playback capability via a firmware update to be released in December. Oh, and prices: Impress Watch is
estimating around 35,000 yen (~$317 USD) for the A3000 and 30,000 yen (~$272 USD) for the A1000.
i love the displays they've been putting on their players. so clean. grr i want one now. damn my ipod-love and nano-desire.
Hmmm... Looks kinda like a change purse.
Sony has longevity. I like my iPod, but they have a shelf life of about 3 years. I just don't understand why everybody shoves the control buttons at the bottom. It is difficult to hold it down there. It might slip out especially with large hands. Try it on the side like the old walkman's. Otherwise I like the design, but Sony's reputation with compatibility and intergration isn't hot.
it sure looks nice. but too late. the ipod nano with its colored screen is gonna beat this.
does it have sound-recording capabilities or any other "hardware" features that the ipod lacks?
If you want to release a product that will mean nothing the same day, make sure to coincide with an Apple release.
Confusing thing is look at the UK SonyStyle store, they have pre-order for a Black and Gold but no silver or pink.
Since its 6GB, I'm guessing the NW-A1000 will be mini-harddrive instead of flash. Very dissapointing, and kinda behind the game with both Apple and Philips releasing a flash 4GB this month.
This certainly provides a very different styling than what the ipods offer. The screen on these, although not color, looks very interesting and is something I would definately like to see.
Also, in comaparison to the ipod, I think we will find that these provide a better sound quality than the Ipod. This has been noted in the reviews of the previous two HDD-based network walkman models.
Behold! There´s writing on that meteor-rock! It must be alien!
(if i didnt have my ipaq* i would go for that gray one.)
*paque = "i little drarf with magical powers"
bloody hell
i want one for its screen
how lovely.
Why would you want one of these ugly bars of soap when you could get an iPod nano or reg iPod?! Too little too late I say, the Walkman is dead.
Trust me, I know what I'm doing.
Man, colour screens on music players are over-rated. Does the colour make your music sound better? Its better to have lo-power display thats still kick ass like the EL.
The 6gb most likely has the microdrive...which means that they could have made this thing even smaller (since they designed for the larger 20gb drive). I hope they put their HD digital amp in their.
I guess the 6GB version is Microdrive based? In that case I might still opt for the iPod nano...
#9: Sledge Hammer:
Why would you want this?
Because the Apple iPod nano sucks?
Because the regular iPod sucks?
*waits to be flamed by extreme Apple or nothing Fanboys"
:eyeroll x 3:
OMG, so many choices, so little dough.
't do 't do...
The edgeless display looks way cool, unfortunately this device suffers from the same limitation as the iPod products...proprietary software and no open mass storage
how many songs can this thing hold ? i checked sony style site and it states the flash Network Walkman™ Digital Music Player NW-E507 1GB Built-In Memory / Stores 695 Songs.
Are they referring to atrac3 only, or mp3 as well. or is this a error.
Sony a company which prides itself on quality should take a page from apple and learn how to design (or contract someone who knows what their doing) to build them some new software.
Also if the Sony Ericsson W800 and K750i can play unportected AAC then why can't their walkman? One side of Sony seems to not be talking to the other... Hell even the PSP can play AAC with the new 2.0 firmware!
I like my iPod and all, but I'd give this a try. Sony needs to get their act together if they expect customers to consider something like this as a replacement for an iPod. First: get rid of the horrible support software and use an open-format XML database or something similar, along with a mass-storage USB driver. Second: support WMV and optionally OGG. Yes, I'd also like dual headphone jacks, an FM tuner, recording, and a replaceable battery. (Notice that I left off the color display requirement.) Asking for these may seem like pipe dreams, but it's what they'll have to do if they want to compete with the ubiquitous iPod.
Companies release so many different portable players that each get close on most of these points but leave out something very important or cost a fortune. Sony has an eye for style just like Apple (albeit a different style, but I usually like it), but they haven't figured out that Apple knows so much more about what people actually want. iTunes isn't perfect, but it runs circles around SonicStage, and the Winamp iPod plugin runs circles around both.
It is all sleek and stuff, but isn't it about time sony realised that they must also compete on features instead of killer looks ..why the hell cant they release a bluetooth walkman with a colour screen, or a 6GB flash player (i think they already work with samsung on LCDs, im sure they can negotiate a good deal for flash memory) It's about being ahead of the game, not just shiny armour. And AAC support would be nice too.
