We don't know enough adjectives to really explain to you how Sony's latest Walkman sounds (will "good" suffice?). Nor can we show you in video. We can tell you that it's small, really small, with a crisp, clean display and UI familiar to you A820-series lovers. Even better, we can drop in a gallery of Sony's top of the line, 16GB, NWZ-S639F nuzzled up close to the NWZ-A828 as proof of its tinytude. As good as this player is, it's still just another dedicated Walkman player with an itty bitty, 2-inch display. We're so over dedicated DAPs Howard, isn't it time you produced a full-screen Video Walkman?

Remember those new Walkmans we saw recently? Well the folks at Sony have decided to get all fancy and official with them. The electronics-maker is introducing S-, E-, and B-Series PMPs, all featuring MP3 and WMA playback, drag-and-drop file management, and a variety of storage capacities. The 4GB NWZ-S736F and 8GB NWZ-S738F sport Sony's "Open Platform" which allows AAC, Linear PCM, and other codec support, 40 hours of battery life, in-flight noise cancellation, and SensMe -- which creates song shuffles based on user listening habits. The 4GB NWZ-E436F and 8GB NWZ-E438F come in a handful of colors and deliver up to 45 hours of playback, while the low-end 1GB NWZ-B133F and 2GB NWZ-B135F add an FM tuner and voice recording functionality. The players will be available come September, ranging in price from around $45 to $180.

Sony's IFA press event isn't for another couple of hours, but we managed to sneak these shots of Sony's minor refresh to its Walkman lineup. Everything is looking nice and sleek, and the screens on the S-series players we saw that were on looked sharp and bright, but we're still waiting to see the fruit of Stringer's talk last year about not suffering at the hands of Apple as badly in portable video as they did with portable audio -- these Walkmans just aren't doing it. Stand by for official news as we get it.

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]

Happy 3rd birthday mister Walkman phone. To celebrate, Sony Ericsson is getting official with its W902 "Patti" (pictured), W595 slider, and W302 candybar Walkman handsets. We knew the celebration was coming with the exception of Patti making a last minute substitution for Alicia. SE's quad-band GSM/EDGE W902 is the all-singing, all-media workhorse with UMTS/HSDPA 2100 data, 5 megapixel camera, 8GB of M2 memory, and 2.2-inch, 240 x 320 pixel display. It comes bundled with a pair of premium HPM-77 headphones and the promise of a clear audio, bass-thumpin' experience similar to that offered by SE's W980. The W595 shares the same radios but packs in stereo speakers, 2GB of M2 memory, a 3.2 megapixel camera, motion sensing Shake control, and a stereo Share jack to split the music with a friend. The quad-band GSM/EDGE W302 neglects 3G entirely in favor of a low price tag and dreams of mass adoption. As such, it offers a number of middling specs like a 2 megapixel camera, 512MB of M2 memory, FM radio, and stereo Bluetooth. All three Walkmans will hit select markets in Q4.

No, it's not all Playstation news for Sony today -- the company also announced the new NWZ-B130F Walkman, a slender little stick of a player available in several colors. The latest entry in the B series of Walkmans sports a 3-line LCD, MP3 and PlaysForSure WMA support, 90 minutes of playback on a 3-minute charge, an FM tuner, and voice recorder in both 1GB and 2GB capacities. We're hearing pricing will come at least $20 below that of the iPod Shuffle, but it's a little moot -- it's scheduled for an Asia-only arrival in August at the moment.

[Via SonyInsider]

If that Swarovski crystal-clad E010 was a bit too rich for your blood, why not take a gander at said unit's successor? The recently introduced NWD-E020F series sports that well-known USB stick style, and as you can tell, you can customize yours in (almost) any color you choose thanks to the bundled (and changeable) Style-Up panels. By juicing this one all the way up -- which takes just an hour, by the way -- users can expect a respectable 28 hours of continuous playback; as for file compatibility, the E020 will play nice with MP3, WMA, AAC and LPCM formats. Get yours here (as in, the US of A) sometime soon for $69 (1GB) / $79 (2GB).

[Via CNET]

Now we're talking Sony, this is the type of integration we expect to see on the heels of your promise to cash in on portable video after losing the audio battle to Apple. As a Blu-ray recorder, the BDZ-A70 features all the in/outs you'd expect and recording to a 320GB (the new BDZ-T90 offers 500GB) disk or dual-layer BD-RE media from a host of analog and digital tuners. Great, but what's most notable here is the new one-touch video transfer to Sony's PSP, select mobile phones including NTT DoCoMo's FOMA 905i, and video Walkmans like Sony's new NW-A820. As you may have noticed, those last two are Japanese products. Appropriate given the Japan-only launch of these players in April for about ¥170,000 ($1,658). Still, we're pretty sure they'll go global soon enough. Quickie demonstration video after the break.

[Via Impress]

We've had the good fortune of putting a Sony NWZ-A829 through its paces over the last few days. Remember, that's Sony's top of the line, 2.4-inch, QVGA Walkman with stereo Bluetooth A2DP and 16GB of flash. With Sony CEO, Howard Stringer, ceding portable audio victory to Apple, we had high hopes for the NWZ-A829 as an out of the box video player. After all, Howie said 9 months ago, "We have worked very hard to catch up so that in the age of video we will not suffer as much as we did in audio." So how did it do? See our take after the break.

