Sony's OLED Walkman priced and dated... in the UK
By Darren Murph 
posted Feb 25th 2009 9:43AM
posted Feb 25th 2009 9:43AM
[Via OLED-Display]
Read - 16GB Walkman
Read - 32GB Walkman
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£214 = $600 NZD = Damn.
Sony S639F - 120 pounds. Right now. No touchscreen and very attractive price.
£214.00 = $471 AUD 16gb
£283.00 = $623 AUD 32gb
GOD DAMN!
although your gonna get better battery life and much better sound that's like the cost of a frkn itouch 32gb when it came out like 2 years ago IN, AN ECONOMIC BOOM!!!....
oh and you sheep shaggers are getting pwned by the pound.
This thing has digital NC... That's why is expensive... and of course, 'Sony Tax'!!
Cheers
JC
What is digital NC?
A quick google doesn't seem to get answers very quick.
Digital Noise cancelling like the 400$ Sony Digital NC Headphones (MDR-NC500D) but inside the device. After you test them, you won't wan't any other NC headphones. They are the best in NC.
The 'Tax' that is relevant here to pricing is VAT, which is required to be added into the list price. UK's VAT is 17.5%. Aside from that money in £ tend to look expensive to Americans due to exchange rate and cost of living (a Big Mac meal is ~$7 in the UK), not to long ago £200 would have been close to $400.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the OLED touch display or anything like that...
The Cowon S9 has also NC and is quite a bit cheaper while imo thats the only real opponent in this case. I don't know about Sony's sound quality compared to the Cowon though it has to be seriously good to be that much more expensive. And.. c'mon people who try to compare this with a Touch/iDildo... they aren't even in the same league. It's like comparing curling with ice hockey.
Sony's Digital NC is way way better than any other NC you can try, is DIGITAL NC and uses Artificial Neural-Networks to reduce noise. Not like the crappy ones that you get in other brands (that are purely analogue). And that technology is expensive!
But yeah, the OLED is also a huge factor in the price. Just don't underestimate the value of the Digital NC for some users that travel a lot like me. For me is more than worth it...
Wouldn't a pair of iems be better sound quality wise? I mean, it you're going to spend $400 on a dap, you probably would have a decent pair of iems. The NC degrades sound quality, right?
want one so bad..... (better start saving a lot pennies..... -.-)
F-Sony...
for $9.99 i can get an MP3-CD player that can hold many songs...
how do they justify the extra $300?
For cramming 22.8 of your CDs and the player into something to bigger than your palm with Noise Cancelling. That's how.
And...of course including the added functionality of videos, photos, fm, etc on it. Does it justify yet?
NO!
Who actually ever uses these things to show off pictures?
ooh look here i am doing something lame...
ooh and here i am looking like a douche...
FM circuitry is at most $0.50
and who actually can say watching a video on this cramped screen is useful
This is a device that gets purchased and then thrown in the box under the bed.
FAIL
and don't forget the web browser :D
@enohPi: We can all read your name backwards. So you don't use any of said features on your iPhone? Most hypocritical comment I've seen all day.
Yeah, you can have a cell phone not for $0.50, but for free, so why you went with iPhone if those said things are useless for you?
Nice find Muhammad-Oli.
*Laughs at enohPi*
Set yourself up for that one didnt ya?
As much as I despise this guy, I laughed so hard at this:
"ooh look here i am doing something lame...
ooh and here i am looking like a douche..."
Are the pictures dusty or just made of unfinished fiberglass? Covered in plastic wrap?
With that price I can get two iphone.
And then pay a minumum of 30 dollars a month for 2 years!! AWESOME!!
more like 60usd a month for 2 years.
Don't be stupid. The jesus phone is £349 with no contact.
So according to your logic, I can get an infinite ammount of iPhones for that price!
(Yeah, they're free on a 45 euro/month contract here)
Damn the lack of an edit button, I actually just saw an ad in which it was free for 28,50 euros/month...
(Yes, I'm just doing this to annoy you people from the US... :P)
But cheer up, your gas prices are way lower and so are a lot of other things...
With that price I can get two iphone that can do much more.
again...please only compare the unlocked price - think you will be hard pushed to get a full ifone for teh same price.
anyway why compare the iphone and not the ipod touch?
For that price i'll declare it dead before it's even out, sure it has a OLED screen but are they f*cking nuts, also Sony is a pretty known name that's it, but when it comes to quality it's a different story.
Sony players have always been very good quality wise. SonicStage was their major downfall, but with that gone they have no faults. They've always sounded miles better than any iPod ever will, and they sure as hell won't crack after a weeks use like an iTouch.