#13: Tuolumne.
It's rather stupid of you to say that the nano sucks, since it hasn't been released yet. And as much as you think it sucks, it's a decent player with a great interface. It is far from sucky, though not quite as omnipotent as everyone seems to make it out to be.
And #9: sledgehammer.
It doesn't seem like you know very much about what you're doing. Sony puts out quality players with pretty slick designs and whatnot. The interface isn't too bad, most of the time, either. Their problem is their implementation of ATRAC and their software. It took them too long to finally put mp3 compatibility into their players, and as decent as the ATRAC format is, it's just too troublesome sometimes. And let's not get started on the Connect/Sonicstage software they force you to use.
Anyway, I think the Walkman looks absolutely awesome. I'd get one if I didn't have my Gigabeat already. And if you're gonna bash it for no reason at all, before it comes out, then you're not so good at knowing what you're talking about, hey?
The only problem is the Atrac format like they had with the minidisc player although it is very clear. Hopefully they will make some bigger than 20 gb...
I guess they didn't know Apple would be releasing their hottest selling product (over the next 2 years) today
bummer
http://www.atraclife.com/index.php?showtopic=179
Looks like Connect is Sony-branded iTunes, remember that article talking about Sony and Apple teaming up for Japan?
tikkeity,
From the articles and SonyStyle UK it says that the 20gb has a 2" OLED and the 6gb has a 1.5" which prolly means the 6gb is smaller.
Sony does make these walkman cool! Apple iPods are nice too but there's already too much of them around and Sony's bringing variety. Sad that they still insist on using ATRAC3 format.
#9, Sledge Hammer - Please tell me you didn't just imply that these players are styled more closely to bars of soap than iPods. That is totally absurd.
#17, Hitler (I assume you misspelled it) - Actually, if you look at this from a historical perspective, earlier Apple products were designed (or at the very least co-designed) by Sony. So, really, they would be taking lessons from their apprentice. And, as we all know, when the apprentice tries to surpass the master, it is time to kill the apprentice.
Or it's time for the apprentice to kill the master.
You forgot to mention that the units will support WMA!!! This is a big thing...
wow that screen is awesome. I'd like one
to be honest i dont see what a color screen adds to the music [agreeing with #10]. I dont need an ipod to hold my pictures when my camera does that already, and im not a crazy photographer and 85% of people with digital cameras arent either [obviously just making that up, dont bash me] I like the look of this and and the screen. its pretty damm sleek and i wouldnt mind owning one. of course, thats for the looks...everyone has yet to see how they run compared to an ipod. i also have a 40gb non-color screen ipod and upgrading to a color screen seems pointless to me. Only if the ipod WAS a camera would i want a color screen [that wouldbe hoooot] but still id opt for a better camera]
I also agree with everyone else on the choice of size. 6gb and 20gb doesnt exactly cut it on same day as nano. and speaking of nano, im extremely disappointed that they got rid of the mini. I never got one cuz i had the 40gb model already, but the lime green one looked so much nicer than the other ones IMO. they should def come out with a 30-60gb model with same look as mini :)
I wonder why Apple aren't getting into the OLED display scene? Are they too expensive in full colour?
Last I heard, OLED displays were great in one colour and easy to make that way, but rgb was harder and more expensive. Anyone able to comment?
When is Sony going to release a new sports mp3 player? Their last one was very old, and has recently been taken off their shops. I know the disc-shaped player E107 comes with an armband, but the armband is a joke. I bought an E507 hoping I could figure out a way to use it at the gym, but it just wasnt durable enough. Right now it looks like I'm going to have to see how Philips's new sport mp3 player shapes up, but their track record isnt great (Even though i love my Nike-Philips PSA128)
and forgot to mention, if not go with an iPod Nano... though I hate the trendy sheepness that listening to one usually implies...
#16 Anthony:
> Are they referring to atrac3 only, or mp3 as well. or is this a error.
Either one - bit rate is bit rate. Sony seems to think people won't notice the difference between 128Kbps and 48Kbps bit rates. It's just a ploy to be able to market their 1GB player as a 695 song player vs the poor 1GB iPod shuffle that can only hold ~240 songs by Apple's own estimation.
