New NWZ-A860 and NWZ-S760 Revealed

[matthewcollin]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

The A and S prices are too high, IMO.

Probably true. Prices should be 30-40 dollars less. What's to stop the average buyer from buying an Android powered Archos player for the same money? I'll stick with the Sony for it's great sound quality, but if you read the comments on Engadget, everyone is tearing into these players because they're not Android powered wonder-machines.

[CrowdAds]

[zoo_kid]

Dang.. It seems like sony is only releasing up to a 16gb model in America? Hopefully I'm wrong.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/27/s...#disqus_thread



Here's some new photos

http://thewalkmanblog.blogspot.com/2...-walkmans.html

http://thewalkmanblog.blogspot.com/2...alkmans-2.html




Man the battery life is pretty lame too

A long-lasting battery lets you listen to music for up to 25 hours or watch video for up to 5 hours before you need to recharge.1

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by matthewcollin

Probably true. Prices should be 30-40 dollars less. What's to stop the average buyer from buying an Android powered Archos player for the same money? I'll stick with the Sony for it's great sound quality, but if you read the comments on Engadget, everyone is tearing into these players because they're not Android powered wonder-machines.

Looks like I'll be sticking with my S639 if I want to listen to a Sony.

[Cain]

Ugh, touchscreen. Honestly, I much prefer the looks (and interface, as it has actual buttons) of the a84x series, compared to this new one. As for the new S series, well, looks not much different from the s75x.

[matthewcollin]

Originally Posted by Cain

Ugh, touchscreen. Honestly, I much prefer the looks (and interface, as it has actual buttons) of the a84x series, compared to this new one. As for the new S series, well, looks not much different from the s75x.

Keep in mind, we never even got a chance to buy the last few generations of the S series here in the US, so I'm happy it will be for sale. Still, 8GB only? WHY?!

I've never been a fan of touchscreens either as I like to be able to operate my old Sony by feel alone.

[Just Some Guy]

Originally Posted by Cain

Ugh, touchscreen. Honestly, I much prefer the looks (and interface, as it has actual buttons) of the a84x series, compared to this new one.

Quoted for agreement.

I'm going to keep my A847. I despise touch screens, and even with a screen protector, you're going to get nothing but finger print smudges all over the place.

The price? The price will come down in time. It's not that bad compared to ordering one from on-line, with exchange rates and shipping costs. If you want one, wait a few months and see how much it will drop.

EDIT: Though, the white A860 does look strangely sexy in white.

[dfkt]

What crap. Poor Sony, just not being able to reproduce their market share they once had with their cassette Walkmen (-mans?). Too little, too late, too expensive.

[The DarkSide]

I was counting on the 64gb A series to be released here in the USA/Canada, no dice apparently. You know what? F**K YOU SONY!!! I'm getting that Cowon C2 afterall,...Sony, one letdown after another - same as ALWAYS!!!

[Just Some Guy]

The battery life on the Series is great, but the capacity of the A-series is what I want.

Why won't you make a player that has both? I'd pay the extra cost for that.

I honestly think a fair chunk of the price of the A-series is because of how thin they make it. I know that the flash memory isn't cheap either, but if they made it a bit bigger, they could use a larger battery and maybe reduce the cost of production a little bit?

[TCD1975]

I used to be a big Sony fan and owned three of their players in a row over the past 3 years - NWZ-A729 followed by the X1061 then the NWZ-A846 - but I was left underwhelmed by my last Sony purchase, and when it got broken after just a few weeks, I decided to jump ship and get the cheap old Sansa Clip+ ... I now wish I'd jumped ship earlier.

I thought there might be a chance that I'd jump back on the Sony bandwagon with the release of a new lineup (if I could get something without the ridiculous EU volume cap) but looking at this new lineup I'll not be purchasing a Sony anytime soon.

As well as being very overpriced, lacking codec and expansion support, and dragging their feet in terms of GUI development ... am I the only person who thinks the new lineup of players are really ugly?

[Greg91x]

So, are these replacements for the A840 and S750 series?

[Cain]

Originally Posted by TCD1975

I used to be a big Sony fan and owned three of their players in a row over the past 3 years - NWZ-A729 followed by the X1061 then the NWZ-A846 - but I was left underwhelmed by my last Sony purchase, and when it got broken after just a few weeks, I decided to jump ship and get the cheap old Sansa Clip+ ... I now wish I'd jumped ship earlier.

I thought there might be a chance that I'd jump back on the Sony bandwagon with the release of a new lineup (if I could get something without the ridiculous EU volume cap) but looking at this new lineup I'll not be purchasing a Sony anytime soon.

As well as being very overpriced, lacking codec and expansion support, and dragging their feet in terms of GUI development ... am I the only person who thinks the new lineup of players are really ugly?

If I may ask, why did you find it underwhelming? The a84x series is, IMHO, the best looking walkman and the only one I would buy immediately if I saw a non-EU Volume Limited english version (the australian one).

[skip252]

I'm actually kind of surprised the US gets this much. I haven't done a feature by feature study but it seems most of what made the "S" series attractive to me has been pushed down to the "E" series. I'm never going to able to carry anything more than fraction of library with me at one time anyway. Because of that the lack of larger capacity models doesn't mean much to me.

