With flash Walkman, Sony takes on iPod Shuffle

New players can store up to 1GB of data. They'll be a bit pricier than some competitors, but company says features are worth it.
Photos: Cell phone meets the Walkman
Photo: The new flash Walkman

The story "With flash Walkman, Sony takes on iPod Shuffle" published March 8, 2005 at 5:20 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.

[H. Michael Karshis]

$317 for a 1GB Flash 1GB Flash mp3 Player for only $317?

What? Sony's new 1GB flash player will go for about
$317.89 and they say they'll win over customers with
superior features and designs. Like what? A screen
and an FM radio that broadcasts the same 20 songs all
day inbetween commercials? That's just crazy. Hopefull
your new British CEO won't go for that.

Waxing about superior features and design- Sony is
missing the point of the original walkman as well as the
key points of the success of the iPod- the luxury of
listening to YOUR music whenever and wherever you
want coupled with flawless software (iTunes) to
manage your music.

What's next Sony - a pint of beer in a Sony Glass - it''s 3
times more expensive than the Apple pint, but it comes
with superior features like a mug with a handle...

Good luck Sony.

H. Michael Karshis

[bemenaker]

Features aren't going to win the price war

132 for a 256 MB's of RAM? Are these people smoking crack? Why would I pay that when I can get an ipod shuffle for 99? It would have double the memory, and is extremely easy to use. The extra features are nice, and what you use to steal market share from the leader, but before that can happen, you have to match on capability at price point.

The main purpose of this device is to play back music. If I can get one that is straight forward to use and hold twice as much and is a touch cheaper, that is where the money goes. Bells and whistles are what win you over when all other things are equal. Sony is still behind the ipod shuffle and will not steal the market share unless they compete at the same price point. 99 for 512MB version.

[lingsun]

The Creative Muvo is the real flash-based leader.

The Ipod Shuffle doesn't even have a display. It doesn't have an FM tuner, an equalizer, voice recording, or line-in music recording. It has a rechargable battery instead of using AAA batteries like the Muvo does. It doesn't play WMA files and for me that's huge. It means the 1gb Shuffle holds as many songs as a 512meg Muvo. The regular hard drive based Ipods are great but the shuffle is a waste of money.

[lingsun]

Creative Muvo 1gb is $175 or less

No one's going to buy Sony's products at the prices they are trying to sell them at. Not only that, but their 1gb flash drive looks like it's as big as a hard drive player. Creative's flash players are tiny, light, and relatively cheap.

[lingsun]

Sony has some serious problems

Sony must have some serious internal problems and I'm not joking. No one in their right mind would buy a 1gb flash drive for over $300. They should know that. Maybe they don't do market research or maybe they refuse to believe their own research. It's too bad because they used to make some great products.

[Stating]

Not A Good Value

For about the same amount of money as the Sony player, you can buy a Dell Axim with wireless networking and a 1 gig SD memory card. You'll not only have a super music player but also a full-featured PDA including MS IE and Office.

I use my Axim to listen AND watch MP3, MPEG, WMA, RA, WAV, etc. I take it on-the-go to listen in the car, walking around, etc. When I'm home, I stream live TV, recorded video, and music to it from my deskop computer. It fits in my shirtpocket and gives me 3-4 hours of play time. In my book, this is a much better solution for the money than the Sony player. Lastly, unlike many music players, my PDA does not lock me in to specific music formats, I have my choice of several music/video players including graphic equalizer, and it's fully software upgradedable.

Keith
www.techcando.com

[Shauheen]

journalism!

Well, I also think that SONY should still be looking for another CEO, but!
I don't know why most of the news that have a taste of Apple on C|net do have some sort of imperfection or mistake! maybe that's because I tend to read them more carefully! read this:

"The most expensive model, which offers 1GB of storage, will go for about $317.89 and will be able to store the equivalent of 45 compact discs."

!!! yeah the first reaction is: "what! they think they can sell with that price tag!" but the second one would be: "45 compact discs on a GB??!!!" you obviously mean audio CD, not 45 compact discs of mp3! (which would need about 30 of those $317.89 devices to store) and still, I assume it would be more informative to say what encoding has been used in that experiment, and what has been the quality of the sound that came out of that device afterwards!

[Stating]

45 compact discs on 1 gig

Sony's claim may be correct, but it's vague. It does not tell you how many songs per CD or average song length. They are probably using the ATRAC3Plus format they invented, which they claim offers better compression. A guesstimate on their claim yields:
45 CDs x 8 songs per CD x 3 megabytes per song = 1080 mb. As they say in carland, your mileage may vary.

