30 Year Evolution: Sony Walkman

This year marked the 30th anniversary of the Sony Walkman. Here's Sony's thirty year journey in less than 3 minutes:



[akihabara]

The Slimmest Walkman: Sony NW-840

The NW-A840 is a slim 7.2mm thick and features a 2.8 inch OLED display, digital noise cancellation, and 16 GB, 32GB, or 64GB of flash storage. Also onboard is 720 x 480 resolution video out.

Battery life is estimated at 29 hours of continuous music or 9 hours of video playback.

They come bundled with Sony’s premium MRD-EX300SL earbuds. Available in Japan on the 31st of October.

[mp4nation]

Sony Releases Two iPod Accessories? Sony IF-CD3iP Dock and ZS-S4iP Boombox

It's kind of odd but Sony has indeed announced the ICF-CD3iP, which is a dock for the iPhone/iPod. It also features an alarm clock, a radio, and a CD player with MP3-CD playback to the device. It even has an iPod/iPhone remote. It retains both the dock as well as the device's alarm times. The line in has been included so that the odd Zune or Creative (maybe even Sony) loyalists can hook up their other players.
The Sony ZS-S4iP boombox that docks your Apple device and charges it while playing back your fav tunes. Specs reveal two 2.0 Watt speakers, FM/AM (with 30 presets), playback of regular CD's, and data CD-R/W's with MP3's, a remote, Digital Mega Bass and ID3Tag Support.

[newlaunches]

For the Tub: Sony Mini Bravia XDV-W600 LCD TV

The Sony Mini Bravia XDV-W600 LCD TV with 4-inch flat panel can go where few TVs have gone before, even surviving for a half-hour submerged under three feet of water. Battery-powered for 23 hours, it can even record video clips like a TiVo, or transfer movies onto its 2GB of built-in flash memory.

Sadly it only supports the Japanese 1seg data broadcasting system that’s not available in the U.S.

[Sony via DVICE]

Cute and Cheap: Sony PMX-U55 PMP

Looking a little like an iPod nano, the Sony PMX-U55 pmp features a 2.4-inch 320 x 240 pixel display, audio and video playback. Battery is estimated at 12 hours for audio and 5 hours for video.

It supports MP3, WMA, AAC audio; and MPEG4, H.264/AVC video. It's only available in China.

[ubergizmo]

Compatible with iTunes and WMP: Sony Walkman E-Series

The new Sony Walkman’s will come in three capacities and four colors. The new NWZ-E435, NWZ-E436 and NWZ-E438 are very thin at only 8.5mm. They feature a 2-inch 320 x 240 pixel TFT screen, FM tuner, and come in 2GB(E435), 4GB(E436), or 8GB(E438) capacity. The 2GB and 4GB come in black, blue, pink or red while the 8GB comes only in black. According to the Sony Insider: "Don’t be too critical of the E-series, they are more for the budget conscious".

They support MP3, AAC, WMA, and Linear PCM audio.

The new Walkmans support both Window Media Player and iTunes.

[Sony Insider]

Comparison Chart: Sony NWZ-A720, NWZ-A820, NWZ-S710F

Here’s a comparison chart of the Sony Walkman NWZ-A720, NWZ-A820, and NWZ-S710F. Click to view actual size. The NWZ-A720 and NWZ-A820 come in black. The NWZ-710F comes in black, silver, red and pink.



[Sony]

Gesture Command Navigation: Sony nav-u Portable Navigation System

Sony announced that its new nav-u personal navigation devices (models NV-U73T and NV-U83T) are now available for sale. The nav-u devices feature a 4.3-inch (NV-U73T)/4.8-inch (NV-U78T) touchscreen, text-to-speech voice commands, real-time-traffic capability, and dual view capability which displays dynamic route information, in addition to the conventional map view. Gesture Command provides control via simple, on-screen finger movements. Both devices include preloaded maps of the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

In addition, the NV-U83T features integrated Bluetooth wireless technology and Position Plus. Position Plus uses multiple sensors to monitor your position relative to the map if GPS signals are temporarily interrupted.

[Sony via Akihabara]

Sony Walkman NWZ-A820 Accessory: VRC-NW10 Docking Station

Earlier I posted about the Sony Walkman NWZ-A820. Sony also announced accessories for the NWZ-820 media player. The VRC-NW10 is an audio/video docking station that allows NWZ-A820 content to be routed to a TV or stereo system. It also allows video recording from any source directly onto the device in MPEG-4 format (256/512/768kbps). Wow!

[gmp3]

Easy-To-Use: Sony Walkman NWZ-A820

Having emerged successful in the DVD format war, Sony can now focus on other matters with the introduction of the Sony NWZ-A820. The A820 features a 2.4-inch 320 × 240 pixel display, 4GB (NWZ-A826), 8GB (NWZ-A828), or 16GB (NWZ-A829) of flash, 13.5mm EX headphones, and Bluetooth stereo audio. It measures 3.7 x 2.0 x 0.4 inches. The NWZ-A820 supports MP3, AAC, DRM WMA, and linear PCM audio; H.264/ACV and MPEG-4 video; and JPEG images. Playback is up to 36 hours for audio and up to 10 hours for video. With Bluetooth stereo enabled, playback is up to 15 hours of audio and up to 7 hours of video. And it comes in black, silver, gold, and pink.

[Engadget, TFTS]

Check out the video:

The Fun of a PC in your Pocket: Sony mylo 2

It’s difficult to figure out what products the Sony mylo 2 is competing against. Is it the Archos? iPod? Zune? PCs? PDAs? There is no clear answer. Regardless it's a nice looking device with interesting features.

Sony advertizes the mylo 2 (which stands for "my life online") as a personal communicator with back-lit slide-out keyboard that uses Wi-Fi for communication, surfing the Web, instant messaging, and e-mailing. In addition, it features a 1.3 megapixel camera with built-in photo editing software.

Like the Archos, the mylo supports widgets. It comes with preinstalled COM-2 widgets like the Google search widget and the Facebook® Notifier. COM-2 users will be able to download new widgets from the new COM-2 product website. And, users will be allowed to register as developers in order to gain access to the technical resources they need to build their own widgets.

The mylo 2 plays music and video. Supported audio formats include MP3, ATRAC, WMA and AAC. COM-2 also supports Windows Media DRM 10. Supported video includes MPEG4 and MPEG4 AVC. Supported image formats include JPEG, PNG, and BMP.

Check ubergizmo’s hands-on with the mylo 2:

[Sony Style via Gizmodo]

Check out the mylo 2 at the Watches and Stuff amazon.com webstore.