Not only is the Walkman still alive and kicking, but Sony updated three individual series today. We’ll start with the entry-level B-series. This one only plays music and lacks video playback like its older siblings, but you can drag and drop your music via USB. Add on the FM radio and voice recorder and this isn’t that bad a deal. Battery life is expected up to 16 hours. The 1GB model will come in red, blue and black for $45 while the 2GB model replaces blue for pink and tacks on $15.
The E-series includes video playback and is positioned as the mid-level Walkman. It lacks a few notable features that the S-series includes, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Battery life is said to be 45 hours for music and 8 hours for video. It boasts an open platform stance for audio and video playback. Both the E- and S-series support WMA, AAC, linear PCM and MP3 formats. On the video side, they both support WMW with DRM, H.264/AVC and MPEG-4 codecs. A 4GB model will set you back $100 and comes in blue, pink, red and black. The 8GB model drops blue and tacks on $40.
The S-series is the cream of the crop with active noise cancelling coupled with 13.5mm EX headphones that come with an extension to enable the feature. Said headphones come with the E- and B-series sans noise cancellation. The S-series Walkman is wafer thin at 7.5mm and has a bright 2.-inch QVGA LCD. It’s capable of playing back 30fps for silky smooth video. Uh huh. Sure. One of the neater features of the S-series is SensMe, which analyzes your music collection and creates 11 playlists that it thinks you’ll like.
Battery life is said to be 40 hours for music and 10 hours for video playback. Noise cancellation further deteriorates the battery life to 30 hours of audio playback. Available only in black, the 4GB model will retail for $150 while the 8GB will go for $180.