We've been itching to spend some quality time with Sony's NWZ-X1000-series player since its granite-sided shell was
first revealed just ahead of CES, and now that it's inching closer to release (in the
Old Country, at least) we finally have a full spec sheet to parse. On the audio side it'll play MP3, WMA, and AAC at up to 320kbps, and for video there's MPEG-4, H.264, and WMV support, sadly in most cases crippled at 320 x 240 despite that 3-inch OLED screen's 432 x 240 native resolution. That's nearly a quarter of those pixels gone to waste. Other goodies include FM tuning, 802.11g/b WiFi, internet browsing with YouTube support, and 33 hours of battery life when grooving to tunes, 9 hours when watching video, and surely much less when cruising the web. Still no confirmed domestic release date, but it can't be long now.
[Thanks, Steve]
posted Mar 9th 2009 8:46AM
all this and it still can't even make phone calls.
Nice screen though
That's what the (horribly named) Idou is for.
Specs seem very ATRACtive
@Costas
I'll do it for everyone... "groan...sign...groan again"
>>Specs seem very ATRACtive
Except it plays MP3, WMA, AAC, MPEG-4, H.264, and WMV; and has no support for ATRAC
What! No Bluetooth?
Yeah...bluetooth would be good but I think if you're looking at listening to music OTA, it does not do justice to the stellar sound (noise cancellation) coming from the player.
I have the sony NWZ-A829 with bluetooth.
Let me tell you that is sucks!
The dam thing is my hand and I am in the middle of NO WHERE and the stupid skips for no reason! ( the sound cuts off for a fraction of a second )
It some time good when you don't move or your in the house. I can have it in my pocket while walking and will work good put it can skip.I get it out of my pocket and it does not skip.
When I am in the middle of the street it goes 40feets no more. But it has problem when it is in my pocket! WTF
The only advantage would be the day I buy a car stereo player, I might get it with bluetooth.
I hate the most is that there is NO way to bookmark your songs!! You fav song. You can not do that with the player.
Dear Sony,
When u bring this over stateside, make sure to unlock all that OLED rez. goodness and please for the love of GOD, if you're releasing it with that built-in-digital-noise cancellation, make sure to include FLAC support. 320kbs is pretty good, don't get me wrong, but FLAC with Sony's noise cancellation paired with some Dr.Dre Beats headphones that i just stole [sorry can't afford 'em], should be utter music Bliss. also, love the hardware, but make sure the software is intuitive and responsive if you're going to do touch. If this thing has got a better GUI than the iTouch and the hardware of the Cowon S9, i might actually make the plunge. Make me proud Sony.
I received an email from Sony Style Australia and they said "The X Series Touch Screen Walkman in will be available in 16GB and 32GB models from late May 2009."
If you look at the pictures of it on the Sony Style site, it has a switch for the noise cancellation.
I second the FLAC support.
This cuts out pretty much every live concert I have.
Also, I think Dr. Dre would have wanted those headphones to be stolen.
All i wonder is if you cant afford the headphones how the hell are you going to buy this?
When choosing flac, why use headphones that are mostly made as a fashion item and not for sound quality?
It looks terrible!
Same here, no bluetooth for a 400€ / $ "ultimate" product?
No deal
before iphone was introduced, every such full-screen touch device had at least a good 3+ physical buttons at front, now they've all got one, and all named "home". how unimaginative is that! what's wrong with putting a physical "play/pause" button and fwd/rw buttons?
why do those manufacturers now assume that they won't get a sale if they don't implement it in exactly the same apple way? this is pathetic
It has Play button. Look at the top of the player.
The S9 has no buttons on the front...
This better have A2DP. This protocol should be a standard on any device that makes phone calls or plays music. Don't know why companies like you-know-who refuse to include it. Must be competitively priced with the Cowon S9 and iTouch.
why did you say "you-know-who"? why are you being secretive about company names but confess to stealing headphones.
weird.
What modern portable can't play video in at least its native resolution?
Why?
how very dissapointing. poor screen, poor bluetooth I really expected more from sony on this one. I wasn't really counting on buying this anyway unless it was nuts
Wait, poor screen? That's the main attraction of the device... It's OLED, AND it's a Sony MP3 player, which are notorious for their amazing sound quality. I'm rather sad about the bluetooth because I ended up falling in love with my P2 for it, but I'm excited to see this hit the states so I can grab one before my flight to Japan (Irony).
The granite makes no sense to me - what market are they trying to appeal too? Homeowners? It is just plain UGLY! This device has to have Bluetooth - I can't imagine why it wouldn't these days especially when it has WiFi. What the hell!!! Now, why does the resolution come in at 320 x 240???? I see other devices with the 800 x 400 and 640 x 420 range - why is this, an OLED (the best it can be?), so different in the specs department? I don't understand this - doesn't Sony read forums and research what people want in a device? The UI looks terrible - I hope it functions bette than it looks. Also, why name a button 'HOME' - we will know what it does if we buy this device. It just looks so tacky. All I can say is I smell FAIL!
OLED displays don't have the same DPI as LCD displays yet, hence the 'low' resolution.
Maths fail - 320*240 is 76800 pixels out of 432*240 (=103680), leaving 26880 wasted.
26880 is 26% of 103680 - that's *more* than a quarter wasted.
I'm not saying anyone has to care about this, mind.
Yet no one cares about when I complain about widescreen 1080p (2.4 by 1) having over 500k less pixels than 16:9 1080p. BTW, you people love to complain and nitpick at everything don't you?
Ofcourse they love to complain, that's the thing they can only do.
All PMP that can't make calls (and possibly receive them too) and surf the interwebs shall die!
