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Walkman

Slacker and YouTube infiltrate Sony X-Series Walkman

If you've been drooling over the Sony's touch-screen Walkman, the X-Series, since it was initially announced at CES 2009, I've got some good news and some bad. The bad news is that you're going to have to wait some more--the player isn't expected to hit shelves for another month or so. (SonyStyle will start taking preorders today, however.) On the plus side, the good news is considerable. The new Walkman is a joy to use, and it packs in a cadre of fun features, not the least of which are onboard apps for YouTube and Slacker.

Yep, you read right: you can get all the free music you want on the X-Series Walkman. And unlike with the Apple iPod Touch, you won't need a constant Wi-Fi connection to have access to it. While the X-Series does include a wireless antenna for hopping on to hot spots, the Slacker app only needs access to the network when refreshing station content. Each time you refresh, music is cached to the Walkman so that you can listen to it wherever you are, regardless of Internet access. (In other words, it functions in exactly the same way as on the BlackBerry.)

The beauty here is threefold. First, the music is completely free, though you will have to tolerate a few audio ads and skip limits (you can do away with these by signing up for Slacker Radio Plus for $3.99 per month). Also, you don't have to spend countless hours creating custom playlists, and when you get sick of your library on shuffle, you can simply choose from the wide variety of genre- and decade-based stations in the Slacker rotation. Finally, you don't need to connect to a computer to get brand-new music on your MP3 player, although it is worth mentioning that you must hook up the Walkman initially in order to customize which stations you want to live on the device. In addition to the Slacker content, the player supports transferred songs in MP3, WMA, AAC, and WAV format.… Read more

MP3 Insider 142: Zapping out

Jasmine and Donald wrap their heads around a Sony MP3 player that, well...wraps around your head. Plus, Donald goes all "meh" on the Iriver P7, and Jasmine reveals the Ladybug iPod speaker for the cigarette-stashing decapitated sad robot head it truly is.

Listen now: Download today's podcast |  Subscribe in iTunes |  Subscribe in RSS… Read more

Sony Walkman styles up Japan

Sony is updating its E-Series Walkman line in Japan, starting May 16, 2009. There's no sign that the updated series will make it to the states, but Sony's announcement details three models: the $132 NW-E044 (8GB), the $102 NW-E043 (4GB), andthe $81 NW-E042 (2GB).

The player's features are sparse, offering only an FM radio and an audio player (MP3, ATRAC, WMA, AAC, and WAV). The navigation, integrated USB stick, and three-line OLED display all seem to take their cue from the current Sony B-Series Walkman models. A full battery charge should get you 28 hours of playback. … Read more

Wearable, workout-worthy W-Series Walkman

There's more than one way to make a wireless MP3 player, and building it directly into a set of headphones may seem like the easy way out, but it gets the job done. Plus, there are none of those audio-fidelity issues you might run into with technologies such as RF and Bluetooth, which is probably why Sony elected to take this route with its new W-Series Walkman.

This 2GB MP3 player is built into a set of impressively small earbud-style headphones and sports a palatable price tag of just $69.

Read the Sony W-Series Walkman review.

Putting 32GB Sony NWZ-X1060 through its paces

Rumors of a new touch-screen Walkman were already making the rounds on the Web before its official announcement and, true enough, Sony unveiled its latest X-series portable multimedia player at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas back in January. We had the chance to sneak a prototype into our Labs recently to run it through its paces.

Click here for my extended First Take on the 32GB Sony NWZ-X1060, and watch the video below for more.

(Via Crave Asia)

Bargain hunt: Sony Ericsson W205 Walkman and S312

God knows it would take more than the collapse of the world banking system to make us skimp on our mobile phones, but Sony Ericsson is courting people on a budget--think teenagers and recessionistas--with the release of two new entry-level handsets.

The W205 Walkman (right) is a slider phone that will toddle after its bigger siblings in the excellent Walkman range of music phones, sporting features such as a media player, FM radio, and TrackID, which can identify songs on the radio based on a snippet recording. It will also have a 1.3-megapixel camera and multiple phone books, so … Read more

Hands on with on the Sony X-series Walkman

Rumors of a new touch-screen Walkman were already making the rounds on the Web before its official announcement and, sure enough, Sony unveiled its latest X-series portable multimedia player at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas back in January. We had the chance to sneak a prototype into our Labs recently to run it through its paces.

Upside A few things we like about the X-series Walkman: It has a nice, solid feel, plus the rough granite edges add a unique and contrasting touch to this multimedia player with a 3-inch OLED wide-screen display. The 432x240-pixel panel is half an inch smaller and has a lower resolution than the one on the second-gen iPod Touch, but is just as responsive as the latter.

Vertical scrolling through the album art to select songs is also a dead ringer for Apple's Cover Flow interface. The speed at which scrolling accelerates depends on how fast you swipe your digit across the screen. With a quick sweep, the album art races either toward or away from you at an angle. This has a pseudo 3D effect and makes it seem like the covers are a pack of cards a la credits rolling style from "Star Trek".… Read more

Sony W-Series Walkman now shipping

Just in time to give Apple's latest iPod Shuffle a run for its money, the Sony W-Series Walkman is now shipping from Sony's online store. The MP3 player melds basic music playback features into an active-style pair of headphones, and sells for $69 with 2GB of built-in memory.

We saw the W-Series in a handful of color combinations back at CES 2009, but the only colors currently shipping in the U.S. are black/silver and pink/silver.

Other specs include 12 hours of battery life (includes a 3 minute quick-charge), a "Zappin" feature that lets … Read more