@Noodles2k, Now why ya people got to throw the iPod into everything? did i even say a iPod or a Zune would be better? Sony sucks face it!
seeing as you haven't used this - or any of Sony's recent players, I'm not quite sure how you are founding that statement? A quick flick through your history showed that you are somewhat an iFan.
Uh, you have no idea what you're talking about. Sony's players are actually some of the best.
I compared my Walkman NW-HD3 and my 80GB iPod 5G the other day. Same 320kbps mp3 file, same volume, neutral EQ.
Anyone who tries this comparison of any Walkman to any iPod for sound quality and tells me that the iPod comes out on top is an idiot.
The only advantage for an iPod for me (I understand not many agree) is the ease of the iTunes software for syncing and other tasks.
Ah, but did you use the line out? It makes a difference.
I was hoping I would be able to pick one of these up yesterday, I guess not. Now that I've seen the cost...holy moly! I think I'll stick with my minidiscs for now.
Don't worry about pricing, we in the UK always get shafted so it will be a lot cheaper (usually 33%) when it goes across the Atlantic.
What a rip off. As reference I picked up a 30gb zune a year ago for $99. Yea, $99. It works fine and plays all the same music the sony player does. $400 bucks is ridiculous.
First of all, as stated by about 5 people already, the price in dollars will not be the direct equivalent of the UK price translated into USD. However ignoring that fact completely, why would anyone ever spend more money on new electronics..... why did you buy a Zune for $99, when you could have gotten a used iPod, with more space, for less and eBay. Another example would include, buying a touch screen phone, when other less expensive phones can do the majority of the functions.
As for the "playing the same music", that is true if you do not care at all about sound quality, or to put it in other words, actually listening to music.Both iPods and Zunes have the lowest sound quality ratings, where Sony is listed as having one of the best. That, along with build in noise canceling (that who thing about sound quality again), I cannot say it is the best deal, but if you are into actually listening to your music, and a touch screen, I would say it is a good deal.
cool
tl;dr
For comparison, the iPod touch is *exactly* the same price in the UK.
Try £199 for the 16GB and £269 for the 32GB model instead please Sony.
But folks, if you take a quick glance over at the UK Apple store (online or in-store), you will find that the 16GB iPod touch goes for £214 and £283 for the 32GB model. Perhaps that was Sony's way of coming up with the UK price.
It WILL be cheaper in the US, a fair bit more cheaper indeed!
So, if it was just a measly £14 cheaper than the ipod touch, you'd buy it?
I think they need to be pitching it at the price of the Apple BELOW, in other words £165 for the 16GB and £214 for the 32GB.
I'm no Apple fanboi, but if Sony seriously expect people to pick theirs over the Apple (which like it or not, has a way bigger range of instantly compatible audio extension systems and other accessories, and actually looks better anyway) then trying to sell the same capacity at the same price is going to result in a massive FAIL.
some words are overused and tired. please something new!
maybe people who cares about SQ and not about good looking devices.
and btw, until apple put some real buttons in his ipod touch, i wont get it in my pocket, i wont take it out and put it in again every time i wanna do anything, THAT's a big fail
I so badly want one of those touch screen players, but when I think of the only time I would be using it (plugged-in to my car's aux jack), I'm way better off with my iriver clix2. I can flip through songs one handedly...without even looking at it. Cant imagine swiping my finger through the screen while driving :P
that is what the buttons on the top are for :p :D
Sorry Mr Murph (murf lol!) but you're talking drivel, the UK price is always inflated and significantly more than the US price. Before you start recommending the S9 over this, you might want to revisit your S9 review, where you panned it. Oh and maybe have a hands on with the Sony? (which you haven't) But seeing as its the same price as the iTouch, why don't you just go and recommend people buy that, because after all, it is made by Apple - who you seem to adore.
ZING! If it's the same cost as the iPod Touch everywhere around the world then it makes it a lot more enticing.
That S9 "review" was a complete joke.
I like how SONY thinks that the Walkman brand is still worth a damn.
couldn't the same have been said about the macintosh brand or the palm brand? I suppose there is no point looking at the big picture is there?
I am guessing this still makes money for them (via sony ericsson as well) so why chuck it in?
wow, price is kind of steep, but it is to be expected...first gen, plus it's sony!
but at least it is a true competitor to the iTouch, with proper wi-fi, sexiness, and touch-screen goodness (it might not have multi-touch, but really on the iTouch it's not needed AS much as one would think...)
hell, I might get it to replace my first gen iTouch...can't wait!
