Walkman

Again with the Internet slip-ups, only this time the company itself is to blame. This morning, a new Sony MP3/video player sneaked onto SonyStyle briefly. As anyone who listened to my podcast rant about broken NDAs might infer, this tidbit was not welcome news first thing in the morning. (At least one other gadget journalist knows the sting of this pain.) I'd been sitting on the Sony NWZ-A815 info for a while, and I kept my mouth shut, even when a blurry rumor blog posted about it yesterday. But--I'm sorry--when the company itself cannot keep its own … Read more

OK, OK, two Sony products in two days doesn't mean Crave's all loved-up with the Japanese Walkmanites, but considering how much we bash its media-manager software SonicStage, we felt compelled to mention that the company's ickle new MP3 player--the NWD-B100--doesn't require it. About time, too.

The NWD-B100 is possibly the most respectable Sony Walkman product to see the light of day in 2007. Yeah, the NW-A808 is a superb piece of audio gadgetry, and the E series earned kudos points for including a system very similar to iTunes' Cover Flow on a tiny colour display. But … Read more

Say it ain't so, Sony. The standard bearer for decades in defining good taste in consumer electronics has gone Swarovski on us.

It's hardly the first design leader to fall under the garish crystalline spell. First Philips, then the iPhone and now Sony's E-Series MP3 players have fallen victim to the trend with its "Walkman Abiste" model. As if that weren't bad enough, Digital World Tokyo says the Swarovski-studded stick players will be available in blue, gold, pink and violet, as well as black, when they're released in September on the Japanese market.… Read more

Earlier this month we wrote that Sony would be releasing an iPod Nano-style MP3 player in the US with a built-in active noise-cancellation feature. Well, the Sony NW-S705F is here, and CNET's review has just posted along with a slide show.

Sony's NW-S705F Noise Canceling MP3 player is now on sale in the U.S. for about $199 for 2GB version and $169 for 1GB. You may remember when Crave reported on Sony's announcement of this player back in October. The big hullabaloo is that the NW-S705F has active noise-cancellation integrated into the player. Before you get too excited, the active noise-cancellation system will still require you to use Sony's proprietary earbuds. Even though the noise-canceling circuitry is in the player, microphones located on the outside of the earbuds are necessary for the function to work properly. The … Read more

As MP3 players continue their magic shrinking act, it's getting difficult even to identify what they are at first sight. The latest version of Sony's once-venerable Walkman making its Japan debut, for example, could be mistaken for a USB key or dongle, measuring just over 3 inches long and weighing only 1 ounce.

In fact, as Akibahara News notes, the E Series players can be used as a USB drive too. But that would make it a pretty expensive storage device, going for about $92 to $167 for versions ranging from 1GB to 4GB, providing up to 30 … Read more

Who says the Walkman is dead? (And no, that's not a play on Dead Man Walking.)

A gold-plated 1994 cassette version released to celebrate its then-15th anniversary, the WM-EX1HG, sold a few days ago for $550 on eBay, according to TechEBlog. The vintage collectible is ensconced its own presentation case and has never been used, the seller says, so don't expect it to come preloaded with the greatest hits of '94.

Speaking of which, extra credit goes to those Cravers out there who can name the top hit of that year. Answer: "I'll Make Love to You,&… Read more

ATRACLife revealed photos of Sony's NW-A800 series MP3 player not so long ago, but inquiries to my Sony reps garnered no official comments. However, I can now say with certainty that the NW-A800, a video-capable Walkman with an ample screen and Sony's typical sleek stylings, is indeed a reality. The player is now available for pre-order on the company's European Web site, which is listing four colors of the device: black, white, pink, and "violet" (looks blue to me). At first glance, it appeared that Sony was behind the times where flash memory is concerned: … Read more

The Walkman isn't dead, contrary to popular belief, at least in the world of anime. Sony is selling a special green edition of its once-royal brand that features a sleepy-eyed Japanese character of the same color (not Kermit). Other than its "Gachapin" theme, the Walkman E series is a standard MP3 player of modest capacity (512 and 1GB storage for $113 and $137, respectively). For those prices, we think the least they could have done is make the earphones green too. But you do get a super-kawaii felt case and carrier.