It would be nice if there were some way to special order a 32 or 64GB model. Maybe they could have to write a US firmware that could be put on one of them and just never sell it in Europe. The people who really want them could get their hands on one for a premium price then. Wonder if they thought that over and rejected it? Maybe they figure sales wouldn't justify the extra cost or extra service and support demands.

[TCD1975]

Originally Posted by Cain

If I may ask, why did you find it underwhelming? The a84x series is, IMHO, the best looking walkman and the only one I would buy immediately if I saw a non-EU Volume Limited english version (the australian one).

Oh yeah ... the A840 is a beauty to look at but I had various small niggles with it that added up to me being unsatisfied.

The sound quality was a distinct step down from the X series which I'd owned previously. The player produces some annoying clicking artefacts and, while it's okay for the majority of albums, the volume limit makes quieter recordings unlistenable. I don't particuarly like loud volume and on other players I rarely get above 50% of the volume but on the A840 I found a couple of instances where even 100% volume was inadequate.

Whilst the A840 is beautiful to look at, and I do like tactile buttons, I actually found it quite un-ergonomic. The player is too long and thin and the weight distribution doesn't feel balanced properly. I managed to drop the player a couple of times within the first week of owning it as the player doesn't have much grip and the main controls are positioned too far down on the player. The second time I dropped the player the screen cracked as it overlaps the edge of the player rather than being slightly recessed and better protected. It's very stylish but not particuarly sturdy or practical for portable use.

When I broke my A846 I did consider replacing it with the same model but I thought to myself "is this player worth £200" and the answer was a resounding "no".

I decided to get an 8Gb Sansa Clip+ and a 32Gb microSD card (which cost just £95 combined) and that proved to be a far better but cheaper player.

[JSBach]

Sony should USE that software in their Micro Vault USB dongles. That magic piece of software that magically compresses files and you boost your USB dongle 3x the storage The software its called Virtual Expander

Imagine an A series of 16GBs *3x=48GB
32GB*3x=96GB
64GB*3x=192GB

[Cain]

Originally Posted by JSBach

Sony should USE that software in their Micro Vault USB dongles. That magic piece of software that magically compresses files and you boost your USB dongle 3x the storage The software its called Virtual Expander

Imagine an A series of 16GBs *3x=48GB
32GB*3x=96GB
64GB*3x=192GB

Wouldn't that ruin the sound quality? 256 kBps/3 = 85,2 kBps; 128 kBps/3 = 42,7 kBps, etc... If that feature was permanent, FLAC would actually become a necessity for good SQ, since one would need files with at least 600 kBps to mantain the quality after the compression.

[JSBach]

Originally Posted by Cain

Wouldn't that ruin the sound quality? 256 kBps/3 = 85,2 kBps; 128 kBps/3 = 42,7 kBps, etc... If that feature was permanent, FLAC would actually become a necessity for good SQ, since one would need files with at least 600 kBps to mantain the quality after the compression.

Uses a compression Like a Zip. I was thinking use that software internally and perform compression/decompression with a faster processor

[$ony$tyle]

I was really hoping sony would release a proper A series walkman. I mean if sony can't produce a OS or tackle apple's ecosystem, then at least sony can try to do a proper A series hardware. a860 looks so backwards, i will keep my a840 for now. year after year u'd think sony can make a comeback, it's getting worse. on my last trip to japan, i saw couple of people wearing w250 something walkman, but mostly just ipod and iphone users

[tienbasse]

Originally Posted by The DarkSide

I was counting on the 64gb A series to be released here in the USA/Canada, no dice apparently. You know what? F**K YOU SONY!!! I'm getting that Cowon C2 afterall,...Sony, one letdown after another - same as ALWAYS!!!

Do you start to see what I meant in my previous post ?

The 64Gb model will probably get released in EU/US in only one or 2 years (= way too late) and in very small quantities...

From the first reviews, they did not improve anything on the A series.
Touchscreen is the only plus, battery life is still miserable, which is the only real drawback.

Sony is designing them thinking mainly about Japan, where you can charge your player anywhere. I wish it was true everywhere...
I have 2 old Archos hard disk-based players lasting longer than my Sony A847 with very small form factors (more or less the size of their 1" hard drives), so Sony's issue is really their crappy batteries.

[Just Some Guy]

Actually, the batteries in the A840 and A850 series are really good, when you consider their size. You have to remember that those players are only 7 mm thick, and the battery has to be thinner than that. You know of any other battery that can be that small and still give more then a few hours of power?

Sony's real fault with the A840 and A850 Walkmans was the desire to make them super thin. They could have added a few more millimeters and got a bigger battery in there, and that would have increased the battery life a lot. Look at the S540 series. They're almost the same size, but almost twice as thick. The battery life is about 45 to 50 hours. Same with the E-series.

Besides, most people don't know this, but Sony owns multiple chemical companies and some of them are doing battery research. If Sony, with its various resources and divisions that are only working on battery technology, can't make a better battery, it's probably because they've reached the limits of what they can do with current science.