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Sony's "iPod killer" Fails to Draw Blood
Mr_Silver writes "Walter Mossberg (of WSJ fame) managed to review the new Sony NW-HD1 and was distinctly unimpressed. The upsides: it's smaller, lighter and has a battery life of 20 hours. The downsides: goodbye MP3 - hello ATRAC3, slow upload (and converting) times and the confusing user interface on the walkman, PC software and the music store. When will someone pass Sony the cluestick?"
RTFA on this one. They say the stated capacity and battery life only happens when you convert to such a poor quality of file that it sounds like wet dog shit.
The iPod has one of the best MP3 decoders and amplifiers in the business. It sucks a lot of juice in comparison to the cheap junk the other companies throw in.
Sony's iPod Killer
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod digital music player has fended off every rival product handily, not only remaining the most popular digital music player, but becoming a cultural icon and spawning an industry of accessories and of legal music downloads.
Next month, however, the iPod will face its most potent competitor. This latest challenger is none other than Sony Corp., the Japanese giant that revolutionized portable music with its Walkman tape players 25 years ago. Sony, which has lost its leadership in portable music to Apple, will try to regain that crown with its first iPod-type high-capacity, hard-disk-based music player.
My assistant, Katie Boehret, and I have been testing Sony's would-be iPod killer -- a sleek, slim, silvery, magnesium-clad gadget inelegantly called the "Network Walkman NW-HD1," which holds 20 gigabytes of music and is set to go on sale in mid-August for $399. Sony plans a massive ad campaign to back the new Walkman, and to try and revive the once grand, but now faded, Walkman brand.
The $399 Network Walkman NW-HD1 from Sony Corp. See a comparison of portable players.
A second Sony hard-disk player, a bulkier but more radically styled model that will sell for $499, will be introduced later this year by another division of famously Balkanized Sony -- the group that makes the company's Vaio computers. But Sony officials say they are placing their emphasis, and most of their marketing dollars, on the new Walkman entry, not the Vaio.
We've also been testing Sony's new online music service, Connect, which is designed to work hand-in-hand with both new players and to compete with Apple's wildly successful iTunes Music Store. Both the new Walkman and the Connect store, work only with Windows computers.
Our verdict: While the new Sony is smaller than the iPod and has much better battery life, it is markedly inferior overall. It has a confusing, complex user interface that makes it hard to use; weak software for the PC; an oddball music format that makes loading it with songs tedious; and a companion music download service that offers less than Apple's. The iPod wins this round, and remains champion.
For Sony, the stakes in this battle are high, especially in the crucial U.S. market.
When the online digital music revolution erupted a few years ago, Sony was missing in action, for two main reasons. First, it bet on the wrong horse, a technology called MiniDisc, or MD, which never caught on big in the U.S. Second, because it owns a music label that was initially hostile to music downloading, Sony's first memory-based digital music players were loaded with restrictions on consumers and turned off digital music enthusiasts.
Apple iPod mini
Apple, acutely aware of Sony's new challenge, isn't standing still. Earlier this month, it introduced its fourth generation of the full-sized iPod, with 50% more battery life and streamlined controls and menus. And it knocked $100 off the iPod's price, which saddled the new Walkman with a $100 price premium. Sony doesn't plan a matching price cut.
In two key areas, Sony beats Apple. The new Walkman, which looks sort of like a small digital camera, is shorter than the iPod, and a bit thinner and wider. Even though it packs the same hard-disk capacity, the Sony is about 10% smaller in overall volume and it's also a third lighter, at 3.8 ounces vs. 5.6 ounces for the Apple. It's not as small or light as Apple's iPod mini, but the mini is in a different category, with much lower capacity.
And the Sony trounces the Apple in battery life, which has been the iPod's main weakness. Even though Apple boosted the battery life on the latest iPod model to 12 hours from eight hours, Sony claims anywhere from 20 to 30 hours of battery life, depending on the quality level at which the digital song files on the Walkman were stored. Higher-quality files drain the battery quicker. Like the iPod, the Walkman uses a sealed battery that can't easily be
Usually, after a few years, a computer product is considered obsolete. iPod seems to be one of the few exceptions to this rule.
But the "iPod" isn't a product, it is a product line. The original iPod of a few years ago is indeed obsolete. Apple is just riding the wave of tech progress by coming out with new versions every year (as most non-suicidal hardware companies do). I don't see that the iPod is an exception in this regard.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
It's nothing compared to the Rio Karma. The Karma supports true gapless playback, and has the best S/N ratio of any mojor HD-based player. The docking cradle has ethernet, and the player has a built-in webserver. Last but not least, it's less expensive than the iPod.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
I think the MD format would be much more popular if their copyright fascism were't allowed to dictate the specs.
I got a MD recorder a few years ago to make recordings of concerts, lessons, recitals, and such (I'm a music major), and while the quality is decent and the portability useful, getting the recordings off the player is impossible to do digitally. NetMD doesn't support digital uploading unless the tracks were originally digitally downloaded onto the player, using their shitty software, which of course doesn't come for Mac, and didn't even work when I tried it on my family's PC. I understand you're limited to 2x speed uploading anyway. But the only option for Mac users, and anyone wanting to transfer home-made recordings, is analog upload. I wish I had researched this more beforehand, because this is infuriating.