Not that this is a new trick, back in the day *every* flash player marketed the number of songs based on 64Kbps, that way they could double the capacity and claim a 32MB player could hold a full CD (~60min, which it can at 64Kbps - it can also hold 4 CDs at 16Kbps!)
Battery life is 30 Hrs for the 20Gb & 20 Hrs for the 6Gb... This is based on the ATRAC format of course which is designed to maximise battery life. Take off a few hours for MP3...
i dont know why sony isnt making oled mainstream faster.. i am definitely going to wait for a color version of these similar to the oled pda by sony. just check out the quality in the pics below, its even brighter than the psp
http://www.dynamism.com/vz-90/gallery.shtml
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/feature/sony-clie-VZ90.htm
Sony prides itself on quality? Since when?
wow i did not know the had a OLED pda that looks so great, about the player i think it looks ok but i still hope its not the sucsesser to the nw-hd5. I expect something ...more
battery life is 20H for the 6GB and 30H for the 20GB.
Rated with ATRAC3+
...sony software.... *shivers* I agree with the others that the iPod nano is going to mop the floor with this Walkman. I really wish Sony would concentrate on the console business. At least they took a step in the right direction by starting to support SD cards...
Color doesn't make the music sound better, but it does make the display easier to read (allows for more effective anti-aliasing). I take a lot of photos, and having the scaled down library on the iPod is handy for quickly showing someone a pic, and it fits my 18gig photo library into 6gigs of space on my 30gig iPod.
I gotta admit, this looks like a sweet DAP (color screens are quite overblown). And IF you get a Sony product without defects (note the big "if") they are usually worth it.
But one thing Apple does right: they announce their product and make it available that day to purchase. I would opt for this Sony player if I could buy it right now but instead I'm going for the Nano. I mean, cut me some slack...I'm upgrading from a MuVo2!
This is one ugly walkman. What happened to Sony Style? It looks even worse than the PS3
ok heres a last ditch attempt. does anyone know how to put pictures on ur myspace about u part thingy? like under Heros and stuff? sorry for spamming....sony sucks at this anyway, the Nano will pwn it
I'm an iPod person, but god do I love the "endless" screens like on these. And while of course color screens offer more options, I actually kind of miss the old black and white screen of my old 3G iPod.
If somehow LCD technology came out where we could have a white iPod with a seamless white-background screen with color on top of that = SEX.
wow!
3 years
"Sony WALKMAN records three years of playback history that can be searched and also features the first ever ‘Initial Search’ on a hard disc device, allowing the user to scroll from A-Z for ultimate ease of use."
S'Funny how people will buy a product because they are a sheep and will then continue to knock every other manufacturer's products because they are so drawn in by corporate brain-washing.
And also how people seem to think that because someone had a problem with a brand's product, then therefore all of that brand's products are unreliable, and everything they do is crap, and always will be, because nothing changes. You people are moronic.
I like iPods, you can't knock Apple for creating a desirable product with a lot of support that does things simply and cleanly. However, you can't lose sight of the fact that a colour display on an audio player is a superfluous waste of battery power. The iPod's audio capabilities are outmatched by other players on the market, and their battery life is woeful compared to some.
Sony are a great manufacturer. Like all companies, they've had their period of occasional blooper, but they have a degree of humility which is quite rare in a company of that size - in that they admitted that their lack of mp3 support was a mistake. They have acknowledged that SonicStage wasn't very user-friendly, and have made great inroads into improving that over the earlier versions. They are listening. Also, their players have great battery life (the Flash players in particular), and OLED displays are fantastic. They refuse to go down the colour display route, and quite rightly so. I'm not putting photos on my DAP, and I never intend to, so why would I want a colour screen to work a basic text interface?
The industry is in danger of over-convergence. Phones that are cameras that are mp3 players. PDAs that have phones in that do GPS that can play mp3s. MP3 players that hold photos and play games. Handheld game consoles that play mp3s and movies and browse the web.
What are we the consumer supposed to do? So many products that cover the same bases? Break one device and you've lost everything.
Anyway, I like this new Walkman. I will be looking for a device with up to 6 Gig capacity with long battery live and an FM or DAB Digital radio. When that arrives, I will go for it.
This looks to be another ipod killer but it'll probaly be better than the ipod but still it'll fail
ergonomics!
you can use an ipod with one hand.
this looks like it will need two hands.
as usual, apple design triumphs.
its so simple, but so important.
