Sony kills Walkman Bean after failure to sprout

Often derided, never imitated, nominated by Engadget readers for worst device of the year, Sony's Walkman Bean is now about to fade into history, after just six months on the market. While the rapid demise of the Bean is sure to be blamed on the fierce competition in the digital audio market, where being a distant second-place to Apple earns a company bragging rights, the product had its own share of failings, including Sony's SonicStage software, clunky controls, and the lack of PlaysForSure support. In fact, that last point might have automatically doomed the Bean, given that the market is rapidly separating into two camps: those that support iTunes (the iPod and a handful of phones) and those that support PlaysForSure (everyone else). Sony's product didn't fit into either camp -- opting, instead for integration with the company's proprietary Connect service -- and in the end the company is left with a costly failure, pondering what might have bean.

[Conrad Quilty-Harper @ Feb 16th 2006 5:54PM]

Good riddance. And take your memory stick with you.

[weaszel @ Feb 16th 2006 5:58PM]

I'm sure that horrid name had nothing to do with it's failure. It's hard to sound cool when you're carrying around a hi-tech gadget called a Bean.

"I got an iPod!"
"I got Nomad Zen!"
"I got a Bean..."

[willyjsimmons @ Feb 16th 2006 5:59PM]

Wow.

I actually bought one for my girlfriend instead of a Shuffle.(And I still haven't gotten my birthday present after two weeks, but I digress)

1.) It's got a display therefore...
2.) you can navigate your playlist.
3.) The thing holds a ton of songs and has a long battery life.

The horror.

All the grips about sony's software is a little overblown IMO. Sometimes it helps to read the instructions so one knows exactly how to work a device....but maybe that's just me.

[jordan @ Feb 16th 2006 6:05PM]

not sure if this company will ever understand that an MP3 player in this market, REQUIRES A STRONG SOFTWARE APPLICATION TO BACK IT UP!!!!!!!!!! STUPID DORKS!!!!!!!! You'd think with all this money they spend developing something they'd at least come out with a form of software to back it up. They have done the same thing with the PSP, and probably will with the PS3, how do you get videos onto your psp without downloading a 3rd party software program, or downloading some no name band from their connect service??? You have to encode and change all kinds of garbage to get one flippin video on it!!! Give me a break!!! Again, it's a HARDWARE company not a SOFTWARE COMPANY, and you need a combination of the two to be successful in this market!!! WAKEUP SONY!!!! You've been in a daze since your walkman is no longer the cool kid on the block and your minidisc and consistent rehash of some new form of optical disc formats keep failing, good luck blue ray, vhs-less quality, but cheaper, and cheaper players, betamax-more expensive, expensive players, but a little better quality, HDVD-cheaper, cheaper players, slightly less storage, Blueray-more expensive, more expensive player, more storage, but we all know who won the tape wars, we shall see soon!!!!

[jordan @ Feb 16th 2006 6:08PM]

oh, yes i do own a PSP, but i also own the new ipod, guess which one gets used more for audio/video? hence the reason why i bought the new ipod...

[Apreche @ Feb 16th 2006 6:09PM]

It's so weird that on Engadget whenever you talk about DAPs now you keep mentioning the PlaysForSure vs. Apple like the support of DRM makes or breaks a player. That might be true, I don't know. But I've got an iPod and I've never bought a single song from iTunes. I use it for podcasts and plain old mp3s. No matter what music player I had I would do the same thing. And everyone I know who has a music player is in the same boat as me. It's just plain old mp3s. The nano just happens to be awesome at it.

I'd really like to see some sort of study to see what percent of iPod owners are actually playing DRMed files and what percent of people with PlaysForSure players are actually using DRMed files. I think the results might be a bit surprising to certain companies.

[dave @ Feb 16th 2006 6:16PM]

It should've been christened the Sony Kidney. Then it would've sold like gangbusters.

[itanshi @ Feb 16th 2006 6:36PM]

HOT DAMN

i went through 2 of these, first one didn't stay on after the charge, would only be on to charge and sync

second one the radio got stuck on a channel! wtf!!!

and then i kille dth ebattery from use and it WOULD NOT recharge

i'm so sorry i didn't read your review of this before e_e so very sorry, please help me, i now gotta get a third one, maybe, what a waste

[Greg hates Lemmings @ Feb 16th 2006 6:45PM]

its just Sony's SonicStage software! its horrible!