I think the MiniDisc format had great potential, but Sony's insistence on idiotic copyright meaures just make it way too inconvenient to gain wide acceptance. I use it mainly because (A) I already invested in it and (B) it's easy to cart around, but the format is so needlessly crippled as to be sad.
Huh?
:P
8991/416=21.6 times more, 133*21.6=2873 minutes, or 47.88 hours, or almost 2 days.
Is your calculator all right?
To transfer MP3 song files from your PC to the Walkman, you first launch the software Sony supplies to manage the Walkman, called SonicStage 2
Oh, man... SonicStage sucks so hard, I can't even begin to describe it. Even if SonicStage 2 is only half as bad as the version I recieved with my minidisc player, it's still enugh to keep me from even thinking about buying any player which requires it.
When it comes to terrible UI design, sonicstage has to be the absolute winner!
Could YOU get the cluestick? Creative has NOTHING to do with this, we're talking about the RIO Karma and the APPLE iPod!
Secondly, the Karma plays normal MP3s just fine, no need to convert them to any other format, just like the iPod (and, for sake of your odd argument, the Creative players as well).
Actually, I believe it was Japan Victor Corporation (JVC) that came up with VHS in 1976. RCA Victor went head-to-head with Sony on that one, and it was only Sony's belief that technological superiority automatically equated to superior sales performance that allowed RCA to completely outmaneuver them, and foist VHS upon the world.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I got a pretty sweet sony Atrac player, which used memory sticks. It was tiny, and although it could only hold about 2 hours of music, I liked it. But the requirement of ATRAC really made it much less usefull. It would take an hour or so to fill a memory stick up with music, when it would have only taken a few minutes to copy over mp3s.
Sony is shooting themselves in the foot here, I don't understand why they are so obsessed with ATRAC. Especialy given they cell CD players that can play MP3 files off CD-ROMs.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm still happily chugging away with my 5gb ipod! I'd love to get one of the sleek new ones, but as long as my music remains in MP3 format, my little 1st gen isn't obsolete. It still plays all the latest songs.
Not to mention that it supports FLAC and Ogg (which won the latest round of public listening test. And Rio is now owned by Denon-Marantz, who certainly know a thing or two about audio. The Karma even includes Sennheisser earbuds (unfortunately mx-300 rather than mx-500).
The Rio Karma requires that you convert all your files to some lossy DRM-encumbered format before it will play the files back.
/Michael
Wrong. The Karma plays mp3, ogg, wma and flac. So no need to use a lossy format, nor DRM...
The Rio Karma is also unsupported by Mac OS X
While the Rio Music Manager is Windows only, the Rio Music Manager Lite is Java and should run on any platform supported by Java...
Creative is one of the most consumer-hostile companies in the world
The Karma is from Rio (as the name Rio Karma hints...). Rio is know owned by DNNA (Digital Networks North America) in turn owned by Denon. I fail to see where Creative enters the picture.
Could someone pass character_assassin the cluestick, please?
It seems to me that character_assasin isn't the one needing the cluestick...
Of course you can do Playlists with WMP9. What are you talking about??
Not sure what store you are referring to, but I see a price of about $250 for the Rio Karma out there, while the 20 GB iPod goes for a few bucks more.
And besides, I cannot manage an iPod from Linux, something that I can do with the Karma, and that is the killer argument for me.
I'm actually suprised the Karma hasn't gotten more press on slashdot. It's seriously the geek's mp3 player. The parent mentioned the webserver, but didn't mention that you can download a java app from the karma, and then upload music to it from any OS that has a working java implementation. I've been able to ass songs to mine from Windows, FreeBSD, and Linux this way. For me this is a HUGE advantage and shows a little bit of creativity/foresight on the side of Rio. Also the inclusion of open-source standard codecs like ogg and FLAC (For real audiophiles) is a huge plus. Yet, everyone on here is enamoured with the ipod.
Wrong. The Karma plays mp3, ogg, wma and flac. So no need to use a lossy format, nor DRM...
Sorry, but mp3, ogg, and wma are *all* lossy formats. All three reduce the sound quality in order to achieve a smaller file size.
FLAC on the other hand is not a lossy format (Free Lossless Audio Codec.) Apple has developed their own proprietary lossless format that is usable on the iPod, and reduces the file size to about half that of an AIFF or WAV file.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
I was dazzled by the Karma myself, but it seems that I've read review after review of the hard drive mysteriously crapping out just months into ownership. One review particularly bothered me -- someone was frequently using it while driving and/or jogging, and it started acting up. When he called Rio, they claimed that the device was not meant for "active use." Um, hello? Portable MP3 player? Of course... I guess that DOES make it a true geek's mp3 player ;-)
^o^
Geeze, I don't know where to start on this one. First, let me clarify one thing: I'm a giant Apple booster. But I use Apple products (iBook G4, PowerMac G4, Airport Express, 3G iPod, even a damn iSight) because they are great products; I don't defend Apple products strictly because Apple makes them. I've been accused of being a basher before (not that you have accused me here), oftentimes because I'm not afraid of calling a spade a spade.