2: I thought hockey-puckish
3: Re:"Sony has longevity." Yeah like my PS2, or I mean my 2nd one after the one that broke.
AT LAST!!!
A company has thought about the software on the damn player itself!!
Nice to see the browsing options they've added - a very nice breath of fresh air.
I wish all companies would take a note of this and try improve and look at their software as much as they look at the physical player itself, it makes the world of difference to us users!
Above all else a music player is for playing music. And sony products definitely outperforms most other brands in terms of sound quality and performance. Will definitely be looking into this one.
Sorry sony- far to little (actually to much, in size - day after the nano!?) - much too late... can you believe the design team behind this even considering "ooh, an MP3 Player!" "No one's done that yet". Damn it can we all move only nothing to see here - Sony should be shot.
I'm sorry - but Sony should have had the iPod sussed way back when, and all that messing around with MiniDisks... this is a shadow of the Walkman that once was.
Forget Sony and Apple, what about RIO!!! Rio support all music formats, have much, much better audio fidelity (Ipods sound like crap), twice the battery life and don't make you use their retarded software to transfer your .mp3's etc.
Jorweeck Kingsu, #24, this is what guides your purchasing decision? "Too many iPods" in the world? I suppose you don't buy toilet paper either?
Sony is such a mess... years and years have passed and they can't decide if they want to make their inevitable filthy lucre on music or music players.
You'd think the payola debacle would hasten a decision.
Gotta love that screen...
Firmware update for WMA? Don't tease me . . .
I love Sony, but their lack of native WMA playback has been the reason I haven't bought a DAP yet. Are they finally getting a CLUE? If this WMA thing pans out, I'm there. I've got over 60 GB of WMAs on my hard drive, and I'm not about to convert them all to mp3 or AAC (even though I really would like to buy an iPod). But I'll buy this thing if it supports WMA.
It's str8 up ugly; this alone is going to hurt!
It's got the in color for the fall but the design has got to be the ugliest thing i've ever seen. What the hell happened to sony?
screen = sweet
#55
Firmware update for WMA? Don't tease me . . .
It is truly a sad day when consumers actually *want* WMA. Who actually has music in WMA format? No one I know. For a long time Sony refused to support WMA (my DVD player is WMA-free). But now I see they will which certainly makes Sony lame IMO.
As far as the device is concerned, very sexy. Love the screen and the entire design. Apple should take a few notes. Compare this and the ipod side-by-side. The ipod looks pretty sad.
rayray?!?
You WANT wma format? Ugh. You're no geek. Get off engadget. ;-)
Kind of cute... but late!
Now that's pretty sharp looking!
ken
All they need to do now is to get their software up to spec. Maybe have an option like the iRiver where yea can choose to just have file based system so yea can just drop in the files and it reads them on the fly OR use the database option. Wish they did this... Their NW-E407 would be an iPod mini beater if this was the case
There's all sorts of reasons for different codecs. I suspect what people want is not WMA per se, but Napster-to-go or other DRM+WMA support. AAC seems to be a must-support format these days, even if they don't do Apple DRM for obvious reasons, and FLAC would be nice (if implausable). The only format nobody seems to have any use for? ATRACWhocaresPlus.
EARTH TO SONY: YOU CAN NOT CHARGE MORE THAN APPLE IPODS AND EXPECT YOUR CRAP TO SELL!
sorry sony, doesnt work that way. Apple's got the 6gb Mini for $250 right now and starting like, yesterday, they have the extremely small 4gb Nano with color screen for $250.
So Sony, take your crappy 6gb $272 mp3 player and shove it. For $30 I can get a 20gb iPod with color screen!
SONY ARE YOU STUPID?!?!? These will never sell!
I cannot fathom why any informed person would want WMA for anything.
Looks great! Gotta have it!
Who cares about color screens etc? Its in you pocket anyways! The color screen etc just sucks batteri life!!
@James: $300 for 20gb ipod or $317 for 20gb a3000. I'd take Sony's over ipod any day. And it's not just for the damn eyecandy look either. Ipods are so mainstream that it makes me sick. Hell, even my tech-n00b neighbor has one just for the sake of it. I like Sony's stuff, they're stylish and innovative (most of the time). Look at Ipod, 5 generations and still no change in design. Bleh.
Besides, that's the JPN price. It won't apply to every other region. I don't think Sony's the stupid one here.
