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.

What is this "FM" you speak of?

[carpe_noctem]

The major improvement in my eyes is that some models have an FM tuner.

Well, I guess that's -kind- of like the shuffle... I mean, you still know exactly what songs are going to be played, you just don't know the order.

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.

Re:FM Tuner?

[fracai]

yeah, something about video killing its star.

Sony may actually have something here

[Ironsides]

A 70 hour battery life on a AAA? A 3 minute quick charge that lasts 3 hours and at max charge 50? These are things that some people look for and can use. Those are insane battery life spans for something like this will be a real selling point. The IPod Shuffle only offers up to 12 hours at most currently. I can't remember how many times I've tried to turn on my MP3 player only to find it was dead, having forgoten to put it on the charger or replace the battery. With lifespans like these, one would only need to recharge once a week in most cases, vs. once every day or two for the shuffle.

Now all we need to do is find out if the audio quality is just as good.

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.

Re:FM Radio

[starphish]

FM receivers on these devices are popular at gyms. An area of society that eludes most Slashdot readers. Most of the TV's at the gyms are muted, and broadcast the sound on an FM frequency. A quality FM receiver is not needed there.

Re:Kudo to Apple...

[mmeister]

Actually, Kudos should go to Apple for truly thinking outside the box.

Until the shuffle came along, most flash-based player manufacturers thought "People need to see what song they are listening to" and thus tried to cram a poor interface with display on a tiny gadget. But Apple said "let the interface be clean and simple, and let there be new no display -- and there was no display". "Let the users listen to songs that they like, and they listened to songs that they liked, whether it was in a playlist order or a random order -- they still liked the songs."

I didn't think I'd like the iPod shuffle without a screen, but I wanted a flash-based player (& iTunes support).

Having had a shuffle since Macworld, I can say it is the only player I use (I also have a 20GB iPod). Screen? Don't really need the screen.

And here's a tip -- ONLY ADD THE SONGS YOU WANT TO HEAR!! Then it doesn't matter if it is in playlist mode or shuffle mode, you'll always be listening to songs that you like.