I read the review last week, so my memory may be fuzzy. But Sony claims a 30 hour battery life, making the cardinal mistake of overpromising when it's unnecessary (22 hours is damn good; they also overpromised on song storage-- saying it could hold 13,000 songs was just a stupid thing to do). But in Walt's test, he got 22 hours of usage for 132kbps 8TRAC compared to 12+ hours for the iPod. It clearly is the winner.
Your other points are self-contradictory-- first saying that iPod is so small it doesn't need to be any smaller so Sony wasted their effort, then defending the iPod mini as being in a different class, so the comparison to the Sony is unfair. That's just wrong, as the Sony is small enough that many miniPod users would opt for the NW-1 instead. As for distinct markets, that's wishful thinking. There's a spectrum of MP3 players ranging from tiny flash based players,to larger (but still light) flash players to miniPod types, to the iPods and finally to the 60-80GB devices that are quite large. Apple did a very clever thing in trying to segment the market into 2 distincts, and then pointing out they have the best device in both markets. But just 'cause Apple says it, doesn't make it true.
Audiophile SO does not equal pro audio. Please never confuse the two again. I was referring to products used in radio, TV, recording, etc. I.E. professionals, not people who like spending thousands on a CD player because some mythical enhancement makes it sound better. If Denon wants to follow consumer product practices, they should stop advertising and pricing their products as if they were professional grade.
You know who makes good pro CD players? TASCAM. TEAC makes one good model too. HHB makes nice stuff. But TASCAM - we've had 3 of them in 24-hour-per-day heavy use at my old station for over 5 years. We've had to pull one once every 18-24 months for something minor, and their service department fixed our one fully broken one cheap and quick. Contrast that with the Denons we used to use, which would (without fail) break massively, usually the transport, at 6 months. And then we'd have to hassle the service department to get them to agree to even look at, much less fix, them.
Marantz's tape gear is great; we have a tape/CD-RW unit for doing straight-to-disc recording of the air signal and its pretty decent, but I've never used one of their pure CD players. Denon, on the other hand, makes crap.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Some more googling turned up the news that Marantz and Denon merged in 2002. They keep their separate brands and salesforces but its the same R&D. The merged group is controlled by a company called Ripplewood.
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Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
You know that the iPod is a mass storage device (FIrewire and USB) as well?
It's just a hard drive when you plug it in. When iTunes uploads music, it's via straight hard drive transfer. The *only* reason you need iTunes is to optimize the battery performance of the iPod. It writes an index file for every song uploaded into the iPod so that when you are browsing, seeking, and viewing title/album/artist info, you aren't killing battery life by thrashing the hard drive. Instead you are reading a roughly 11mb database.
GPL Deconstructed
At least when it comes to the iRiver - its due to the battery type. The iPod uses a Lithium ion battery, whereas the iRiver uses a more expensive Lithium polymer battery, which has a greater capacity.
"beta" in Japanese, so I've heard, is a calligraphy term for a brushstroke that covers the entire surface of the stroke. Or something like that. At any rate, the term was chosen because of the way that the information was recorded on the tape -- Beta was a fairly high-density format compared to VHS, thus its greater image quality.
The technology worked for some people, and Sony eventually created the Betacam format based on Betamax. I have never dealt with Betacam myself, so I can't say what resemblance there is between the media for each format, but I think I can safely say that Betacam probably bears (very roughly) the same relation to Betamax in quality that SVHS does to VHS, probably quite a bit more so. Good enough for broadcast work, anyway, and having compared my own SVHS masters to real broadcast TV it's quite a difference.
These days everything's digital though... you can get better-than-broadcast with miniDV (assuming your equipment is studly enough) and, at least in theory, DVD. And the bar is just that much higher for broadcasters too, though the practical benefits probably really only shine through with DVD conversions and digital cable.
Um, isn't that EXACTLY what I wrote?
The iPod is 100% just a firewire/usb FAT/HFS+ hard drive.
I own one.
The music files are stored in a hidden (but otherwise normal) directory. I can browse it easily enough using the CLI of Finder as I like.
The files are raw; you can play them in iTunes if you so wish. Or any other music player.
The database, which I mentioned before, is how the iPod navigates this hidden directory; if they do not match, you won't find your music. So, as I said before, to preserve battery life and reduce hits to the disk, the iPod only browses the 11mb database file in memory to display album/artist/playlist/ID3 info until you actually hit 'play', and then the disk seeks, sucks data into memory, and plays.
GPL Deconstructed
1) Wrong, the iPod uses Lithium Polymer, that's how they fit the friekin' battery in such a small package. Use Google to find some references.
2) LI-Poly isn't necessarily higher capacity, but it's not constrained to a certain shape. Normal Li-Ion batteries come as packs of pre-made cells, wasting a significant amount of space to their cylindric al size. Li-Poly batteries can be made in a much wider range of shapes, and so allow the manufacturer to fit more actual battery in a given space.
± 29 dB