That is expensive, but not THAT expensive. I was expecting higher. Just for reference, the US price will not be a direct £->$ conversion, it never is. And don't forget the UK price includes 15% tax.
I have worked in a SonyStore for over 4 years and have also owned an iPod shuffle/4G/iPhone and have to say that I have found the relative quality from the two companies pretty much on par with each other. As for the price, I would gladly carry this around with me to handle all of my media seeing that it has a much better screen and probably sound quality than my iPhone has. Open your minds past brand names and look at functionality before hype.
hmmm... tough choice audio quality (sony) or apps (apple).
i might get me one of these.
The price isn't that bad, with it's noise canceling and crazy expensive OLED touchscreen tech. In the USA it will probably be $300 for the 16GB and $400 for the 32GB. And if we're lucky and sony likes to screw over the UK, it will be $250 for the 16GB and $350 for the 32GB in the USA :D
I know you say you can't glean much from the pricing but you could at least give some comparisons from Amazon to go on:
Cowon S9 16gb £199: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cowon-iAudio-16GB-MP3-Player/dp/B001NQXCUA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235577735&sr=1-1
Apple iPod Touch 16gb £205: http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Apple-iPod-touch-16GB/dp/B001FB5FSU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235577943&sr=1-2
It'd have to be decided on performance if I was choosing out of them, the prices are pretty much the same IMO.
(ie if I wanted that capacity and type of player, £20 between the most expensive and least expensive player isn't going to be much of a concern)
im sure its great, but whats with the polystyrene look?
Browser??apple caliber???
Hmmm OLED *Drools* Would be good, if it supported FLAC..., but hey looks nice, and wouldn't mind getting it.
o_O did they make it out of recycled plastic or something? Coz that's what it looks like, like one of those benches you find in parks that were made from soda bottles and whatnot
Who cares? That recycled plastic you're talking about is some tough shit, able to take abuse like nothing else I've ever seen (hence why its used for park benches!). It wouldn't surprise me if they use that stuff to make automobile body panels out of. Ugly? Who cares? It'll spend most of its time in your pocket or enveloped in your hand anyway. Nobody is going to care.
Looks ATRACtive...
I see what you did there.
How can a device cancel noise when its muffled by your pocket?
The mic for NC is embedded in each earbud.
So you're stuck using the earbuds that come with the unit? I sure hope they sound good!
as far as I understand, the noise-cancelling is built into the player itself...I may be wrong though...
Looks nice. Who knows, the pricing might be similar to that OLED XEL -11. So the US price would actually be $300. Not that bad a price. :)
$400+?! Are you kidding me? Does Sony know that the world's economy is crumbling and they're not helping?
oh geez...sorry man, no offense, but that is a dumb remark...the economy is crumbing because idiots bought when they didn't have the cash to cover their ass...so if you don't have the dough, don't buy it!
Utterly agreed. The single biggest reason for our economic collapse is that goods were purchased using promises to pay (e.g., debt), and not cash. Like a carefully erected set of dominoes, it only takes *one* person to collect on that debt before the whole debt-chain goes into default.
Wow...the bias is sickening. It's the SAME price as the competing iPod Touch at both capacities and on top of that the earphones are a premium pair. I own a 32gb iPod touch and had to shell out another £60 for decent Shure earphones. Even then, there's no way it could touch the sound quality from a Sony player.
What? An overpriced Sony product? Surely you jest.
Damn, commenters are so shortsighted...
I'm sure it's gonna come in other color as well as most of Sony Walkman series.
WAKE USA ! in the uk the Cowon S9 16 Gb is £199, so £15 more or £15 isn't that big difference
(Doesn't mean i'm gonna buy a Sony... but At least They understood we NEED 32GB contrary to Cowon and Samsung ! )
32gb S9 please please come to me !
i really like the finish/type of plastic on the phone. imo, miles ahead of shiny black/chrome on any other phone. btw i have an lg shine and i hate it.
Cowon S9 FTW
:)
What I don't understand is how are they putting OLED screens in phones right now, when they claim the tech isn't stable enough for TVs? Do they just assume everyone's going to buy a new phone after a year?
Don't take the comment the wrong way, OLED makes me tickle in the pants, and I can't wait for the day that I can sell my LCD for an OLED. Just curious though.
maybe (just maybe) it is not the same to make a 2'' screen that a 32'' one...
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PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can a company other than apple make an mp3 player >64GB. I am about to throw my 80GB ipod at the wall, but there is nothing else available!
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