Comments on: Photo: New Walkman plays MP3

Sony's new Walkman NW-HD3 lets consumers directly import and export tracks in the MP3 format.

Nice but...

the design alright, but the colors aren't friendly. the ipod
mini is cute and inviting, sony's color schemes look like
they want to fight you. plus it was stupid of sony not to
have mp3 support in the first place.

who cares?

There's too much emphasis on aestetics these days. sure, have a device whose shape and size makes it more portable and flexible, but color schemes? should come in 4th, 5th in the list of things considered...

Sony is just copying ipod

Sony has no skills in development they have to copy everyone else who is doing good. They just a copycat company who thrives on someone elses success so that they can claim they are better when they are not. They should hire a team that can design something that is theirs and not someone elses ideal.

sony doesn't innovate?

sony doesn't innovate?

they CREATED the portable audio market

AIBO robot? hello?

trinitron?

IMAX technology?

sony has played a larger role in developing our culture than any other company ever will...

theyre not copying apple, they just messed up marketing wise at first with their ATRAC players, and now they're getting back in the game... every company out there is making all different colors now... just look at the new Creatives..

yea that's right... stop bashing sony, because they make top quality products

[Not Bugged]

Sony didn't invent IMAX

Two Canadian innovators brought you that one...

Sony innovate? What a joke, give up!

I think you're mistaken when you refer to Sony as an innovator. Sony's only innovation is to create products that can use existing things in different ways. The Walkman was their one hit wonder.

For example, Sony didn't create the entertainment market, I think that was called a record! Philips invented the Cassette and the CD. Philips also created the first VCR. Sony wasn't the first to introduce the portable CD player ironically.

A robotic dog? How useful. Sorry but Honda's Robot makes Sony's look like a useless toy, which is all it is in the end.

Trinitron was a great technology, but figuring that 80% of Americans watch TV thats calibrated incorrectly, with way too much red and often green. What would a flatter screen do for that? Nothing!

Sony created Mini-disc, ATRAC, and memory sticks. Hey thats three proprietary formats NOBODY wants, and Sony's been shoving them all for years without any chance of making a dent outside of Japan. No other manufacturer has paid much attention to any of them. There's a reason Sony quit selling PDA's outside of Japan, it hasn't got a clue what anyone else really wants anymore. DAT was a great idea, killed at the starting gate by the RIAA, and Sony's prices.

Nothing that Sony makes today will make a dent because Sony just doesn't get it anymore. Simplicity is not part of Sony's vocabulary, so the only company that could compete with iPod is probably Philips, and I've not seen anything from them yet.

Nobody want's to have to move files manually, because it takes too much time. Many of the iPod users haven't got a clue about "FAT partitions", and "ROOT folders", yet every other 'MP3' player out there assumes they do... that's the problem.

"Non-techy" People want music plain and simple, not technology and formats getting in the way. Sony won't succeed until it gets this basic fact, drop the file system format and hide the complexity, or quit trying.

Tell me how fast you can download a song and put it on your MP3 player, and I'll show you how fast it is to do with iTunes and iPod over firewire. Think about it, all I do is click download, or import and then plug in my iPod... I heard it took 13 hours to import 1000 MP3's into Sony's first effort!

As for battery life, hey if I encode all my songs at 48Khz instead of 128 or 160, then I'd bet my songs would play for 25+ hours too, funnily enough. It's called a memory buffer, which stops the HDD spinning up so often! However I'm more interested in CD quality...

[knute6]

The Apple iPod

Look at Apple, simplicity, ease of use, that's the company
mantra. None of the other tech companies out there get it. They
build and ship by quantity, not quality or ease of use - just hard
numbers - where does that get you - not very far.
The iPod is another example of true innovation, along with Pixar
and the Macintosh. Apple rules because they keep it simple
stupid (KISS)

[Andrew J Glina]

Apple Don't Innovate

They stole the GUI and the mouse, and even now people think Apple were first. While Apple released one of the first digital cameras, it was made by Kodak who though it was so bad that they didn't want their name on it. (I used one and I think they ware right!) To my knowledge Creative were first with HD music players. They stole UNIX, the dock is a rip off of the RISC OS interface. The most original innovative thing that Apple has done for years was the Newton.