[passerby @ Feb 16th 2006 6:53PM]

Combine all the related design mistakes and proprietary junk mentality, the growing disdain for Sony produtcs (other thatn the PS* line) and punishment for the rootkit debacle... that's recipe for disaster. Sony, get out of the music-related stuff before you drag the whole company down the drain.
Consumers are increasily avoiding proprietary formats, and Sony is the icon of such.

[tazeeyore @ Feb 16th 2006 7:00PM]

Well the only thing that is ok from Sony is there handycam software and it even needs to be updated frequently. But that's about it.

[Kevinttt @ Feb 16th 2006 7:15PM]

Is it just me or does every new Sony idea flop on them and lose them money?

1."Newsflash: UMD isnt Selling well."- Engadget
2.A "childrens" underpowered electronic toy beating (DS) their multi-media PSP (i myself like DS).
3.Their SonicStage sofware is garbage.
4. Their minidiscs are dead, along with jellybeans and walkmans.
5. PS3 is over hyped and will not deliver (in that size at least).

I used to be a big fan of sony and their cutting edge technology, heck i almost bought a $5000 television, a shelf system, and a minidisc player from them a two years back. I ende up with an ipod, no new tv, and a home theatre system for my tv. Theyre not looking too good economically and if their ps3 blu ray deal doesnt go down well, theyre toast. Plus, why didnt they just make it 8 or 6 controllers, they had to go with 7...

[m-p{3} @ Feb 16th 2006 7:18PM]

I personally hate almost everything related to Sony, including their consoles. They always try to remove the rights to do what the consumer want, and they mostly get in trouble with that.

Hope they will not understand and disappear forever.

[Kev @ Feb 16th 2006 7:19PM]

Clever play on words there, Marc Perton.

[Jason @ Feb 16th 2006 7:28PM]

#4: Another alternative to something as good or better than iTunes is just to make the damn thing mass storage compliant so you can drag and drop your files (audio and otherwise) as you see fit. I don't understand why Sony and others don't make this a standard feature. I still love my Rio Carbon for its utter simplicity and good sound and battery life. It's two years old and if someone would just update it with a larger harddrive or flash memory they would still be selling well.

Here's a simple formula to compete with the iPod:

1. At least match capacity, sound quality, and price (Rio Carbon).
2. Match or have better batter life (Rio Carbon).
3. Have a logical interface (Rio Carbon).
4. Clean, simple design (Rio Carbon).
5. Mass storage compliant (Rio Carbon).
6. Play mp3 and window media audio files at least (Rio Carbon).
7. Forget about video and concentrate on the above for now, just like apple did for years.

To offer better value add any of the following:

1. Good FM tuner (some of the new SonyEricsson phones are good examples)
2. Play FLAC and/or other types of audio files.
3. Gapless playback between songs (Rio Karma).
4. Bluetooth 2.0 streaming audio (see forthcoming SonyEricsson unit for phones)

I realize I'm not a DAP engineer but you could literally put a new drive in the Rio Carbon and have about the most credible iPod alternative as is. Add a few of the other things and as far as an audio player goes is would likely be the best on the market. Too bad Rio's gone.

Jason

[Derwin @ Feb 16th 2006 7:47PM]

Yeah, the bean was a weird one. The NW-E505, the one that looks more like a really shiny lighter, is great. Ive been very satisfied with mine so far after a few months. Better controls, bigger display, much nicer-looking too. Same software though. Oh well, I don't use SonicStage with it anyway, there's actually secondary software that skips SonicStage entirely and just lets you drag MP3s into the application window and itll convert them. So, the Network Walkman MP3 Players are a better line than the beans.

[Deluxe @ Feb 16th 2006 7:52PM]

I'm getting so sick of you moronic fanboys parading around talking like you what that the hell you're on about.

The MiniDisc is HUGE in asia. There are just as many MiniDisc players STILL selling like hotcakes as there are MP3 players.

Get some knowledge of reality outside your bedroom, then you can mouth off with your degrees is pretend product analysys and shoddy business theories.

[Jake @ Feb 16th 2006 7:57PM]

Kevinttt,
It's not seven "controllers." It has seven Bluetooth slots. Therefore, you could have four controllers, a mouse, a keyboard, and something else connected. You can also use USB controllers. So not to worry, if you'd like to use more or less than seven controllers, you'll be able to.

Also, I bought my mom a Bean for Christmas, and she likes it very much. The battery life is superb, and the sounds isn't all that bad either. Really, SonicStage isn't that bad. It's only downside is that it converts songs to ATRAC a little slowly for my taste (which you don't have to do, but it helps with fitting more songs on the player). I myself own a PSP, and use the software to put songs on it very often. It's not nearly as buggy as it was two years ago.

