Sony to launch its own "I-Pod"

[Vanhalen 0]

Sony is to revamp its famous Walkman by launching a digital music player to rival Apple's iPod, which has led the market since its 2001 launch.

Sony said its device would be about £55 cheaper and able to store 3,000 more songs than the top iPod model.

 

It is also aiming to boost use of its online music store Sony Connect, as its Walkman will play songs only in the company's own format.

 

The Walkman hits Japan on 10 July, the US in August and Europe by September.

 

 

Sony hopes to rival Apple's hugely successful iPod 

Last year Sony announced it was cutting 20,000 jobs as part of restructuring to deal with sliding profits.

 

Sony said its Network Walkman NW-HD1 would carry 13,000 songs and sell for less than $400 (£219) in the US. This compares with $499 (£274) for the highest capacity iPod which can store 10,000 songs.

 

The device will be incompatible with other online stores and cannot play tunes in the popular MP3 format.

 

Small in size

 

It is slightly larger than a credit card and less than half an inch thick. Sony said the battery lasted 30 hours, at least three times longer than the iPod.

 

It also promised shock-resistant technology that protected the hard drive if dropped.

 

Launched to mark the 25th anniversary of the original Walkman cassette player, Sony said it had used advanced compression technology to pack more songs in a smaller storage space.

 

It uses a 20-gigabyte hard-drive, compared with Apple's highest capacity 40 gigabyte models.

 

Sony said the NW-HD1would be the smallest player of its capacity on the market.

 

Sony has sold 340 million Walkmans during the past 25 years, including several million CD players.

 

Last month Apple's pioneering online music service iTunes was launched in the UK, Germany and France, offering more than 700,000 songs for 79p or 0.99 euros each.

 

ITunes has proved enormously popular in the US, with about 85 million songs downloaded since its launch in April 2003.

[Guest drdrainoscott]

Cannot play MP3's???

 

Good luck...

[bobobrazil1984 0]

No mp3 capability!??! Only in Sony's own format?? given a choice between that and iPod, who would chose that!?

[Steviekick 0]

Not playing the standard (mp3) and creating your own bizarre format sounds like something that would come from Apple's research and development team.

 

Oh, how the times have changed...

[Ced 0]

The PSP better be the greatest handheld gaming system in the history of mankind, because they're going to lose alot of money with this.

 

All the specs are great and everything, but no MP3 capability means Sony's fucked out of the gates.

[Guest frowned]

and you can bet confidently that the new format will contain some severely limiting DRM system. They're going to have to come up with some much better spin than "we can hold more songs than the iPod despite being half it's size", because people WILL ask questions.

[dubq 0]

Fuck them both. The prices for the iPod, and now this, are ridiculous. I'll stick with the CD / MP3 players..

[caboose 0]

Sony did this before with VHS and Beta. I guess they don't learn.

[Perfxion 0]

They lost on the Beta, yet it was the better player and they STILL sell them these days but only people in the TV world get them because the quality is still there.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Sony has the "we want everything in to be in our own format" down pat.

 

From Beta to this to their Blu-Ray Hi Def DVD format thats not backwards compatible with current CDs and DVDs (unless theres a second laser added to the hardware).