New Walkman-Branded Hard Disk Player

Darian writes "Following on the heels of Commodore's introduction of portable digital music players Sony has stepped up to the plate with their first Walkman branded product. Reuters has the story and The Register has a couple more photos. Gizmodo has an anonymous tip from a Sony insider. The NW-HD1 is a 'credit card-sized' 8.9m x 6.2 x 1.4cm unit fitted with a 20GB 1.8in hard drive. There's enough RAM on board to provide 25 minutes of skip-free playback. There's a seven-line LCD for track information and player status data. "We couldn't come up with something using the Walkman brand until it survived the 1 meter (3 ft 3.37 in) drop test," said Robert Ashcroft, senior vice president of Sony network services Europe. So digital music rights had nothing to do with it? Right. The unit is planned to undercut the iPod price point. Apple lawyers do have the upper hand with the scroll wheel." Update: 07/01 21:34 GMT by T : It's also the Walkman's 25th birthday; read on for more.

Player Blog writes "The Sony Walkman, icon of the 80s and direct ancestor of the iPod and its ilk, first hit the streets 25 years ago. I don't know if July 1, 1979 was the actual first day for the Walkman, but Sony is celebrating it today. I had one, I loved it and I thought it was the greatest invention ever. Take a trip down memory lane with the history and photos at the Walkman Museum."

Dimensions?!

[delibes]

8.9m x 6.2 x 1.4cm

8.9 metres? And that's a portable walkman is it? What will these wacky foreigners think of next? :)

Sony never learns

[DrXym]

All musics formats are converted to ATRAC when they are transferred to the device. What is the point I wonder. By implication it means the sound quality will suck in comparison to other players on the market.

Still, it give me a reason to ignore their latest music player, just as I have their earlier efforts for the same reason. And the price no doubt.

Sony must be clearly flush with cash if they can afford to put people off their products so readily.

Damn..

[adeyadey]

"We couldn't come up with something using the Walkman brand until it survived the 1 meter (3 ft 3.37 in) drop test,"

Damn it, I'm over 1 meter tall, guess I'll have to wait for the next model..

edited or mis-edited?

[mblase]

...consumers will soon be able to download songs from the European Sony Connect online store - which appears to have entirely failed to launch in June, as promised.

Nice of them to promise it will fail to launch, I think. Saves us the trouble of griping and complaining about it after the fact.

I'm lovin' it

[spoonani]

Now if i could only eat enough mcdonald's meals to get 13,000 free sony connect songs!

"Credit card sized"

[nmg196]

Imagine if all your credit cards actually *were* the size of this "credit card sized" device... Your wallet would be more like a laptop case and would weigh about 30lbs. I wish they wouldn't keep exaggerating the sizes of products...

Sony's portable cd player is called the Discman

[bugmenot]

SO why didn't they name this device the HardMan?

Re:Dimensions?!

[duranaki]

How close to mark is needed in marketing anyway? "credit card sized" and 1.4cm thick?? I think my credit card is maybe 2 or 3mm thick... why not just say its "nearly the size of a tic-tac"?

Re:20-Hour Battery, 25-minute Storage

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! It's just like your own personal radio station. Just add payola!

Whuaa??!

[chadseld]

"credit card-sized' 8.9m x 6.2 x 1.4cm " 8.9 meters!! Holy crap, what kind of credit cards to they use in Japan??!!

Re:Loss of quality?

[CowsAnonymous]

I especially like the part that says..."The judgements were recorded to an especially prepared table for evaluation with the tool "anascfg" supplied by Sony

Re:Dimensions?!

[Anonymous Coward]

That size is required to accommodate all you fat Americans.

Re:too bad it doesnt do MP3

[Anonymous Coward]

National Institute of Health syndrome?

Re:here's the article with listening tests

[blackmonday]

Attention Slashdot Newbs: If you feel the need to be modded up, the secret is to add the phrase "Well, that and moving my home PC to Gentoo" at the end of your post. Some examples:

"Well, I myself can't wait to go through the Saturn rings one day. How Cool Would that be? Well, that and moving my home PC to Gentoo."

Or maybe:

"I think it's unfortunate that they caught that guy by using Night Vision goggles. Myself, I'll be watching it on DVD. Well, that and moving my home PC to Gentoo."

Re:here's the article with listening tests

[sita]

It was a blind listening test.

Since blind, as we know, have more acute hearing.

Re:too bad it doesnt do MP3

[sevenofnine]

Of course they do, they dont support MP3, hench you can get alot more ATRAC songs on it than MP3 songs...

Re:Dimensions?!

[Dogtanian]

8.9 metres? And that's a portable walkman is it? What will these wacky foreigners think of next? :)

(Says nothing, but picks up oddly-shaped stick-Walkman and starts beating Delibes about the head with it).

Next ad campaign...

[TimTheFoolMan]

"Supersize Me"

Oops... maybe that's not such a good idea.

Tim

Re:Damn..

[Anonymous Coward]

Replaced your tin-foil with your MP3 player, eh?

Re:too bad it doesnt do MP3

[switcha]

There are still millions of people who know "Sony Walkman" as the only way to listen to portable music, and its their money that counts.

Boy, I'd defer to the market on that one. As for me, you say "Walkman" and I think of being 8 and listening to a Footloose soundtrack cassette on a 'portable' brick that defied physics with it's belt-loop creaking weight.

Re:here's the article with listening tests

[silicon not in the v]

Wow, that's a great suggestion. I think that's the best idea I've heard all week. Well, that and moving my home PC to Gentoo.

Re:Neuros II

[evilviper]

I probably would have bought one if it wasn't for:

1. The large size.
2. The high price (MUCH smaller units are quite a bit cheaper)
3. You still need their software installed to use the Neuros, even though there happen to be open source implimentations.

Re:Whuaa??!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an anti-theft initiative...

Re:Whuaa??!

[evilmrhenry]

What you're seeing is the same forces that are pushing for adoption of IPv6. This new credit-card format will allow multiple credit-card numbers for every atom in the galaxy, meaning that we will never again need to change the form-factor. Granted, there are some tradeoffs, but it will ultimately be worth it.

Re:here's the article with listening tests

[op00to]

The problem is that the people who would go through the trouble of a test like that are people who consider themselves "audiophiles". If you look in the dictionary under audiophile, it will say something like "Someone who has their head up their ass. They do this because it's quieter in there, and they can hear the difference between a 256 kbit mp3 and a 384 kbit mp3."

But really, you're not going to find joe user taking a test like this. Why bother? He uses the following rubric to choose his codec (varying weights):

1. Is it installed on my computer already?
2. Does it work with my portable player?
3. Do I have to pay anything for it?
4. Does it sound good enough?