Sony's new Vaio WA1 streams internet radio through the home

Streaming music and internet radio stations from you PC to a shiny WiFi-equipped box is not a new idea by a long shot, but it's nice to see Sony joining the fray with its Vaio WA1 all the same. The boombox works via a normal wireless network or a peer-to-peer connection with your computer, and includes a USB WiFi adapter for sans-wireless luddites. Naturally, the player supports that codec of codecs, Sony's ATRAC, but there's also unprotected AAC and WMA, along with good ol' MP3. Internet radio comes courtesy of Live365.com. If you'd rather not be cooped up in the house all day to rock out to your tunes, you can pull 128MB of musics over to the WA1 and hoist the unit onto your shoulder for 4 hours of battery-fueled boombox-style tunes. There's a remote included, along with touch-screen controls, a five-line LCD, line-in, analog and S/PDIF audio out, a heaphone jack and a music alarm clock function. Of course, all these frills don't come cheap: Sony's charging $350 for the unit. They'll be selling 'em online in white and black varieties.

[jster23 @ Jan 7th 2007 10:13PM]

wow thats ok
but lets just stick with the origanal radio

siris and xm radio is to expencive
really..

[Geoffrey Sperl @ Jan 8th 2007 12:20AM]

jster23, I do not think XM or Sirius have anything to do with this. This is just Internet radio steams, not satellite radio.

The issue there is, for the most part, Internet radio sucks.

And, let's be honest: iTunes and AirPort Express, the Squeezebox, the Roku, the Sonos, and even TiVo have allowed you to stream music files and Internet radio for years at this point. And there really isn't a overwhelming user base clamoring for streaming Internet radio, is there? Really, let's be honest...

And you can move a small handful of songs over to it and bring it with you? Who travels with 128MB of songs anymore?

Sony is, once again, a day late and a dollar short. As someone who actually likes Sony's products, this is becoming embarrassing...

[Rusty Hodge @ Jan 8th 2007 2:42AM]

Internet radio exclusively by Live365? Great, forced to listen to all their annoying commercials. Hopefully you can directly enter URLs as well.

[Clayj @ Jan 8th 2007 1:27PM]

We should note in the interest of fair disclosure that Rusty Hodge runs that coolest of all Internet radio stations, SomaFM (including my fave, Groove Salad), and is therefore a competitor to Live365. :-)

I do enjoy listening to Groove Salad on my Roku SoundBridge Radio.

[E. Douglas Jensen @ Sep 21st 2008 8:47PM]

This is the only internet radio I found that can log you into 365live's premium service.