New Sony Walkman X1000 uses an OLED screen and advanced sound enhancement features. W-series is a headphones-only player.
At CES 2009, Sony introduced the new flagship to its Walkman music and video player lineup. The Sony Walkman NWZ-X1000 is the first Wi-Fi enabled Walkman player. The music and video player will use Wi-Fi in combination with an Internet browser to surf the Web on the player's 3-inch screen. That touchscreen uses OLED technology, a screen technology that is still-rare but known for its brightness and high contrast, so we're very curious to get our eyes on this device.
Don't bring the noise
The Sony Walkman X1000 is also the first music player with active noise cancellation built in. Like noise canceling headphones, the Sony Walkman X1000 will generate counter-tones to eliminate noise. The device even has special noise filters for airplanes. We're wondering how they pull this off. Noise cancellation relies on a microphone to pick up background noise. Usually this mic is on a pair of headphones, so we're wondering if the Sony Walkman X1000 uses special headphones, or if the microphone is on the device itself, and thus hidden away in a pocket. In any case, the CES show floor should be a perfect environment to give this feature a run-through.
Working with the Wi-Fi
For Internet features, the Sony Walkman X1000 will also have YouTube streaming capabilities. Presumably, this will be a separate app or the mobile YouTube Web site, but not true embedded flash within the Internet browser. Additionally, the device will have some level of global search capabilities to link music and media tracks directly to YouTube-related searches for Artists and Titles. So, you can listen to some Flight of the Concords on your Walkman, then jump directly to watch bootlegged videos of the duo on YouTube. We've seen a similar feature on the T-Mobile G1, and we liked the way it worked.
The iPod what?
The Sony Walkman X1000 will be available in early summer, and the price has yet to be determined, but this will be a key sticking point in Sony's ongoing war with Apple. Now that Sony has a Walkman with Wi-Fi and Web browser, comparisons with Apple's iPod touch are inevitable. Considering the Walkman's 16GB and 32GB capacities, same as the iPod touch, and the heavy emphasis on music and video quality, the battle is certainly raging. Unfortunately, we think that the Sony Walkman X1000 just won't go far enough to compete with the game-playing, app-loading, motion-sensitive iPod. So, Sony's best chance for this device would be to compete on price, or to hope that buyers are looking for a device that puts a premium on audio technology and that impressive OLED display.
A Walkman without a body
Sony today also introduced the Walkman W-series, including the Sony Walkman NWZ-W202 (gallery). In a nutshell, the Walkman W202 is a player contained within a set of headphones. They swing around the back of the head, and all of the controls are located on the earpieces themselves. The music playback can be controlled with a jog dial, and Sony has an interesting ZAPPIN mode to help find songs without the aid of a visual display. ZAPPIN plays clips of each song in your device's music library until you find the one you want. The Sony Walkman W202 also offers a quick charge feature which allows the device to play back up to 90 minutes of music with only a three-minute charge and up to 12 hours of music with a full charge.
The Sony Walkman W202 will be available in April. It will come in either black or pink, though we like the look of the white player in the press photos Sony sent along. The player will come with about 2GB of internal storage, and will cost about $70.
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