"Look at Ipod, 5 generations and still no change in design."
They don't have to.
I like this Walkman screen.
Hope those aren't touch sensitive buttons...
Looks like hard candy :-P
I've used these devices. There are two of them the 6gb and the 20gb. The 6gb is smaller than the 20gb which is a little hard to hold. And the buttons are not touch sensitive. They have made the interface prettier - handphone-like menus.
#25 bazald:
"Actually, if you look at this from a historical perspective, earlier Apple products were designed (or at the very least co-designed) by Sony. So, really, they would be taking lessons from their apprentice. And, as we all know, when the apprentice tries to surpass the master, it is time to kill the apprentice."
Nope... You are flat out wrong. To say that Apple products were rebranded Sony products, or desinged/co-designed by Sony, is as false as saying that Synaptics (touchwheel/clickwheel/*Book touchpads) or PortalPlayer (controller chip) designed the iPod.
The original 1984 Macintosh had, AFAIK, 3.5'' floppy drives designed by Sony... Now tell me, since Apple nowadays uses Pioneer Superdrives, is Pioneer designing Macs? Think and learn before you post... :rolleyes:
Btw, even if Apple took design cues from Sony, thus making it an "apprentice" (which I don't think has really happened, as Apple invented the desktop computer as we know it, they also invented the PDA/Palmtop market, and set new standards on the laptop and DAP businesses, not Sony), what makes you think now is the time for killing it? That time already passed, Sony lost their chance for doing it. The "apprentice" IS killing the master as we speak. If I were you, I'd be kicking myself for not buying some Apple stock a few months ago :D
The Powerbook 100 was designed and manufactured for Apple by Sony, following the industrial design cues Apple came up with for the Powerbook 140 and 170.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook/stats/mac_powerbook100.html
Steve Jobs has been a well-known public admirer of Sony. I think the cultural divide between the two companies - read the vastly different management styles employed by Jobs and Sony execs - is what's kept them from collaborating much.
Screen looks pretty cool. Unfortunately this isnt a tv. So i have no interest in buying one. Sticking with ipod, its compatible with my mac.
+ Nice borderless screen.
+ Sound quality
+ Battery life
- No way to use it with one hand.
- Player colour: I'd prefer something more... globally acceptable (white, black, silver). This colour set is rather weird.
- File formats supported
- Software
- Price (should be much cheaper in order to be able to compete with an iPod)
I think the style of these players is at least weird. Sony (SonyEricsson) mobile phones are a pleasure to look at. These new Sony Walkmans are just awful: weird shape, lack of ergonomics, "cheap" look.
This is not the Walkman of the 80s. If someone is willing to pay $250 for a music player, apart from working well, he also demands that it also looks good.
OH MY DEAR LORD..
Can someone please confirm or deny whether this jem will be available in Canada as well?
I'm still calling the team of peramedics to come and fix my dropped jaw. I have the original NW player (20GB) and the recently launced 512 DAP player with the sexy OLED display; I just can't wait for this to be released. And with the speculation of wav support, TALLY HO!
Please respond
Dang, these are SEXY. I would go for the violet one. OLED displays are awesome. Colour screens are useless. Sony is undeniably stylish.
ATRAC3plus is actually a good format, believe it or not. But people can't help being too lazy to convert their files, so they complain about incompatibility issues and lack of user-friendliness. I love my music enough to go to all the trouble of converting it, but to each his own.
I did say this was sexy. And it is. The thing is... it's HD-based. That restricts the shape of the player to the standard rectangular brick. Not a very good move at this point. As pretty as it is, I'm afraid it DOES look rather like a brick of soap... but hey, at least it looks like expensive, exotic-fruit-scented glycerin soap. :D
Also, is it just me or does the interface vaguely resemble that of an iPod?
i love sony but these new displays suck..you can not read outside in the sun..i had to sell my nw e507 for this reason..how come the reviews dont talk about this..sony is really going down the wrong road (again)
Is AAC compression that much better then mp3? If so, how do you convert mp3 to AAC... I havn't seen any programs around...
I've owned a Rio, a Sony and an Archos.
My Archos was a brick (so was everything back then) but it had better features than anything on the market...and that holds pretty true still. I bought it 4 years ago, colour screen, photo and video support. Only problem is the battery life sucks completely. The new Archos Gmini xs202 looks good tho ( 20gb, 17hr battery life, even smaller than the sony nwhd5)... all round winner.
