Sony is still determined to fight its way back on the market after being disappointed with its previous sales performance, apart from Japan. Now they are working on improving its features and have announced another new series of MP3 Walkmans that aim to compete against Apple's iPod features. Their newest feature known as "Intellectual Shuffle" randomises the music with a preference towards music based on certain parameters. For example, the music can be shuffled such that the player will shuffle music from a given Genre, Artist, rating, recent transfer to even the user's most played 100 tracks as well as many other options.
The players come in a choice of 20GB and 6GB sizes with a colour choice of Violet, Blue, Silver and Pink along with matching earphones. The 6GB and 20GB players features dimensions of 55 x 88.1 x 18.7 mm (2.17" x 3.47" x 0.36") and 65.2 x 104.2 x 21.4 mm (2.57" x 4.1" x 0.84") and screen sizes of 1.5" and 2" respectively. Both players feature a large organic EL display, MP3 & ATRAC3plus support and new search features including related artists and genres.
The 6GB
and 20GB Walkman players will be priced at £169 and £199 respectively in the UK and are due for launch in Early November.
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The new Walkman A series, to be put on the Japanese market Nov. 19, is equipped with functions to learn users' taste in music, the company said.
For example, the "Intellectual Shuffle" function searches and plays music by a number of parameters, such as songs frequently listened to by users. Other parameters to sort songs downloaded from compact discs or the Internet include genre, artist and year of release. The new series also features a large organic electroluminescence display, Sony said. |
These players do seem to lack a radio and there is no mention of battery life. Then again, Sony probably figures that if Apple can do so well without a radio, they could easily do the same, especially with their success in Japan with a player that lacks a radio. Also, Apple's original iPod had no problem taking over the market with a very short 6 hour battery life at the time. As Sony has already succeeded in taking over the iPod shuffle in Japan, it will be interesting to see if this play can help them take over the regular iPod and iPod mini series. However, it will also be interesting to see if a new sophisticated shuffle feature will be enough to lure consumers over to these new products.
In my opinion, Sony probably would have done a lot better with their digital audio players if they had not tried forcing various anti-piracy measures upon its customers in its early equipment as well as avoiding the MP3 format for such a long time. Even still, if some consumers are getting upset about its copy protected album CDs as well as Sony BMG's aim to copy protect all its upcoming albums, they may become sceptical about its equipment also.
Source: TechNewsWorld - Personal Tech