While it is not directly Apple anyway, Pixar is often added to Apples innovation list. But Pixar is largely made up of an arm of ILM that George Lucas (stupidly) sold off.

Sony on the other hand not only design, but they also make most of their products. I am not sure what part of the iPod that they do make, but it is not the dial, the HD, or the main chip. These days all that makes Apple different from Dell is that they have their "own" software. Sony was the first to sell a portable tape player, and the first to sell a compressed audio player. Apple were just lucky that Toshiba had just released the 1.8 inch drives. Sony had the hard job of being forced to not only make their own compressed audio format (ATRAC), but also a storage method.

Since Woz left they haven't been the same...

(Incidentally, Phillips is the last company that would have a chance of competing with Apple on simplicity. Anyone remember the DCC? What a stupid idea that was! How about CDi? Stupid also.)


Andrew J Glina

www.SinnerComputing.com

No I-Pod Killer

This is a smart move by Sony.They should also adapt the WMA format as well. They seem to be on the right track in attaining some market share. The extra battery life is awesome. They make the mistake at the price point. When you are not leading the market, you have to come in at a lower price. This device will not kill the iPod unless it drops down in price.

There is no more battery life

You don't get it, the ATRAC system compresses music at a lower bit rate by default, and that decreases the quality of the music. It's akin to comparing CD's to cassette. So if you want to re-record all your MP3's at 64 or 48kbps instead of the typical defaults of 128 or 160kbps you will also get much better battery life.

Why? The reason is in the size of the files created. When you have a file that takes up 2Mb instead of a file that takes up 4Mb and you have a RAM buffer of 64Mb then you can twice as many files in that RAM buffer before you have to restart your hard drive to read more files into RAM.

The more you read from the hard drive, the more battery power you use because RAM doesn't use much power, the hard drive has a motor that does.

So please ignore the marketing B.S. and see this for what it is. There is no magic battery technology that Sony's using that Apple/iRiver/Creative isn't also using, it's a play on numbers and gulible consumers. And Sony already got a bad rap for misleading consumers from varous sources already.

USB VERSUS FIREWIRE!!!

Looks & ease of use aside, please ... speed rules.

Firewire is simply faster and so far only available on iPod.

It looks so 1980's

Looks like an old walkman I had. Just a bit more curves, a screen and bit smaller. Maybe thats what their aming for. Maybe they still think its the 1980's.

[delkor007]

You guys stop wasting your time !!

get a life you guys !! it's not like you gonna win a prize by who's write and who's wrong!!
By the way, Isn't Firewire (a.k.a. ilink) made by Sony ? Yeah I think so. but i maybe wrong so who cares!!
Sony is not trying to comepete with ipod. They are just trying to come out something different then other products so that consumers have more options to buy from.

Apple invented FireWire

Apple invented FireWire and licenses the technology to Sony,
which chose to call it "iLink" because it thought its name was
better. Typical Sony mentality. They always know what's best,
even if it confuses the consumer.

[Andrew J Glina]

Dead horse

Well to be honest, I am not sure what the point was now. I thought the point that I was refering to was that that while Apple do innovate Sony have far more, past and present, to boast about. Sony is co-developing an entire CPU and Blu-Ray discs in addition to their relatively minor Walkman developments.

But I do agree. Apple is a great company. I just get a bit sick of the seemingly blind devotion some Mac user have. But the iPod is nothing special. I use my Treo for the same function, and a custom software JukeBox (Subtle plug time; JukeBx from Sinner Computing) at home. To me the iPod is too specialised, but I suppose for a Road Warrior it is more required.

Incidently I didn't know that Apple sold Sony products in their stores. Till next time!!

[ericchan]

you're all more pro-ipod then anti-sony

How the heck does that thing look like an ipod? sure its got the matching colors of an ipod mini, but they had a survey in japan to choose those colors. They didnt have mp3s because they were trying to support atrac3, a much better quality format anyways, even though its not widely supported and takes a while to convert.

all in all, this is a beautiful mp3 player. i especially like the g-sensor shock resistance, for my active lifestyle. i only have a few suggestions for sony- try developing a fm tuner, but keep size, have a drag and drop system rather than sonic stage, allow other files to be stored, add usb on the go, or firewire. otherwise, very nice job sony. it only took you 3 tries and millions of dollars!