Just been reading about this new little MP3 player from Sony:
http://www.sony.co.uk/PageView.do?section=en_GB_Magazine&article=1123689751309&site=odw_en_GB&page=MagazineWithArticleFirstSection
What do you guys reckon? Personally, I think they look a bit odd, and in any case I thought they'd just bought out a new range of flash-based players?
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 I quite like 'em! Sony's last batch of players looked just like cheapo disposable lighters. These ones have got in-built USB connectors too which is always really useful. How much are they going to cost??
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 Was reading about these in Metro this morning and from memory I think they're about £90 (?)
They sound pretty nifty..
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 They all look very girly... I think that's their main target audience.
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Karen, the Metro said they are going to cost £99 when it comes out in October. However, if you have a look at Sony's website, I think you can buy it right now, unless they only allow you to reserve it...
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Although there's nothing really new here. Technically the current ones look better.
The biggest advance would be if they would improve Sonic Stage to the point where it was as good as Itunes or allow it to load the same AAC files as my Ipod. Sony Connect is poor.
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 Yeah it's certainly nothing groundbreaking and if anything a step backwards from sony. The design is OK, even if it does look a little plasticy. But no support for aac or m4a is a problem. The walkman phone marked a step forward in sony supporting these formats meaning songs ripped in iTunes can be used on their device, so to leave it off here is unusual.
Sony must realise that alot of people already have music ripped in iTunes and alot of these people would be tempted to buy second digital audio player, what they will not want to do is re-rip their cd's to accomodate another player.
Sony, give up on ATRAC and start supoorting the formats people actually use!
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Didn;t notice the 50hr battery life of the Bean player. Very impressive.
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I think that's the main problem for Sony. They want to copy Apple's success by forcing people to use their own format. However, they don't realise that Apple still have the advantage over them because they were in the market first!!!
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 Yup, ATRAC needs to be binned for the good of the company. It's a shame though as it's a really good format - far better compression rates than MP3.
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It's not just that Apple were first, Itunes is significantly better. There's not much else that will read DAB radio files as well as MP3, AAC etc. Podcasting could be a killer app.
An Apple with 50hours battery would be good.
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True, I recently downloaded SonicStage 3.1 and although significantly better than 2.0, it's still miles off the useability of iTunes. The **only** reason I've got a Sony player over an iPod is the battery. 14 hours or whatever is franky rubbish.
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 14hr? Thats only on the newest iPods, my 4th gen monochromed screen gets about 8hr's on a good day!
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If you run the newest ones at 320 kbps you definitely don't get 14-15 hours. Lower bitrates can get close though.
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Just been on the Apple website and they quote 12 hours for the Shuffle. Oops! Anyway, that's even more rubbish than I first thought!
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Oh I'm sure you can compensate the battery life with the memory they give you! Recently, I've been looking at other alternatives, which allow me to download WMA files so I can join the free market. However, when I compare the memory, the iPods seem to give you the best deal.
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What alternatives have you been looking at? Toshiba Gigabeat range?
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The problem is that once you've had Apple, it's difficult going back. I've just bought a Monolith 1 Gb MX-7010 for recording purposes and although it does a lot more and sounds good, it's a pain compared with my Ipod. Apple really are that far ahead.
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I really want to buy one of these Sony MP3 Walkman players but you can only download singles from their website if you want to buy them online. I also like Philips ShogBox player, but they only give you 256MB of memory for about £99. So the only other alternative seem to be iRiver, but when it comes to design, I prefer to stick with Apple untill something better comes out.
http://www.johnlewis.com/Shopping/Product.aspx?Type=SKU&ID=230212191&source=14798
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You should be able to use the sony with most sites selling files as MP3. I don't think you're committed to use only ATRAC.
It's best to encode from discs anyway. The cost of a disc on www.CDWOW.com is very similar to download prices.
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