New Sony Walkman PMPs hit the internet, flash all kinds of colors

A whole new slew of Walkmans have hit Sony's New Zealand site, and we've got the goods on them. The new models, dubbed the NWZ-E435, NWZ-E436, and NWZ-E438 all sport a 2-inch QVGA LCD display, FM tuner, codec support for MP3, AAC, WMA, and Linear PCM files, and clock in at a very petite 8.5mm / 50g. The players will be available in 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB variations, with various color options for each model (except for the NWZ-E438, which only comes in black). Apparently, the PMPs play nice with both Windows Media Player and iTunes, offering drag and drop management for files. No word yet on price, regions, or release date, but we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for these sweet babies.

[Via Sony Insider]

[LTM @ Aug 17th 2008 4:50PM]

When will Sony update its high end players to 32GB's? It's the reason I've held off buying because they're highly rated with sound quality, but flash memory size is a bit of a deal breaker.

[AJ in the East Bay @ Aug 17th 2008 5:59PM]

Yeah, what happened to high capacity? Not many companies are interested, I guess.

[Jamma @ Aug 17th 2008 4:50PM]

iTunes? i thought Apple only allowed iPods to work with iTunes (and blackberrys)

[Homeslice @ Aug 17th 2008 4:52PM]

I think they mean Itunes-Plus files.

[d @ Aug 17th 2008 5:01PM]

I'm pretty sure it just means iTunes songs, i. e. from the iTunes music store, and only the iTunes Plus songs. I knew iPhone's synced with iTunes, but not the crackberry

[MattyG @ Aug 17th 2008 5:41PM]

iTunes does support other mp3 players, i've seen it in a knowledge base article somewhere

[telepheedian @ Aug 17th 2008 7:28PM]

It did back in the Rio days, on the Mac only.

[deyanimay @ Aug 17th 2008 8:45PM]

Moto slvr

[Matt @ Aug 18th 2008 5:48AM]

OSX Compatibility list (last update July 2008):
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2172?viewlocale=en_US

Windows Compatibility list (last updated Jul 2008):
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2289?viewlocale=en_US

OSX iTunes supports a few players, with no mention of any Sony product. Windows iTunes supports only iPod.

[sLY @ Aug 17th 2008 4:53PM]

i like... except f the mickey mouse button config :(

[Hellios @ Aug 17th 2008 4:57PM]

My new SE phone looks just like these PMPs...

[thebigDallas @ Aug 17th 2008 10:26PM]

same people designed and made it

[AlekZander @ Aug 17th 2008 5:08PM]

Hi-res display and they can still only manage that fugly duochromatic UI?

[Jamesology @ Aug 17th 2008 5:18PM]

I see someone is having their period. Get so angry, over a simple thing

[tekdroid @ Aug 18th 2008 4:48AM]

given how lots of these displays fare in sunlight, it's probably not such a bad decision for legibility.

[rob_lobstuhh @ Aug 17th 2008 5:21PM]

ooh mickey.

[OCEAN 14 (IM NOT CLAK) @ Aug 20th 2008 2:14PM]

I LIKE IT LOOKS LIKE AN IPOD, NICE CLICK WHEEL, JUST NEEDS AN APPLE LOGO TO BE ANY GOOD

[Sonysnoozealert @ Aug 17th 2008 5:30PM]

All of these players are just cousins to the same ugly girl. And enough with the Micky Mouse control scheme..it's played out.

[OCEAN 12 @ Aug 17th 2008 5:35PM]

I LIKE IT LOOKS LIKE AN IPOD, NICE CLICK WHEEL, JUST NEEDS AN APPLE LOGO TO BE ANY GOOD

[eiki @ Aug 17th 2008 5:43PM]

BELL. END.

HOW YOU LIKE THOSE APPLES?

[d @ Aug 17th 2008 5:53PM]

ur joking i'm sure

[Al @ Aug 17th 2008 5:55PM]

But you see this device is already good. Sony great SQ, ums support, and battery life is what makes it better than any apple.

[I-phone Is I-sexaayy @ Aug 17th 2008 5:48PM]

sigh*
they never give up

[Sahn @ Aug 17th 2008 6:37PM]

Oh, the irony.

[NightBlade @ Aug 17th 2008 6:48PM]

Kinda looks like a SE Walkman phone.

[Ridgecity @ Aug 17th 2008 7:05PM]

iS there a player that uses wmv other than Zune? The zune was never released in Latin America.

[Goku @ Aug 18th 2008 5:24AM]

creative's X-fi PMP supports wmv along with other video and audio formats

[josh @ Aug 17th 2008 7:09PM]

HIGH CAPACITY! WHAT CAN I DO WITH 8GB?! BRING HARD DRIVES BACK SONY!