Someone also said that you have to use a 3rd party application to put videos on the PSP, which isn't true at all. Sony has software that will convert pretty much any format of video you have and place it on the PSP. It's called PSP Media Manager, and it works very nicely. There ARE third party applications that do the job (and do it extremely well - PSP Video 9), but you don't have to go that route.

[Jonathan F @ Feb 16th 2006 7:58PM]

I'm starting to think that Sony is becoming the GM of electronics companies. They keep pushing the same designs and technologies, and wonder why things fail when every other company has figured out that you need to adapt to the market - not have the market adapt to you.

Not that Sony is devoid of good products. Some of their TVs (especially the SXRD models) are great. A few people I know have the HC1 HD camera and love it. And the PSP is a technically excellent product, just not what the market wants at the moment.

[RazorElite @ Feb 16th 2006 8:04PM]

Have you realised just about any news item with the word Sony in it is negative news? On Engadget or any other website.

[cyuzna @ Feb 16th 2006 8:15PM]

Personally, I thought the Bean was a great idea.

I'd rather my MP3 player have an attached USB than have to deal with yet another cord/dock cluttering up my life.

Also, I'm waiting for someone to figure out a way to build retractable headphones into their player.

[steve @ Feb 16th 2006 8:17PM]

The Sony player "system" is very poorly designed and even the hardware (usually Sony's strong point) on this one is poor. The one I played with had the build quality of a $50 no-name 256MB player.

More important is that this is from a company that was making rootkit attacks on our computers with their DRMed "CDs" ... a total Sony boycott is a good way to voice your opinion on DRM.

Sony once made quite a bit of nice kit. They have fallen behind in many categories and choosing something else is very easy these days.

[fckr @ Feb 16th 2006 8:21PM]

/* Off-topic */
Jake: I thought Bluetooth can handle several devices at once, no?

[starwxrwx @ Feb 16th 2006 8:30PM]

First off, the 'bean' is the most ugly device I have ever seen.

Secondly, why not make the device either mass storage compliant or write some simple software to integrate with the directories of an organised iTunes library? If you already use iTunes but don't want an iPod, wouldn't it be great to be able to use the directory structure that iTunes _automatically_ generates (hence no new 'updating' sofware or hours of manual labour required) as the navigational structure for your mass-storage compliant DAP?

[Huarng @ Feb 16th 2006 8:31PM]

agree stupidest design ever. props on the battery life though

[Scott @ Feb 16th 2006 8:42PM]

Argh I hate stupid puns

[Michael @ Feb 16th 2006 9:17PM]

Sony's dying

First UMD
Then The Bean
Next...PS3

[raymond causwell @ Feb 16th 2006 10:44PM]

sony your time's - come and gone -
you can takes all your rootkits prepryitry software and hardware - good ridance - poor customer service online MMO too

[Jamar @ Feb 17th 2006 12:35AM]

I have to say this- that I personally think that SonicStage is far easier to use than iTunes, and that it does more of what I want it to do (I have the Japanese version, which looks and works very differently, and better than the American version- I know because I have tried SonicStage US, SonicStage JP, and iTunes) because it can grab CD information for albums that iTunes is unable to find info for (even though I buy all my CDs in China at retail price from Sony Music China- no rootkit here!) and because it will work with my MiniDisc player too. Like an earlier poster said, MiniDisc is still big in Asia, where I can buy whole albums in MiniDisc format. I won't use iTunes until I can get decent J-pop from it without having to jump through hoops (prepaid cards are hard to come by in China, and at least I have a Japanese friend to help me out with the Sony's Mora service ( mora.jp ). That's another point- Connect isn't that good compared to Mora, and they really need to make Mora the worldwide service to use instead of having Connect for the US.

[tito @ Feb 17th 2006 12:56AM]

Sony, I used to have so much respect for you, but nowadays I avoid your products like the bird flu. Your products suck. You don't listen to your customers. You have so much arrogance. Get your head out of your rear end. Your top managers should be fired or forced to step down in disgrace. What a shame. I hope Samsung and Nintendo will finish you off and bury you.

[Jake @ Feb 17th 2006 1:12AM]

/* Off-topic response */
fckr,
The Bluetooth for the PS3 can handle 7 different devices.

[Eric @ Feb 17th 2006 4:18AM]

Two words:

Screw sonicstage!

