Photo: Walkman plays MP3
Back to: Sony takes on iPod with new hard-disk Walkman
Photo credit: Sony
Sony's new Walkman NW-HD3 plays MP3 files.
Back to: Sony takes on iPod with new hard-disk Walkman
Photo credit: Sony
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.
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
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...
Firewire is simply faster and so far only available on iPod.
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.
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!!
- you're all more pro-ipod then anti-sony
- by ericchan January 17, 2005 8:07 PM PST
- 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.
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(24 Comments)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!