Sony Unveils New S Series Walkman PMPs Comments

Yes, I think it's time that Sony started taking the Apple approach and build a line around the X-Series rather than maintaining the current line.

If they can integrate a decent browser, their own 5 point multi-touch system and move the massive Home button or make it smaller the X-series would be worth having. Make a 5" version (800x480, 16/32/48/64GB), a 2.4" version (640x360, 8/16/32GB) call it some variation of the word Nano. Price it aggressively, market it very aggressively by ignoring all of the failures of the past flash based Walkman line up and relaunch it with just the two versions available.

I don't agree - I, for one, often take my music player to do sports, and a huge touchscreen PMP just wouldn't cut it for me - way too large. This new S series is a attractive, though - not too clunky, yet browsing, I assume, will still be convenient.

I have the X-series and love it, and yet I still use my S-series from time to time. It has buttons - which makes so much sense when jogging and doing other outdoor activities. There is a market for touchscreen-less DAPs.

I'm with Queelis... I don't want Sony to simply copy Apple. In fact, I don't even want a touchscreen PMP. Kind of redundant now I have a smartphone. What I'm after is an MP3 player with good battery life and excellent audio quality, which is what the S-series (and formerly the A series) provide. I'm just looking forward to an increase in capacity; 32Gb would be nice.

This appears to be how Sony have been for many years - excellent hardware, but odd decision making, poorer marketing, and terrible software (although please correct me if software is decent these days).
Is this still a question of the different Sony divisions interfering with the digital audio department?
If Sony could just make great hardware, and someone else could actually sell it, it could be great indeed.

I did quite forget about all of the joggers out there!

Suppose someone who sits around all day doing no exercise wouldn't think of that! So yeah, keep the functional stuff, but I wish Sony would make the effort to compete with Apple in the PMP arena, I really like the functionality of the Touch, but hate the sound quality. I wish Sony would get their act together with a PSN store for other devices and get an MP3/AAC based music store working along with the mobile video store that the PSP already has, make a decent browser or use Chrome/Firefox and give all PMPs Wi-fi for access.

I mean the video store instantly gives Sony the biggest mobile device user base for distribution, 55m PSPs out there, why not expand the market with a music store, makes no sense. Also I would love to see VidZone ported to Sony PMPs, would be awesome!

@MSIC

All Walkmans released outside Japan (NWZ) for the past 2 years has been MTP/UMS compliant - meaning no need to use any proprietary software (e.g. iTunes or Zune) to transfer media over.

Am I the only one here who thinks these players are friggin ugly?

Oh well, you buy Walkmans (Walkmens?) for the sound quality I guess...

Think I'm definitely gonna go for a Sony once my Nano's had it's day. An audio player with no buttons is a big fail. You should be able to control it without even pulling it out of your pocket, let alone having to look at it.

I picked up as NWZ-S545 last weekend at Fry's Electronics, and it's a fine piece of kit. The sound quality is great (as usual), has a pretty decent voice recording/FM recording feature, outstanding battery life, and rather usable built in speakers (on the back of that player- by the way). For 130.00 US, it's easily the best deal in the DAP market IMO.