After proving a bit of a white whale at CES, Sony's new touchscreen
Walkman NWZ-X1000 hasn't been easy to come by. After
Stuff's general overview
video hands-on, we've been waiting for some hard-hitting impressions, which
Le Journal du Geek has finally provided, in French. Granted, they're playing with a non-complete prototype, so we'd have to take these impressions with a grain of salt either way. From what we can tell, they're certainly feeling the device aesthetically, and figure it's totally usable one-handed. The OLED screen is great, the incomplete interface is so far familiar and the capacitive touch has an "impressive response," perhaps even better than the iPod touch. The browser didn't get such rave reviews, but overall they found it to be in their "top five" players, with great audio quality. So at least somebody likes this thing, we'll hopefully have some more concrete impressions of our own to add as this thing approaches release in the coming months.
posted February 6th 2009 11:06AM
I think you're blurring the line between Phone and PMP.... again..... please remember not all people can afford an expensive contracted phone or most people have a phone they already like and want to keep.
They're holding an iPod touch.
wasn't replying to the article - was in response to some of iEye's or someones comments that the new iPhone would be better. Which when his/her posts got deleted mine suddenly make little sense ;)
We looked at this device at CES and yes, the OLED display is definitely gorgeous. But given Sony's past history of crappy desktop software, it won't make a dent in the iPod franchise. This product is very late to the market and as the reader above commented, should be priced much lower to attract buyers (but it's difficult with an expensive OLED part).
Be forgiveful. Sony may have been evil in setting standard for its own product. Sony Memory Stick, OpenMG, ATRAC, MiniDisc, UMD, Beta VCR...
For the past two generation of Sony mp3/pmp players, they have dropped ATRAC and be compatible w/ WMP and allows drag and drop. They have done some great things. and they tend to reproduce better sound than iPod, even with their stock earbuds.
Give it a try.
You do have a point. iPod has a very well established eco-system of accessories. It is hard to compete and perhaps a little too late. Still, I don't think any music lover would sacrifice audio quality over a huge selection of over priced accessories.
Sony ditched Sonic stage a long time ago - all of their recent players will work with almost any audio software except itunes and support drag n drop.
And Apple's software isn't exactly "top notch" either.
Their recent players will work even with iTunes, but I prefer MediaMonkey or drag and drop myself.
SkratchBoard is just a troll. Sony's past SonicStage effort is no different from iTunes or the Zune software.
Bound to be of better sound quailty and headphones compared to the iPOD. People who want higher quaility sound get sony whilist thoose who think ipods and mp3 players are different(I'm serious there are people that dumb) will just go out and buy an over advertisted iPOD.
Or Cowan, or Creative, or iRiver, or anything else really. But yes, it's nice to see Sony and they're tradionally excellent portable device sound quality stepping back into the ring with this thing.
Or maybe people who buy iPod's just prefer them?
Seriously... just because someone disagrees with you, it dosn't mean that your a better person.
I agree with Fanman. My a726 was too warm sounding for my tastes and I prefer an ipod line out to a mini3.
@ishcabible
"Warm" is a good thing when discussing sound quality. Music enthusiast usually prefer stereo receivers to digital receivers because they have a "warmer" sound. Maybe you picked the wrong word, but what you said makes no sense. I can understand people preferring iPods for their interface and functionality, but not for poorer sound quality....
$250 PMP that cannot make calls = $800 Phone that can make calls
Your logic is flawless...
Each one of us have an opinion. In my case I have a Walkman phone and no music in it, I rather use my Walkman player for music.
I was looking forward to this player, but if those prices are correct (€380 for 32Gb) i'll be looking elsewhere.
Pity.
The one thing I would LOVE to see Sony do with this line of Walkmans is provide it connectivity to the Playstation Video Store. The screen is begging to show off movies, but if they don't provide a good source for video, then that beautiful screen feels underutilized.
The new iPhone is coming out in a few months? When did they announce that?
Die troll.
Nobody knows that for a fact, it's just that Apple has always refreshed their portable (and most unportable) devices at least once each year at around the same time. It won't actually go on sale for a few months after they announce it, but there you have it.
This device should have now phone / SMS functions, retail price (without contract) around 300 € - and Sony would have a new best selling product on the market....
uumm.... $200 phone + 2 year contract at at least $30 a month = $920, choosing that as the standard as almost all iphone will have been purchased through such a plan. So actually $800 was wrong, it's much higher.
That screen is all sorts of gorgeous
It's an early termination fee, which is a little pointless as you STILL have to pay to use the phone which on PayG probably costs even more then the contract depending on usage.
Nice player. The prices are on par with the iTouch, which isn't as bad a thing as some people make it out to be, depending on what it comes with. I have and love my iPhone 3G (which I know is a phone and not a PMP, but its the closest thing I have to a Touch), and there are areas I wish it was improved on as a media device, which they clearly want it to be along with a phone.
