What a letdown: Sweet new Walkmans not for U.S.
The better S-Series
(Credit: SonyInsider)It was a sad day when I reviewed the second-gen Sony S-Series Walkman. We expected a worthy successor to this fantastic MP3 player and instead were met with a mere shadow of the device and its former glory. True, you still get top-notch sound quality, impressive battery life, and even the added bonus of external speakers, but what happened to my podcast support, upgraded headphones, expanded sound enhancement options, interface personalization, SensMe Channels, and Rhapsody DNA?
Well, most of those things got funneled into the "expanded" S-Series, the S640 and S740 lines, which--naturally--Sony has no intention of offering to U.S. buyers. (The speaker-sporting model is the S540.) These two players differ in only one way: the S740 offers integrated noise canceling, whereas the S640 does not. Other than that, both devices include just about everything that made the original S-Series Walkman so freakin' sweet, plus the ability to output to a TV and what appears to be some sort of audio recording option. Oh, and it's available in a 32GB option. You're killing me, Sony!
A-Series Walkman: such a tease
(Credit: SonyInsider)Adding insult to injury is the Japan-only release of a next-gen A-Series Walkman, a seemingly spectacular MP3 player with a 2.8-inch WQVGA OLED screen. It offers an S-Master digital amplifier, FM radio, digital noise canceling, and the ability to output to TV at 720?480. The package also includes Sony's MDR-EX300SL earphones (i.e. not shoddy stock earbuds). Oh, and have I mentioned it's available in capacities up to 64GB? Seriously. Killing. Me.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to write a strongly-worded letter.
(Via SonyInsider)
For more than five years, Jasmine France has covered a variety of tech products for CNET--from scanners to keyboards to GPS devices--but she's happiest where she is now: sitting atop a pile of MP3 players, "testing" every music service known to man, and jamming a variety of earbuds in every shape and color into her absurdly small ears. E-mail Jasmine.
Donald Bell is an electronic musician, a veteran record store employee, and a fearless hardware hacker. He's also CNET's Senior Editor for MP3 and digital audio.
Jasmine France is CNET's resident digital audio doyenne, writing and editing product reviews, crave blogs, and feature stories on all things MP3. And if you need advice on headphones, she's your girl.
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I used to think the same way about Sony's branding strategy, but now that I've been a Walkman user for the last three or so years I've gotten used to its quirks. That's not to say that casual users wouldn't benefit from a clearer product identity, but the alphanumeric soup that Sony uses does make some sense...from a certain point of view. Too bad it probably takes a night course at a local community college for the average consumer to make sense of it all.
Yeah, I'm sure it makes sense to Sony but really what's wrong with using the "Walkman" name in the same way Apple uses "iPod"? As in, why can't we have a Walkman Touch, Walkman Nano, Walkman Classic, etc? Walkman is such an iconic name that it seems a waste to water it down with a series of numbers and letters with these products. They're WALKMANS Sony, not apartment numbers...
I would love to be able to get my hands on one of these, i think the Sony Walkman X series is very expensive for 16 gb at 300 dllrs, if it was the 32 gb version at 300 i would have got it the day it came out.
on a side note i'm very happy with my 32gb zune hd (with zune pass), very solid product by microsoft, my itouch has begun collecting dust because of this, i hope now with the zune hd people start giving pmp's not made by apple a chance.
I'm waiting a little longer to see if Sandisc comes out with a new model or not. The Newest Samsung is quite nice (my son bought an 8 gb one) but with no expansion slot, it is too small - as is the new Zune. The other intriguing player is the Creative Zii but it may be 6 months away from release (32gb on board and a regular size SD card slot). An amazing device, hopefully it is realease sooner than I think.
Any suggestions ?
i agree with Jasmine about the Archos 5, accept the Android version of it will in fact be pocket friendly and feature a 4.8 inch screen. i highly recommend that you look into this, barksfan because it is available in flash drives up to 32 gb (and soon will be released up to 64 gb) and in hard drive up to 500 gb (yes 500 gb). the flash drive versions of the Archos 5 Android also have the micro sd slot and you can actually hook an external hard drive up to them through a dock. the other benefits that the Archos would have are HD video output (not radio like that cheap Zune offers), DVR, GPS, apps, an 800x480 resolution, mini usb slot on the device along with its regular hook up, bluetooth, wifi (802.11 b/g/n), built in speakers, microphone and legstand, and it plays pretty much any file type accept Apples encrypted AAC. it does play regular AAC files though. so there you go, ive given my commercial for the Archos.
Oh, and just give the poor guy a call.
Besides, why would SONY, whose PS3 is archrival to the 360, give a rat's ass on Microsoft's Zune US-only strategy anyways? They're probably GLAD that the Zune HD isn't in Japan...the Touch and other iPods are enough competition as it is.
http://www.sony.jp/CorporateCruise/Press/200909/09-0916B/
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by drara07
September 25, 2009 8:39 AM PDT
- Its the same with cell phones too :(....so many models never get to US
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