[Eric @ Feb 17th 2006 4:24AM]

Oh yea...Sony need to hire consumers for they're research team. An ex-toliet designer, a crowd of females for asethetic evaluation, lots of keen engadgeteers if they're gonna get back on track!

Sony i loved u for the MD, but now ur no use to me, ur MD sits on my shelf gathering dust! GET BACK ON TRACK, cos i ain't buying overpriced TVs, just DAPs!

*I hope they read this*

[Jrose @ Feb 17th 2006 10:40AM]

I also say Sony needs to drop the 'network walkman' name they've been applying to some products. It's horrible. Sony thinks it's smart because of the walkman name- however.. no one under 30 recognizes the walkman name as being important.. and anyone over 30 is scared to death of the term 'network' being in the name. Bad marketing move.

[Dave @ Feb 17th 2006 11:06AM]

MD players were fantastic. At the time, a portable storage medium that sounded great and had no limits! Plug it into your stereo, doesn't matter whose CD is inside... it'll record directly onto the MD at high quality and you can take it with you.

What happened Sony? You're so different now... that sort of consumer-friendly product is exactly opposite of what you're doing now. Stop trying to force the market to do what YOU want... you're just not powerful enough anymore! With the exception of the Playstation, you killed your OWN brand names through shoddy products! And hell, my PS2 broke THREE damn times! I'm not the biggest fan of THAT brand either!

[Gray @ Feb 17th 2006 11:28AM]

Question... Since when were Sony a 'distant second place' to Apple in the mp3 player market? Isn't that Creative's place? Or iRiver's? Or Rio's?

[Stan @ Feb 17th 2006 1:48PM]

I owned one of these for a while, I agree, it sucks. I dont understand why every mp3 player out there needs some sort of ridiculous software to run. I am a faithful Creative Nomad MuVo fan as it has NO software. Plug it in and drag mp3s, wmas, whatever onto it and you are ready to go, no long startup for a buggy POS software app. Second, the actual design seemed great, but if you have ever used one, you would see that it sucks. In order to have the player be off hold, you had to slide the plastic usb cover off of the player a little bit, making the player seem like it was 'opened' up all of the time, really annoying! Also, the radio function was so inconvenient to use, it was a waste. I love the shape, usb interface and usb charging ability, but overall it gets my vote for worst pos of the year... right after the chuck norris action jeans I bought! I still cant roundhouse kick?!

[DM @ Feb 17th 2006 3:15PM]

#34, They aren't talking about Sony... why dont you click the link and find out?

[Hiro11 @ Feb 17th 2006 3:44PM]

To all the people bashing Sony for using "proprietary software and hardware", Apple does exactly the same things yet they're almost universally praised here. I'm not trying to bash Apple, but it seems like a bit of a double standard.

[Trey @ Feb 17th 2006 4:27PM]

Sony have completely lost the plot.
MD players where probably the last thing that Sony did well. Then they shot themselves in the foot trying to follow Apple.

NW-HD1 was a pile of cr*p. You'd think that they would have learned from their mistakes. Oh no, they followed this up with the equally bad NW-HD2. They must have thought they were on a roll, because they even went as far as the NW-HD3.

Sony used to be the big king of tech stuff. Thank god that era is over. Apple burn't them, Motorola will bury Sony Ericsson and Samsung are going to put the final boot into them, that is unless their own stupidity gets them first.

I used to buy nothin' but Sony. Now they are the last port of call.

Oh I nearly forgot, Sonicstage and Connect. GIVE IT UP ALREADY!!!!

[Eric @ Feb 18th 2006 1:52AM]

#37. But heck, Apple iTUnes doesnt MAKE u use their crapy ATRAC , Atrac 3, Atrac 3 plus propietry shit codecs. Neway i bought an ipod right after i got sick of waiting for my great 192kbps mp3s to lose sound quality and waste my time. Personally yes iTunes is propietry, but for one i noe, it doesnt crash as much as Sonicstage and theres really no need to convert songs into stupid propietry formats! Yes VBR, apple loseless, but not many people really use it. But mp3 is the main medium and that ATRAC ISN'T!

SONY U BETTER B READING THESE POSTS!

[tekdroid @ Feb 18th 2006 4:09AM]

39. #37. But heck, Apple iTUnes doesnt MAKE u use their crapy ATRAC , Atrac 3, Atrac 3 plus propietry shit codecs.
-------------
So is MP3. Only more popular proprietary. http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/
A quick glance there will leave u with no doubts.