Better codec support (Apple is terrible with this) and a high resolution screen would easily make that price seem better, even if its the same as the Touch. I can only see that price being an issue if it has nothing to offer over the touch, or if what it does offer doesnt matter. They kind of have the big issue of the Touch having the App Store, and it looks like a bigger screen. Technical aspects aside, which most consumers for Touch style devices don't pay as much attention to, screen size and the Apps on the iTouch may make it tough for Sony.
Either way, I think I would rather get a Cowen if I was just looking for something to compete with a Touch.
Your comment still doesn't make any logical sense. With that two years you also get data service, phone service, voicemail, nationwide, etc etc. You pay $300 for the phone, that's it. Its the "deal" price you get by having their service for two years. So yeah, in the end after two years, you may pay over $900. But only $300 of that was directly for the cost of the phone. If you do the ETF thing, you don't have to Pay to keep the iPhone, I don't even know why you said that. Buy the iPhone, ETF it, one month service or whatever you have to do, and then don't use it as a phone. Or if you need to, get a prepaid SIM if you only want it around for some emergency.
That seems completely stupid to me, but you can do it.
Personally I would have liked to see the review with a little Maxime le forestier but you know, that's just me.
very nice, something i want done well in a PMP is a browser, i wish it was better on this, hopefully the final version will be. It seems like the browser the itouch has is unbeatable with that multi-touch capability... at least to me that is. havent seen better.
ipod touch will never have the sound quality like the Walkman.
look at all ipod review and you will see that they give for the ipod 6/10 for the quality sound.
and walkman 9 or 10/10.
What a great product.I want one
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the only reason that I have my current iPod 5.5G is to play movies. Let my Sony NW-HD5 to do the music job in a better sound quality than the iPod. Everyone knows that Sony has the advantage in sound quality. They made dumb decisions trying to lock the people in what they thought was the correct format. Now they are listening.
It's a great product when only comparing the hardware and multi media player capability. However, iPod Touch and iPhone supports Apps. So you can do more things to than playing music and video comparing to the Sony PMP.
I was an Apple hater before, but iPod touch and iPhone 3G changed my mind. I love my iPhone 3G for the convenience for everything from Apps, GPS, multimedia, Internet browsing and gaming all in one. Even it has only 2 Mpix camera no auto focus, no flash, no copy and paste, and no video conference capability other stuff already side tracked me from it's cons. None of the devices on the market so far can really reach that convenience level in terms of interface and navigation, not even Nokia Xpress 5800, windows mobile, nor Japanese HDTV, 8Mpix camera phones. The closest challenge is Google but it's still in a very beta stage.
I think this is the biggest difference between people who buy iPods and people who buy PMPs from Sony and Cowon. When I buy a PMP, the first thing that comes to mind is the sound quality, not the app for calculating the tip (which is a skill any elementary school graduate should have).
Although this is not an attack on you, I find it very sad that people do not care about sound quality anymore (I know iTunes sold songs at 128k as late as 2007, if not currently). I hope the personal music player market moves more towards sound quality as opposed to adding useless functionality.
Will this be able to do gapless playback? Probably unlikely.
Sony need to release this now. By now, I mean now. Why? Because at least people would pay attention. Summer time, the attention will be on Apple with WWDC and the rumored new iPhone. Fall, the attention will be on iPods (september). Just look at the last year's Sony lineup, They were released really close to the day Apple announced new iPods. Obviously the people's attention was on Apple, not Sony. Sony is as clueless as monkeys when doing marketing.
*replaceable battery
*removable storage
*modern lossless codec with tagging capabilities (FLAC http://flac.sourceforge.net ) When? Even Apple has theirs.
*gapless?
Batteries are removable on all Sony Walkman for years, the instructions are in the manual and it does not void your warranty.
Wam,
modern Sony Walkmans (non-phone) have no removable batteries, and haven't for years. Please point me to modern examples with removable batteries that aren't phones.
Hopefully the display is readable in direct sunlight! The actual Sony Walkmans are NOT and this is just crap. This thing is useless when the sun is shining.
The iPod IS readable outdoors but sounds shitty ... so, which one to choose?
Please Sony, make it a REAL competitor! I want to have this thing!!
This is funny...
As (almost) Noone here can read the review (and understand it I mean) you guys troll like shit ! and by this I mean ever more than usual ofc.
By the way sony, nice step dropping Atrac 2 years ago, but would it kill you to add .ogg and .flac compatibility ?
IT'S FREE FOR GOD'S SAKE !
Oh and 280 euros for the 16GB and 380 euros for the 32Gb version ? please...
that's 100 euros ($140) for 16 Gb of flash memory or am I totally stupid ?
It would be cheaper to buy a 16Gb microSDHC and pay a young Korean to hack the shit out of this beauty and add a microSD port !
(Ok that might not be possible in fact ... no hard feelings Koreans right ?)
Now we have to wait for Cowon to realize it was totally stupid not to make a 32Gb version on a high end product...
(gonna take a while folks..)