#53: I agree Rio rocks, dunno what the new leadership will do with the company tho. I was thinking of getting a Carbon (6gb, 20hr battery life, smaller than the ipod mini and looks a whole lot slicker) but that was until I heard about this Sony...
This Sony looks like it'll be amazing. I agree colour screens are pointless, you never get a chance to watch video on the go really (I've had a player with colour screen for 4 years remember, I know about colour screens). Sony says this'll support mp3 and store non music files, so sounds like it'll work as an external harddrive. And yes, it does look like a bar of soap but it STILL looks nice, now that's an achievement!
And I feel must bash the ipod a bit, other than interface they have nothing going for them, battery life sucks, theyre bigger than the gmini xs202, and EVERYONE has one!
Everybody has to realise that if you are buying an i pod you are wasting your money on an mp3 player designed to mess up after its warranty. You have to realise that if you buy an i pod, you kissing apples @ss.
Sony and Zen are so much better! Stop sucking up to i apple.
It it just me, or does this thing look very feminine?
Just add a Kotex logo and it's finished.
What I would love to know is what software you need to use to put music on it. Sony has a long and rich history of crappy software.
apple's being gay milking their ipod, instead of upgrading the very popular mini to a 8gb, they come out with this nano that cost $90 to make since they got the flash memory from samsung at like 50% discount.
i have my eyes on this and the creative zen micro photo. features + oled screen. and itunes is a crap program, why not just a goddamn drag/drop transfer like iriver or dell's
I want one of these, a worthy replacement for my NW-HD1, The ipods can shove their pointless colour screen and shitty battery life
Got a iPod mini atm, bought it about less than a year ago.. never dropped it yet battery fails after 5-20 seconds.. im not bothered to use it any more zzz
About this Sony. Gotta admit it looks nice, even tho SonicStage kinda sux, i'm still gonna buy it. (SonicStage is standby on my Sony Vaio S4XP laptop anyway ^^)
I've got a NW-HD1 and I prefer it to the bluky ipods that 99% percent of people seem to have.
The problem I have, like most people, is SonicStage. As an organiser of albums it's pretty good, but it takes far too long to load as a player. Though in the audio device library you can only view in order of transfer and not even by artist, which is rather annoying.
Today I was browsing and I saw this "connect player" that comes with these new walkmans and it looked like a godsend, pretty similar to itunes, which all my friends boast about.
screenshot:
http://www.macdailynews.com/gfx/article_gfx/050909_sony_connect.jpg
The official Connect site says I have to be in US to install what they have (and it's called 3.2, which sounds strikingly like the only other thing I've been able to find - an update 'SonicStage for Connect'), which now says I have to "initialze my audio device" (reformat) and delete all my files... so i can't put anything on, and i'm not sure if I can put them on again of I back it up (cause they're all stored and coded wierd (non-geek language)).
It's possible this screenshot I saw is only for JP.
Can anyone thats bought this WALKMAN let me know if they recieved CONNECTplayer or just SonicStage, and if they did would mind sending it to me :p
To poster *81 , yes AAC is much better in my opinion ,with a 128Kbps encoded song giving far more accurate sound repro with less low end compression artifacts at about 2 thirds the size of an Mp3.
Not surprising as AAC is basicaly MPEG's next gen version of MP3 which is in fact layer 3(audio) of MPEG AV codec 2 as used in DVD's.
Contrary to popular belief it is open-standard and NOT Apple-proprietary so all the others could use it as well if they weren't out to make their codecs the de-facto standard.
The iTunes store tracks have DRM tagged onto the end of standard AAC's at the insistence of the record companys, but cd's get ripped to non-proprietary AAC as default or MP3 if you want.
To transfer MP3's or non-protected WMA's to AAC just use iTunes which is free and can change them back to MP3's if you wish.
i am going to buy this sony walkman, reason being ive had an ipod.i found that the sound quality is very poor.shite battery life,easy to scratch just crap
Did i hear right? are these new sony A3000 MP3 players not compatible with apple mac desktops?
The A3000 is great, unfortunately I wanted a black one and got a purple one as black aren't out yet. There are problems though, and they are...
If you bave inner-earphones it's pretty quiet, so hopefully someone will develope an update for that after the first official update is released.
