Sony says downloading music to the Walkman from www.bigpondmusic.com is as simple as drag and drop – no software involved. Starting from 1 November 2007, any purchase of a 2GB, 4GB or 8GB S-Series Walkman will come with the $20 BigPond Music voucher.

The Walkman itself claims a long battery life, video and music playback, 1.8-inch QVGA LCD colour screen, an FM tuner, and can now play WMA, MP3, non-secure AAC and Linear PCM music formats, and also read JPEGs, AVC (H.264/AVC), and MPEG-4 video codecs at up to 30 frames per second. It is also certified for Vista and supports most subscription music services, Sony says. The Walkman comes with Microsoft Windows Media Player 11.

"Now, by introducing an open standard, we are increasing the consumer's choice of content and enhancing the versatility of our Walkman products. Ultimately, music-lovers can now decide how they want to purchase and manage their content and benefit from the superior sound and video technology on offer in our new players," said Sony Australia Personal Audio Product Manager, Suzanna Gan.

"BigPond is delighted to be partnering with Sony on this great offer which is sure to be a winner with music fans across Australia," said BigPond Group Managing Director, Justin Milne.

"The partnership between BigPond and Sony is an exciting step forward. With the digital music market in Australia growing at approximately  50 percent per annum, this partnership will provide significant opportunities to both artists and the industry overall," said Sony BMG Music Entertainment General Manager, Sales and Digital, Gavin Parry.

RRP:
NWZ-S615F (2GB): $179 
NWZ-S616F (4GB): $199 
NWZ-S618F (8GB): $299 

See: www.sony.com.au