NW-E00* Series Finally Debuts in USA
The NW-E00* series has finally landed in the United States and has attractive pricing: $130, 2GB; $100, 1GB; $70, 512MB.
This series should be a good seller that will restore some lost ground that Samsung has been wielding in the low-end realm. The cost of these units compliments the pricepoint of the recently revealed ‘06 NW-S series nicely. It is also reassuring to see Sony with a little more breathing room now that the transition (back) to Sonicstage is nearly complete. The company finally has a music management program that actually works, and is not that difficult to employ anymore. With this in mind, Sony is able to let loose the grip they held over related product releases in the US that were available long ago elsewhere in the world.
Curious however, is one odd theory that is seemingly becoming more and more realistic.
Has Sony become completely a chic brand in the US? The colors that are appearing on these units is quite unusual. The NW-A1200 series release may have been a little more appealing if there was the black or gold variants released stateside. Perhaps Sony is trying to become a more unisex or female-oriented brand after its minimalist and dull-colored past that lured in millions of male geeks. This could be a good move for Sony because not many DAP companies make “cute” devices (well, except the Nano. Shush.); tapping into this little-known market could harvest miracles.
Nonetheless, Sony’s direction feels different than it did before; the restructuring ushered in by Howard Stringer & co. have given a greater focus to their product offerings in the failing portable music areas. It is very likely that this year will actually be a strong year for the Walkman in the United States, and possibly beyond.
I bought the 2gb version from Canada a few months ago (it is exactly the same as the U.S. version) and I can tell you that it is a great unit: extremely reliable, great battery life, fantastic sound, FM tuner, 5-band EQ, cool menu, easy-to-use UI, and fast USB connectivity, etc. I own all of the various Sony flash players, and this one is the best…by far. I sadly boxed up my MD player, and now I only use my 2GB flash. It suits all of my needs (except recording, of course) and is error free. I also have had NO connectivity issues with SonicStage. I just thought I’d pass this info along to anyone who was curious about buying one. Oh, and by the way, IT SUPPORTS AAC!!! I’m in heaven.
I am not so sure mere colorfulness will yield dividends, as the firts few generations of the Ipod came in various colors, many of which were similar to the ones Sony now offers. It may be more successful in the smaller capacity arena, but a bare-bones 8 gig Sony Walkman will, whatever its color, continue to succumb to full-featured units from more up-to-date companies.
I do, however, think this means Sony is re-dedicating itself to competition in the U.S. market, which it appeared Sony had all but conceded recently. We can only hope this means Sony will return to stocking stores en masse with Walkman products.
In the past Sony has commanded a premium against rivals for coolness, and that cool came from the technical side.
Some say they just can’t maintain a technical advantage against the competition in this day and age. If that’s the case, why not just make Sony synonymous with the finer things in life? That’s the reasoning I see behind the whole move away from geeky looks.
When Sony’s ready to make a major marketing push (and on what) it’s always obvious, if you recall, in 2004 the push went to Hi-MD instead of the HD1. If we see another Franz Ferdinand commercial, or another 120,000 balls, that’ll be the time.
Man I wished I could use windows media player to manage my music on one of these. SonicStage is still a dead dog to me. I spent years waiting for SS to improve so now there is nothing Sony can do to SS to get me to use it.
Hmmm…. Windows Media Player…
- forgets which devices were set to sync automatically
- doesn’t transfer playlists properly
- doesn’t let you edit playlists as easily as SonicStage (when you rearrange a playlist, try moving more than two tracks simultaneously in WMP)
- keeps renaming all of your ID tags even though you’ve specified to only add missing info, not rewrite the whole thing
- can’t delete tracks off the device, but says the tracks have been deleted
- messy interface for simple operations (like choosing which bitrate or format to encode in)
No jukebox is perfect, but after years of using it, SonicStage is the most intuitive and easy to use jukebox out there. Music’s origin on left, music’s destination to the right. Playlist editing is as easy as 1,2,3. No need to constantly save your playlists. Typically if the tracks were not transferred properly you can see it on the device screen. What WMP says does not necessarily correspond to what you see in Windows Explorer. I do wish RealPlayer had less bugs because that combines the good sides of WMP, SonicStage and iTunes, but it’s big and buggy.
I don’t get it. What is good about an Mp3 player that is unuseable without proprietary software? I have now had 3 Mp3 players. My last and best unit was made by Support Plus. I am not putting this in a class with the new Sony NW 2gyg unit which I am experimenting with, because due to the neccessity of my using SonicStage software, I have come to the conclusion that after my buying the unit… it will never actually be my own. Not only does the player force me to install alien software on my computer that can potentially alter how my other software can handle audio files, but it really cannot be used (except as a radio) without the use of that additional software. This also potentially means that if the software author wants to, somewhere down the line they can actually disable my use of this software, or other software on my system, and ultimately this would limit my use of my Sony NW player to be operated as a USB radio… that has to be charged via my computer port. No computer (on a long trip for example) means that after a certain amount of hours I will be left carrying the equivalent of an empty BIC lighter in my pocket. I’m not superstitous so that thought holds no great promise or interest for me.
:( 
:( for it’s external software demands.
Yes, the unit is pretty in design and fun. Nevertheless, I say, America, wise-up. As a reporter that just this week suddenly found that some crappy Microsoft ’security updates’ had disabled my ability to make a digital copy of my own work, on my own computer, something quite normal and non-sinister in my industry, I say enough is enough.
Refuse to buy software that forces you to utilize proprietray software.
Refuse to buy software operating systems that update your computer from security ‘dangers’ by updating your software to perform less functions than it originally did.
Refuse to buy hardware from any company that doesn’t take a written stand against the use of such software or at least… will operate autonomously (by it’s own damn self with the media you choose to save and copy and carry for your own use.)
Don’t be fooled by bells and whistles. This is a competitive market. There’s so much great hardware out there that after you buy it, IS actually ALL YOURS. Not half yours and half controlled and disabled by some crappy management software.
My SupportPlus combo Mp3 audio-video-etc player seems to get along quite well without the need to use any of this crummy proprietary software (Can you imagine that) which means my hardware worked properly right out of the box. And it will always be mine, not subject to the outside control of some paranoid hardware company that also has a big stake in controlling the software (read: music cd, mp3, etc) industry to it’s own favor, for better or worse, but mostly for worse, if it means in their profit. No these are not artistic people.
Oh yes… I am yet another of those users that was forced to spend a large amount of their Saturday night attemtping to download an install a SonicStage software update in order to play music files on my new Sony NW player. I can’t tell you the number of times I was disconnected as this grievously slow process went on. I honetsly, I don’t want the junk or anthing simular to it installed on my precious computer. Beware, beware!!! (Ho ho ho) I think I’m off to Ebay to sell this gismo!
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