Secondly, good luck using AVLS to protect your hearing, it will work because you will be hearing whispers!
Lastly, what can I say about Sony Connect(the included software)? Well, I can simply say it's crap! It's slow, doesn't import all your music to the library when you tell it to, freezes your PC when you plug-in the Walkman and doesn't add all of your now scrappy collection of music to the player! This is certainly the big let down of an almost otherwise great product, hopefully there's a plug-in for Winamp or Windows Media Player out there!
Just got my NW A3000 and it locked up the screen withion half a day. The software keeps locking my computer up and it's very slow at coping my albums even slower than Sonic , which i've no complaints about. Been waiting all day for a phone call from Sony as the help line man said they hadn't had much training on this product and he would have to get some technical help and ring me back. The player emptied it's charge and i was able to put it on charge, 7 hours later it's still charging is this normal? I've also been advised to reinitialise the hard drive from Sony which is ok but i've 68 albums to get rid of bugga! I just hope it's a glich in the nice product and they get it sorted out quickly for me, but it seems i'm not the only one.
Don't buy Spny products. After all of the revelations of the past week or two, there's no knowing what sort of nasty software they're installing on their syste. Sony has taken the idea of managing their "digital rights" far too seriously, at the expense of us, the consumers. If you buy this player, you're eating from their hands the poison that will eventually deprive you of the ability to use the music you have in any way but the ways sanctioned by Sony execs. Fight the machine, boycot Sony in all of its media endevors. Maybe then they'll get the point and stop trying to play big brother and media gestapo.
As a lot of people have said, the CONNECT software is a huge let-down. In terms of transfer speed, it's not overly bad, but the interface itself is very unresponsive and it lacks a decent 'status' indicator to let you know what it's doing. There's something on the bottom right hand side of the screen, but it's slow to update and is usually meaningless. Once the initial bulk upload of music is complete, most users won't have much reason to use the software too frequently anyway.
However, the NW-A1000 itself is superb. The build quality of the unit is up to Sony's usual high standard and the styling is exceptional. The supplied headphones are fairly basic, but don't disappoint to any great extent. High and mid-range frequencies are OK, but the bass is a little on the weak side.
Navigation around the unit is intuitive and its library software is definitely up to the task. Just make sure that your ID3 tags are accurate.
I've used a few low-end/cheap mp3 players in the past couple of years and I'm certainly glad I opted to spend a bit more this time. Dodgy software aside, this is another excellent product from Sony.
The software is a nightmare!!!
I have an excellent laptop and PC with plenty of free space... yet the software crashes it everttime.. and when it does work it is not easy to use.
All in all I am really notimpressed :(
Getting one for xmas..I see it can be used as an external hardrive. How does that work if the player only connects to CONNECT. Or can you get music off with a standard mass storage driver, just not put it on. Just to add to the debatedoes anyone have a good reason to have a colour screen?honestly?burns battery, breaks and it lives in your pocket! The sensible thing would be to have the screen switch off after a few minutes of use or somewthing. Why do you need to see album covers?
All right, the deal is, I've had both the regular Ipod and the Nano. Fact is, both of these units tend to deteriorate in performance very quickly. I do have the new Sony walkman, and no problems with it yet. The battery lasts well beyond the Ipod's capacity and the charging time varies between 2 and 3 hours using an electrical outlet. This product is by far the best Sony has come out with, and has surpassed the Ipod's reputation. Everyone should check it out. As for the lack of "colour screen"...it is a useless feature. A colour screen is just for looks, it does not affect sound quality.
Well just bought the gorgeous A1000 and I think it's great! Never tempted by iPod-such BORING design! The Sonys sound quality is excellent-ATRAC works very well at retaining bags of detail! Why is everyone moaning so much about compatibility and software? Come on this player is about high quality MUSIC! New version of Sonic Stage/Connect hasnt caused me any probs and have now transferred loads of my CD's. The 'library' function sorts titles in alphabetical order and 'cd ripping' time is just minutes. iPod= shopping mall music, Walkman= quality hifi! Plug in your ears it'll take your breath away! Trust me!
I got a gorgeous black A3000 for Christmas and love it. With one huge exception - the Connect software is diabolical. Looks awful, works awful. Roll on compatibility with the likes of WMP so I can ditch what can only be described as a plain insult from Sony's software developers.