Sony is making yet another assault on the iPod market. This time with a player simply called “Walkman”.
The new digital music player f features ergonomic design and a range of intelligent features that the company says will allow users to enjoy music in a totally new way.The unit brings small touches that make the experience more comfortable. For example, at the press of a button, the ‘Artist Link’ function will search every artist, album and song stored on the device and offer suggestions of artists and bands closely linked to the genre of music being played at the time.Sony Walkman is available in two capacity sizes, the 20GB (NW-A3000) and 6GB (NW-A1000) models, also featuring two new shuffle functions. By selecting ‘My Favorite Shuffle’, the device automatically selects the most listened to 100 songs and plays them at random. The ‘Time Machine Shuffle’ function randomly selects a year and plays all of the songs from that particular year that are currently held on the device.
One of the most interesting features though is the advanced organic EL display (2 inches on the 20GB version and 1.5 inches on the 6GB model).Once switched on, a mobile phone style ‘Home’ menu appears offering nine different options that can be selected via the four-way directional button. These include ‘Music Library’, ‘Play Mode’, ‘Initial Search’, ‘Intelligent Shuffle’, ‘Favorite 100’, ‘Play History’, ‘Settings’, ‘Playlist’ and ‘Now Playing’.
Music can be searched in a variety of ways, via ‘Genre’, ‘Artist’, ‘Album’, ‘Song’, ‘Release Date’, ‘Rating’ and ‘Recently Transferred’, all of which can be scrolled through to enable users to find their music faster and easier. The device records three years of playback history that can be searched.The 20GB Sony Walkman is available in two colourways (violet and silver), while the 6GB unit comes in the additional colours of pink and blue. All devices package with colour-matched headphones.
Sony Walkman features ATRAC3plus and MP3 playback and ships with the new “CONNECT Player” that offers advanced music library management as well as providing seamless access to the CONNECT catalogue of more than one million tracks and albums available for download.
The product will initially be launched in Japan with the Australian launch following.
 Click to enlarge |
| New Sony Walkman |
