Sony’s got two new Walkman models due for release next month, the NW-S730F and the NW-S630F. They’re both flash-based, with storage capacities going up to 16GB. They play the standard file formats, including Sony’s ATRAC and H.264 video, but the lack of FLAC is just annoying. Differentiate your product from the iPod, Sony!
No price as yet.
Sony also has three new NAS-like devices on the way, the M700HD, M500HD and E300HD. Think big(ish) hard drive connected to a pair of speakers that can also play music that’s on the network. The first two mentioned models have a 160GB hard drive, which is on the small side going by today’s standards. You either load it up with music, or point it to a location on the network that has a bunch of music stores, and then it plays!
The last one, the E300HD, only has an 80GB hard drive, and doesn’t come with a display.
Why wouldn’t you just hook your computer up to a pair of decent speakers? At least make the drives bigger—1TB drives aren’t exactly exotic anymore, you know.