Sony takes on iPod Shuffle

Ben writes "It seems that Sony has decided to take on Apple with a low cost flash based player that will go up against the Shuffle. Pocket-lint has the low down on some of the stats, as does the BBC and Engadget." The major improvement in my eyes is that some models have an FM tuner.

Comments

Can I be the first to say, Yuk.

[Space cowboy]

IMHO they look like every other flash drive, apart from the circular one. It doesn't matter, I reckon Apple will be laughing all the way to the bank here - the press are describing it as "Sony takes on Apple's IPOD shuffle" - ie: they're already the de-facto standard in a market that's 2 months old.

The other comment is - what on earth are Sony smoking - they really need to learn about branding - the models are the NW-E103, NW-E105, NW-E107, NW-E405, NW-E407, NW-E505, NW-E507. Apart from 'bigger numbers are better' (which is a guess), what does that tell me ? What are the distinctions between them ? both in-range and between the ranges (presuming the E1xx, E4xx and E5xx are 3 distinct ranges).

Even I get this, and I write s/w for a living. You'd have thought someone in the highly-paid 'marketing director' position would have a clue too.

Simon

Re:Can I be the first to say, Yuk.

[MoonBuggy]

Even if they sorted that, price does matter. I realise that many people will pay for style and ease of use (hence why the iPod did so well despite the cost) but if you're trying to compete with a 'premium' player, the first thing you want to do is at least match the price.

"Until now, the complaint was that Sony products sold at a major premium," said Gregory Kukolj, general manager of the personal audio group in Europe...
...The 1Gb model will still cost £200 compared to Apple's iPod Shuffle at £99. The new models will feature a OLED display though.

If you're selling 1GB of flash at £30 more than a 6GB iPod mini, and you don't think that's "a major premium" I don't think an OLED screen is going to save you.

Sort out the software..

[tabkey12]

I actually think these new players look rather good but I would never buy one. Why? Because of the truly appalling software that Sony gives out to sync your computer with your player.

It conforms to NO Human Interface Guidelines at all, it has huge amounts of extremely choppy and pointless animations and is such a CPU hog that it doesn't respond even when the only application open on a 2.6GHz P4 laptop. Quite unbelievable.

Now if I could sync it with iTunes, that would be another matter.

NO! Here's their REAL shuffle competition

[NYTrojan]

Obviously sony isn't about to challenge the shuffle with a unit running 200 pounds+. Their real shuffle competition is $150 US, has a gig of space, and a display. It needs a AAA battery to run but does NOT have FM radio.

clicky

Re:The shuffle won't stay the way is it.

[tabkey12]

Wrong

Apple has always shied away from features it doesn't want enabled in their product but which are supported by the hardware. For example, all iPods since 3rd gen have been able to play WMA! But Apple never enabled it. The original iPod OS can control FireWire CD Burners - Apple never enabled that feature. It would be trivial (and cost nearly nothing) to add an FM Tuner to the entire iPod range, but Apple thinks (right IMO) that people buy Music players, not radios, and complicating a product with extra unused features is not a good thing.

In fact, looking at the original iPod to the Click Wheel iPod, apart from the Click Wheel itself, what has changed about the way you interact and use the player? Actually very little, when you think about it.