For what it's worth, for Hi-MD (ie. the updated MiniDisc so few talk about), Sony allows you to record and play back in (lossless) linear PCM. Apple doesn't. Apple has their own proprietary format and aren't really recording devices.

DVD is proprietary too. And so is virtually every other format out there, including CD.

People seem to love widely-supported proprietary stuff. They don't really care if it's proprietary or not, or who's paying what fees. As long as they have support. Companies love to collect royalties on their proprietary IP. The companies behind superior open-source lossy codecs like Ogg Vorbis and superior lossless codec FLAC actually don't charge any per-unit royalties for implementing their formats in devices and software. Just making that distinction.

Of course we'd all love Sony to drop the embarrassing SonicStage. But the same can be said for iTunes. Apple doesn't let you copy files from the unit to your computer. Only computer to unit. Third-party freeware has to do what Apple doesn't let you.

At least with SonicStage 3.4, you can do that (if using Hi-MD).

[Ken Jones @ Feb 19th 2006 5:01PM]

This is interesting news to be released on a Friday. Funny where is the confirmation. Sure there seems to be an "official" word from Sony's spokes person via email. Email? Everyone has jumped on this including myself. Ya I have a spot for it in my show. Heck it's a good story. And it gives us something to talk about.

But call me lazy if you must. I can't find any official confirmation about this hot potato.

Best to all,
Ken Jones

[Ben Cooper @ Feb 26th 2006 3:42PM]

Whoever it was that mentioned:
"Secondly, why not make the device either mass storage compliant"
Please take time to read up or use a product before baselessly slandering it. The bean is mass storage compliant. I use it for my MP3's as well as my work backups.
In fact I bought the Bean as a replacement for my Apple iPod. I had owned my 3G iPod for almost 2 years and now it's toast, yellow, and the backlight bleaches the screen to an unreadable state, not to mention it's now-5-minute battery life.
I've had my Bean for 3 months now and it's as great as it was when I first bought it. I don't have to carry around any spare cables, plus there is no delay when navigating through the simple menu system to play my music.
Also i'd like to add:
1) Purchase music from iTunes
2) Burn to CD
3) Import as MP3's via iTunes or Sonicstage.
4) Copy to device.
...and don't start on "it's a waste of cd-r's" as i'm more than happy to burn a cd of 10-12 tracks that I have paid money to download, i'm sure other people are too.
The Bean may be dead, but I love it.

[Joe @ Mar 18th 2006 9:03PM]

Sony Bean sucks. Save your money. Mine worked for the first few months, and just died today. I think I had it for like 2 months, thats pretty bad. Whats wrong with it you might ask? well, its built horribly, theres several design flaws, and it looks and sounds lame. The battery in mine died, I used it pretty much everyday. I have bought 10-15 dollar cd players that Ive used everyday and had them for at least a year, and they run perfect.

No, this is not an isolated event, just do some research like I have, you will find that they are horrible products. My advice.... buy something that isnt made by sony.

[Lmao Keep bashing @ May 19th 2006 6:09PM]

LMAO! K guys keep bashing -.- but fyi, sony ain't gonna fall, they are doing a great job!, gotta love their LCDs, dvd players , tvs , psp, ps2, psone, and the soon to come ps3 etc. So sonic stage might be bad, but itunes? yes go buy ur music more, while i use my p2p, enjoy, drag drop complete!

you* (end of month) : OH SHAT! i spent 200! on music!

Me* (end of month) : ok time to pay for internet fees!

[Mersina @ Jun 12th 2006 7:34AM]

Hi there,
My Sony Bean has a flimsy USB door that doesn't click shut very well....does anyone else have this problem?? I heard it might be a flaw, so just checking...

[KJ @ Jun 12th 2006 3:34PM]

Wow i cant beleive I was actually gonna get 1 of these "bean's" for my birthday. I guess i should get a sandisk or ipod instead..

[Mersina @ Jun 16th 2006 5:34PM]

I'm in Sweden at the moment and can't find a Sony Bean to compare the one I bought on eBay...does anyone else have a Bean with a flimsy USB door that doesn't stay closed when in your pocket or purse? Let me know! And if an electronics store is near you with one in stock, have a look and see if, even brand new, it has that flaw or not...it would really be appreciated to see if I should send this Bean back to the eBay chick who sold it to me!

[Michael Siroen @ Apr 8th 2008 7:04AM]

I bhought the bean in the beginning, and I liked it.
Now, a few years after its release mines broke and I was searching for the exact replacement. Shame they quit with the Bean.

-DP