NOW!!!
No wonder Sony is fading fast in the consumer electronics business. It's a dinosaur, selling overpriced and undercapable hardware with buggy software. When was young Sony was the gold standard. Now it's not even in the game for anything remotely sexy or leading edge.
How is it undercapable as a PMP? Name something besides blue tooth. I agree sony has resisted moving on to apps and such but I think that's commendable. They stick to their ideals of creating a very good music playing machine. Unlike the ipod touch which is probably better as an app machine than a PMP. Half the time I see people using it they're using some app rather than actually listening to music. This walkman has better sound quality and better battery life and noise canceling. All MUCH more useful for listening to music rather than any upgrade the ipods have gone through. Hardly undercapable as an mp3 player. And how the hell do you know the software is buggy?
My definition of undercapable: qVGA in a "video walkman" device that costs a few hundred dollars. I don't even care about the bluetooth.
There are not enough audiophiles in the universe for Sony to make money from people buying PMPs in this price range purely because of audio quality. They are paying for an OLED screen to see album covers? No. If they buy this, they buy it for video playback. Or at least every person who buys this type of thing that I know thinks that way.
As for buggy Sony software/firmware, I refer to my ebook reader PRS505, and to my UX280 (cuz I am a Sony fanboy....believe it or not).
Great hardware though expensive, but joy of use degraded by crappy installed software in both cases. I am not referring to this device. The impression I have had is that Sony makes a good hardware product, and then sees the software/firmware as an afterthought. Maybe that's acceptable for Chinese PMP makes like Ainol or Onda. It's not acceptable for Sony.
while I agree this qvga thing sucks...very much so, I disagree that sony has firmware issues, especially when you compare it to cowon and apple
plus, if you are a sony fanboy and named only two products with firmware problems, that seems to show that sony did a pretty job overall...
Merely to compare Sony to Cowon tells me how low Sony has sunk.
As for the comparison to Apple, not having one I cannot say, but my impression is that the overwhelming majority of owners of iPhone and ipod Touch devices are very happy with their toys (the entry point being that they are willing to put up with iTunes, which I will never understand).
With tons of games games, a bigger and higher res screen, infinitely more choices of software through the App Store, and a huge hacker community that is coming up with new stuff every day, comparison Apple to Sony is like comparing apples to... well... (...tries to think of expensive fruit that is hard to get fresh or ripe and has very limited appeal....... I know!) Jackfruit !
Yes, Apple audio will suck compared to the Sony, but very few people will buy this device just because of the supposedly great audio. In my opinion, there will not be enough buyers for this product to allow Sony to significantly influence the market or make a profit. Another loss for Sony in a market they invented.
Its still better then the Ipod.
Sounds pretty crappy and crippled when and if it hits here state side. Glad I didn't wait and just got the S9 instead.
@rx8_racing57 Unfortunately I doubt your Dr.Dre Beats will work, you will have to use Sony headphones. The Mics for noise cancellation is still built into the ‘phones it is just the power and processing that is done by the walkman. This was confirmed by Sony: http://tinyurl.com/au9bmw
Also I was told review units should be available from around April so yeah a may release would sound likely.
So it can't play Lossless audio? Seems like a deal breaker for a company who focuses on audio quality.
it can. Linear PCM (WAV) is lossless.
NO BLUETOOTH ????!!!!!!!!
We are going backwards here ...... that was what I liked the most from previous models. A2DP is a must nowadays like someone said earlier....
Video support only 320x240 resolution? When is this coming out, 2005? And let me guess, no gapless playback on lossy codec? Sony, releasing outdated features at premium price years later.
Ha ha. iPod touch is still better, with its app store and touch screen user interface.
Seriously,,, who would buy this over iPod touch?????
Someone who wants better sound quality, a better screen and a better battery life maybe?
On a sidenote: What? No wav support? :(
OLED, noise-canceling headphones standard, drag-and-drop support, built-in FM, and not looking like another tool with an iPod.
The most important thing in MP3 player is the sound quality, and sony Walkman's have way better sound quality then i pod's
example :
look at the sound quality rating
Sony Walkman NWZ-S639F: Sound quality: 9/10
http://www.trustedreviews.com/mp3/review/2008/11/09/Sony-Walkman-NWZ-S639F-16GB/p1
Apple iPod nano: Sound quality: 7/10
http://www.trustedreviews.com/mp3/review/2008/10/05/Apple-iPod-nano-8GB-4th-Gen/p1
Seriously... whats with the crap headphones? My gf (against all my pleas) bought the touch... the headphones were so bad, we thought we bought a lame one. Brought it back and the next set of phones sucked just as much. We plugged in a set of Sony headphones we've had here for years and years, at least 5 years old, maybe more, and the sound difference was amazing. She was so pissed off that Apple would have the nerve to send out -worse than dollar store- headphones with their equipment, she brought it back, thankfully.
Why do the headphones suck so bad? They sucked 8+ years ago when they started to make portable music players, and still suck now.
With all the bitching seen here on Engadget why havent all you fanbois gathered and done anything about this? And dont say it's cause you all buy aftermarkets afterwards... Cause I see you with your tell-tale, I-have-an-apple, white headphones all the time.
An audiophile who values the quality of his/her music over anything else.
I have the Touch and have also owned other players. The Touch has large screen space for video playback, web viewing and apps. But other players have better sound quality for music and Sony is one of the best. If I hadn't started watching lots of videos on the go, I would have stayed with Sony. The current players have too small a screen for me.
But if music is your main focus, the Touch really isn't the player for you. The Touch is a jack of all trades, but excels mainly in video and web viewing IMO.