Here's what Sony says about ATRAC3Plus:
http://www.sony.net/Products/ATRAC3/tech/atrac3plus/index.html
"Short for "Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding 3 plus", ATRAC3plus is an enhancement of ATRAC3 incorporating advanced audio compression technology. This latest technology analyzes longer periods of audio signals to obtain more precise information of the input signals and also introduces a newly developed algorithm that achieves optimal bit allocation for a wide range of audio signals. As a result, high quality sound is achieved at high compression levels of 1/20 the original sound source. ATRAC3plus technology achieves double the compression ratio of ATRAC3 with virtually no loss in sound quality."

Keith
www.techcando.com

amazon sales rank: Sony vs Apple

I wanted to get some idea of how well Sony is doing compared to Apple, so I searched the Amazon.com sales rankings for both companies in sales of electronic items. The results were interesting:

Sony items in the top 100: 2
- including 1 headphones, 1 battery charger.

Apple items in the top 100: 16
- including 14 ipods/shuffles (older and newer models), 1 iTunes prepaid card, 1 AirPort Express.

Combined dollar value of 2 Sony items in top 100: $67

Combined dollar value of 16 Apple items in top 100: $3,620

I sure seems to me that Sony's continual failure to gain market share in digital music players is a result of an inflated corporate ego. They want to believe that the name 'Sony' is enough to get consumers to buy their overpriced products. They just don't understand that this new phenomenon of digital music has created a whole new generation of consumers who are very different than the previous generation of TV and Walkman consumers.

Goodbye Sony, it was nice knowing you, but now I found a new love and she's way sexier than you and her lips are as sweet and juicy as an apple.

[nonstopdoc1]

all you guys check ur facts first

NW-E105PSBLU

NEW

Psyc® Network Walkman® Digital Music Player
NW-E105PSBLU
$ 99.95
* Up to 70 hours of continuous playback on one ?AAA? battery1
* Backlit LCD Display
* Plays Back in ATRAC3? Audio Format and MP3 Files2
* 512MB3 Built-in Memory
* Compatible with Sony's Connect? Online Music Store

[Rusdude]

Correct Prices are $149 (1Gb)/$99 (512 Mb)/$89 (256 Mb)

Some PR guy is going to get fired for letting news media run stories with wacky prices.

The real line-up and prices could be found here: http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start?CategoryName=pa_flashMemory&Dept=audio

On that list, 1 gig model goes for $149.95, two 512 Mb models (one is blue, another is white) go for $99.95, and 256 Mb model goes for $89.95. Not sure why they even have a 256 Mb model if it costs only $10 less, but at any rate, these prices are extremely competitive with Apple and Creative's offerings.

Note: I didn't see the rectangular-shaped player (that's on Cnet's photo) on that list. Those four models are puck-shaped players which weigh < 1 oz. and 2 inches in diameter.

SPECS for 1 gig model (Network Walkman? Digital Music PlayerNW-E107):

Specifications ? Inputs and Outputs:

? Outputs: Headphone (Stereo Mini Jack)

? Input: USB

Power:


? Power Requirements: ?AAA? Alkaline Battery (not included)

? Battery Life (Approximately): Up to 70 Hours1 of continuous playback with one ?AAA? Battery (not included)

Supplied Accessories:


? SonicStage® Software

? Headphones (MDR-E808)

? USB Cable

Colors:


? Silver

Weights and Measurements:


? Weight: .92 oz (26g)

? Dimensions: 2.21? x 2.21? x .76" (56.2 x 56.2 x 19.2mm)

[Jon Skillings]

Correction

Prices in the story have been corrected.

[skylander]

$300 for 1GB??

I agree... I wouldn't use $300 to get a 1GB Sony.
As you know, I could get a 20G ipod at $299. OR I could get a 1GB Shuffle at $149.

Although Sony has an impressive design for this MP3 player, I will still go for Apple.

[Rusdude]

Read up: CORRECT prices are $89-$200

Vincent, as I noted in my earlier post (just above this one), there was a mistake with prices. Cnet has since changed the story to reflect correct prices.

Real prices start with $89/99/149 for 256 Mb/512 Mb/1 Gb puck-shaped 100 series. Prices on 400/500 series are also highly competitive (same as Apple and others, basically) which is very non-Sony-like.