Sony has released 3 new lines in the venerable Walkman family of portable music players. Sony hopes that these new Walkmans will allow it to regain marketshare lost to Apple and its iPod lines.
At the low end is the NW-E100 family with 3 models, the NW-E103, NW-E105 and NW-E107, which come with 256 MB, 512 MB and 1 GB respectively of storage capacity in a range of six colours. Both Sony’s ATRAC3 and the almost ubiquitous MP3 formats are supported. An LCD window will let you see song, artist or album title. A single AAA alkaline will deliver up to 70 hours of music.
For the midrange market, Sony has unveiled the EW-400 with 3 models: the 256MB NW-E403, the 512MB NW-E405 and the 1GB NW-E407. An organic EL Display provides 3 lines of text and information like time and date can also be displayed in a vertical layout. A built-in lithium-ion battery provides up to 50 hours of playback but can be recharged in 3 minutes to offer 3 hours of play! USB charging is also supported
At the top end of the family is the EW-500 with 3 more models: the NW-E503 (256MB), NW-E505 (512MB) and NW-E507 (1GB). All 3 offer a built-in FM digital tuner and different colour schemes from the NW400 family. They are otherwise similar to the NW-E400 family.
Pricing has not been announced although I found a NW-E105 at Sony Canada for $139.99 CAD.