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Sony Thinks You'll Pay $1200 For a Digital Walkman
An anonymous reader writes: The Walkman is one of the most recognizable pieces of technology from the 1980s. Unfortunately for Sony, it didn't survive the switch to digital, and they discontinued it in 2010. Last year, they quietly reintroduced the Walkman brand as a "high-resolution audio player," supporting lossless codecs and better audio-related hardware. At $300, it seemed a bit pricey. But now, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Sony has loudly introduced its high-end digital Walkman, and somehow decided to price it at an astronomical $1,200.
What will all that money get you? 128GB of onboard storage and a microSD slot to go with it. There's a large touchscreen, and the device runs Android — but it uses version 4.2 Jelly Bean, which came out in 2012. It also supports Bluetooth and NFC. Sony claims the device has 33 hours of battery life when playing FLAC files, and 60 hours when playing MP3s. They appear to be targeting audiophiles — their press release includes phrasing about how pedestrian MP3 encoding will "compromise the purity of the original signal."
What will all that money get you? 128GB of onboard storage and a microSD slot to go with it. There's a large touchscreen, and the device runs Android — but it uses version 4.2 Jelly Bean, which came out in 2012. It also supports Bluetooth and NFC. Sony claims the device has 33 hours of battery life when playing FLAC files, and 60 hours when playing MP3s. They appear to be targeting audiophiles — their press release includes phrasing about how pedestrian MP3 encoding will "compromise the purity of the original signal."
Maybe they should talk to their friends in Sony Music about the Loudness War first before going on about music purity.
Audiophile equipment often costs in the tens of thousands of dollars -- and there will always be a market for it.
Regarding your title: SONY clearly does not think *you* will pay $1200 for this device. But they know that *someone* will. This isn't a mass market device. It's a very niche product, well-targeted at its niche.
More importantly: It's great for publicity. After all, it's already being discussed on Slashdot.
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They appear to be targeting audiophiles — their press release includes phrasing about how pedestrian MP3 encoding will "compromise the purity of the original signal.
Well, does it have proper headphone amplifier? The audio output of typical mobile gadgets is poor for driving good chunky headphones: there is noise, there is not enough energy to deliver good bass, and the sound is just smudgy.
They give you enough space to store $40k in legally purchased music... in comparison, $1200 is chump change.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
That's far from the one and only problem with Sony.
They're assholes. They're anti-consumer. They're constantly trying to achieve vendor lock in. They treat the security of their consumers data as an afterthought.
Sony is a malicious entity, and has been for the last 20 years.
From what they do as part of the *AA mafia, to rootkits, to pretty much every damned thing Sony does ... they do not deserve your money or your respect.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I thought that was Apple's problem...
Apple arguably offers higher-quality (made) stuff, Sony doesn't, not really.
To me, "overpriced" means "I'm selling the same shit anyone else sells but at twice the price because the logo on my shit says $BRAND".
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I don't think that would be enough storage for a typical audiophile's full collection if it was all lossless, which this device espouses. For $1,200 it should be at least 512GB IMO, which the NAND storage alone should have a BOM cost of less than $100.
Anyway it seems that Sony made the same mistake in the MP3 player market that Microsoft did in the smartphone market; they saw the incoming demand for a new kind of product and just flat out ignored it.