Update: We finally made it through a single battery charge (it's that good). Ours lasted 24 hours and 15 minutes under a constant load of about 1 hour of video, 4 hours of Bluetooth-enabled audio, and then another 19 hours of tethered audio.

Remember all that Walkman hotness that Sony hit Japan with last week? Well, as anyone might've guessed, it's headed Stateside soon for your earbud consumption. In addition to the new NWZ-A820 series flagship (pictured), Sony has the NWZ-A720 series, which cops the looks and specs, but loses the Bluetooth of the A820 players. Both players have roughly 10 hours of video battery life, and 36 hours for audio, with 2.4-inch QVGA screens and capacities ranging from 4GB to 16GB. Meanwhile, the new NWZ-S710F skimps on the sexy looks, and only sports a 1.8-inch QVGA screen, but adds built-in noise canceling. Codec support for all the players includes protected WMA, unprotected AAC, MP3 and H.264 video. The full model rundown is as follows, everything will be available in March:

• NWZ-A828K - 8GB, black, Bluetooth, DR-BT21G Bluetooth wireless headphones, $270
• NWZ-A829 - 16GB, black, Bluetooth, $320
• NWZ-A726 - 4GB, black and pink, $150
• NWZ-A728 - 8GB, black and pink, $200
• NWZ-A729 - 16GB, black, $300
• NWZ-S716F - 4GB, silver, red and black, $150
• NWZ-S718F - 8GB, black, $200

One more shot after the break.

If your primary motivation in choosing an MP3 player is its ability to match your shoes then you're in luck, sissy. Sony's newest NW-E-series of Walkman USB sticks come in ¥16,000 (about $149) NW-E026F (4GB), ¥13,000 ($121) NW-E025F (2GB), and ¥11,000 ($102) the NW-E023F (1GB) flavors with plenty of interchangeable shells to keep up with your wardrobe. They support ATRAC/MP3/WMA/AAC and Linear PCM with an FM tuner thrown in for good measure. But hey, nobody as hip as you listens to FM now do they? Look for these to go global with the addition of DRM'd WMA but without Sony's proprietary ATRAC format sometime after the Japanese launch on March 8th.

[Via Akihabara News]

After the European PR agency seemingly jumped the gun, we finally get some actual press and hands-on shots of Sony's newest video Walkman. The NW-A820 series as it's known in Japan does everything its other NWZ-A820 brother can do in Europe (and presumably the US) only with that icky ATRAC and SonicStage baggage in tow. Sony also announced a new ¥20,000 (about $186) VRC-NW10 cradle with video-out and trick little video-in capability for real-time MPEG-4 recordings straight back to your A820-series player. A SRS-NWT10M external speaker is priced low enough at ¥3,000 ($28) that every teen-age jackass riding the subway will have one. Japan will see the new players in black, white and pink and in 16GB and 8GB models priced at ¥38,000 ($354) and ¥28,000 ($260), respectively. Check the gallery for hot A820 on iPod touch action.

Having successfully fought HD DVD to the death, Sony can now focus its attention on you know who with the release of their bigger, badder NWZ-A820 Walkman. Sony's followup to its 2.0-inch A810 (pictured) media player boasts a 2.4-inch QVGA display, up to 16GB of flash, 13.5mm EX headphones, Bluetooth stereo audio, and up to 10-hours of video (H.264/ACV and MPEG-4 support) or 36-hours of music (MP3, AAC, DRM'd WMA, and linear PCM supported) playback off beefier battery. The A820-series will ship in black, silver, gold, and pink in NWZ-A826 (4GB), NWZ-A828 (8GB) and NWZ-A829 (16GB) models all hitting Europe starting this April for undisclosed prices. US too if that FCC filing is any indication. Pics as we get 'em.

Update: Adding insult to mystery, PRWeb has pulled the press release for the NWZ-A820. Jump the gun did we? No worries, we kept a copy which is now available after the break. Still no pictures, unfortunately.

Sony Ericsson has plumped up its Walkman line just a tad today with the introduction of the W980, a pretty well power-packed flip sporting 8GB of internal storage, a generously sized external display, and something the company calls "Walkman on Top." The technology (if you can really call it that) replicates the music player interface in its entirety on the external display, allowing full player control without popping the phone open. Other goodies include an FM transmitter and PlayNow support -- a Walkman phone through and through, if we do say so ourselves. Look for it to launch in Q3 in quadband EDGE flavor with HSDPA 2100 (read: no good for use in the US). Sorry about the microscopic photo, by the way, SE's site is having difficulty at the moment.

[Image via Sony Ericsson Blog]

The three desperate Sony fanboys out there waiting for a new Walkman to badly render and incessantly spam our tip jar with just got a treat from the grey suits at the FCC: test reports for three new NWZ-A82X-series Walkmans with sketchy drawings of the backside product label. Apart from finding test results for a Bluetooth 2.0+EDR radio -- which points to A2DP support -- there's not much to go on here. Given the sizes in the diagram, we'd guess that these'll share the basic form factor of the NWZ-A81X units, but you never know how the NWW-A826, NWZ-A828, and NWZ-A829 will rock our world when they eventually hit -- or do you? We await your replies with anxious fervor.