[THELIVINGCOLOSSUS @ Aug 17th 2008 7:48PM]

It comes in a 16GB incarnation as well. Sometimes you just gotta hit the read link, guys...
http://www.sony.co.nz/walkman/product/mp3-walkman/current-range/nwza729b.jsp

[A.A. Fussy @ Aug 17th 2008 8:31PM]

My Creative players appear in iTunes-and Sony doesn't list Macs as a supported OS.

Seems to be a cost-reduced A series-limited EQ,no clear bass and DSEE.

[Johan S @ Aug 17th 2008 8:55PM]

Will a graphic designer with a color monitor please make a charitable donation of 2 hours of their time to make Sony some non-wussy color icons.

Thank you.

[stevejobsmultitouchedme @ Aug 17th 2008 10:50PM]

I think a graphic designer might tell you that a UI in neutral colors won't clash with a device that comes in multiple colors.

[Knives_Out @ Aug 17th 2008 9:17PM]

*yawn*

[TIMMAH! @ Aug 18th 2008 1:47AM]

What about ATRAC3?

[tekdroid @ Aug 18th 2008 4:47AM]

Sooo,
How many more years with non-removable storage and embedded batteries, Sony? Some of us would love more storage. Some of us could use more power. Some of use would love CD-quality sound with modern-day tagging. http://flac.sourceforge.net
http://products.sel.sony.com/walkman/

[fred @ Aug 18th 2008 7:27AM]

i have a 726 walkman which seemed to have led the updated line. seems to be of the same design style and interface. its imperfect. playlists are hard to use, no on the fly play listing, no deleting files, atleast with the 72x/82x series there seems to be bug with mp3 date tags so the time machine shuffle doesn't work right. also no bookmarking so audiobook/podcasting is a pain. no podcast directory so shuffle is a mess if you have such content.

and no there is no atrac3 anymore, its mp3 aac and wma.:) and yes drag and drop which is a big improvement over sonic stage. no support for universal mass storage protocol though:(

"given how lots of these displays fare in sunlight, it's probably not such a bad decision for legibility."

? the displays are very bright. sunlight is no problem. esp with the larger 72x/82x series.

i guess its just a matter of pricing. the previous 81x/61x series were too close to the price of the 72x/82x. really no good reason to buy those. i had a 81x with 2" screen. the bigger 72x series screen makes more difference than you'd think in at a glance use, 2" is too small.

still waiting for full 24bit color lcds though, i think these are all 16bit.


"creative's X-fi PMP supports wmv along with other video and audio formats"

true, but in video the sony players tend to stomp the competition on battery life. only in mpeg4 or h264 baseline 1.3 though. not a prob with mediacoder/handbrake being free;)

just a tip, if this is like the other models, in hand brake, to get h264 working add "level=13:bframes=0:cabac=0" in the advanced tab box.

[Al @ Aug 18th 2008 3:13PM]

I dunno about you but to me being able to hook my Sony a728 up to a linux machine, osx machine and vista machine and dragging the music onto the device then later playing is considered ums. Granted on every os but windows is it ums, while under windows it works as mtp.

[fred @ Aug 19th 2008 2:50AM]

maybe you have support for mtp protocol support in linux and osx installed, because it certainly doesn't seem to support ums. i've found no way to enable that and i've gotten into the service mode. which is actually quite easy.

"Press "Back", then activate "Hold" switch. Now press "Option" and hold down
while entering the following w/the direction pad:
up, up, down, down, right, left, up , down, up ,down, right, play/pause"

it enters test mode with more settings.

my other gripe with the unit is that it doesn't let you change gui orientation. with longer file names navigation would be easier with the display on its side obviously.

sony got somethings right with these newer units, but some obvious ease of use things they seem to be missing out on.

[fred @ Aug 19th 2008 5:22AM]

forgot to add the volume has to be 17 before you do the test mode stuff

[ikebana @ Aug 19th 2008 6:57AM]

These walkmans have got breath taking looks. One thing I like o know is about its sound quality. Actually I want one which has bass refelxing earphones. Although most of the Sony's audio devices come with such kind of earphones, I just want to confirm about these ones.

http://www.audio-news.co.uk

[fred @ Aug 21st 2008 2:05AM]

its not really a click wheel, its just a directional pad like all previous models.

as for sound quality, it is excellent, it beats the ipod by quite a bit. the included ex headphones with some models beats the bundled creative/ipod types quite easily. they are basically ex 82 or 802 ...slightly downgraded version of the ex85. there are others that come with the "noise canceling" type headphones and i can't vouch for those, i don't have much trust in those though.

mainly the advantage of the sony is super battery life and audio quality.

the down side is they seem to have the user friendliness of a knock off product.

another gripe. slow seeking. esp bad if you are listening to audio books or podcasts. its very easy to accidentally go to next track with that pad control, and so seeking back to where you were before is a big chore. even pausing it first which makes it faster doesnt help all that much.