Sony's 3-inch touchscreen OLED Walkman

[xtop]

Just as rumored, Sony's indeed showing up at this year's CES with a touchscreen Walkman, the NWZ-X1000. Front and center is a beautiful 3-inch touchscreen OLED display, which means lower power consumption and a wider color gamut than a traditional LCD, and Sony also worked in WiFi and headphone-independent noise cancellation. The player will come in 16GB and 32GB flavors. Details are otherwise scant at this moment -- we're particularly interested in the software specific and price, which we're guessing Sony will be announcing at its press conference this evening -- but let's just say that faux granite shell is a definite mark in the "please, yes" category.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/07/s...screen-player/

We got a chance to peek Sony's succulent OLED Walkman way back at CES, but we've waited for what seems like forever to hold one in our supple paws without a booth attendant breathing down our neck. The model that arrived today on our doorstep is the 16GB NW-X1050 (or NWZ-X1050), which just launched in Japan last week. There's still no telling when this beauty will hit the US, but we can already guess that it'll cause some serious buzz when it does. We'll just come right out and say it: this is the best looking display on any PMP that we've ever seen. If you'll recall, Cowon's S9 also shipped with an OLED panel, but we've got to give the edge to Sony here. Also of note, we were never fans of the dark granite border in the press shots, but it's downright stunning in person. We're going to be hosting up a video walkthrough of the menus and such just as soon as it uploads (sigh) as well as some more thorough impressions in the coming days. For now, however, feel free to peruse the gallery below.

Two models will be released: the 16GB NWZ-X1051 at $299 and the 32GB NWZ-X1061 at $399. The company’s retail Web site, SonyStyle.com, is accepting pre-orders.

[Maximus]

I hear there is a 4.3" version in the offing, maybe a Walkman branded phone...

[xtop]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

I hear there is a 4.3" version in the offing, maybe a Walkman branded phone...

both good ideas. will they be announced at ces tho?

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by xtop

both good ideas. will they be announced at ces tho?

Probably at 3GSM (or GSMA now I think) in Barcelona...

[xtop]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Probably at 3GSM (or GSMA now I think) in Barcelona...

cool lets hope they can price them right

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by xtop

cool lets hope they can price them right

Probably won't get to the States for a long time though. Japan and Europe is what I have heard so far.

[Sonny]

Sounds nice.

[Maximus]

Going by those pictures, they should have done away with the massive home button and stuck it on the top with the other controls. It looks stupid having a massive touch screen like that and the bottom 1/5 has a big button on it.

[david2189]

looks nice, the noise cancellation will be nice for my commuting and as always with all sony walkmans im sure itll be cheaper than its ipod equivalent so i'll definataley get 1 IF they get better paint jobs! (eww)

[xtop]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/13/s...dled-on-video/

It looks like if you want to get a hands-on with Sony's latest Walkman, the touchscreen NWZ-X1000, you've got to do two things: travel to Japan, and seriously glad-hand the product. Despite our efforts in Vegas, the Sony crew wouldn't let us snag the player from under its glass housing, but the Stuff team gets to toy with the OLED-faced PMP in this video. From the looks of things, Sony is at pains to recreate something akin to Cover Flow, but the rest of the UI looks sadly like a whole bunch of Windows CE-based devices we see coming out of Asia on a daily basis. Of course, this might be an early iteration of the interface, so we'll hold our final judgments till we get a thorough hands-on with the PMP. The player is set to come in 16GB and 32GB iterations, and will launch sometime this Summer. For now, enjoy the video after the break.

Update: Sony's people tell us that you're looking at $299 for the 16GB and $399 for 32 -- right in line with the iPod touch.

[Maximus]

If that translates to £269 for 32GB then I'll take eight!

Seriously though, I will probably wait for the X1100 or whatever the next version will be called.

Personally I think Sony should have called it the X1, the extra numbers make the model number less consumer friendly. I have always thought that half the reason the iPod is successful is because of the simple branding. If it was called the Apple PMP-125X10GB instead of iPod does anyone think it would have caught on so quickly?

[coolmilo]

This is a cool device but I don't see it selling too well. The iPod Touch is the killer device with the iTunes and Application support. The iPod Touch is an addictive little device.

[StereoMike]

No Bluetooth = no buy

[xtop]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/06/s...led-in-french/

After proving a bit of a white whale at CES, Sony's new touchscreen Walkman NWZ-X1000 hasn't been easy to come by. After Stuff's general overview video hands-on, we've been waiting for some hard-hitting impressions, which Le Journal du Geek has finally provided, in French. Granted, they're playing with a non-complete prototype, so we'd have to take these impressions with a grain of salt either way. From what we can tell, they're certainly feeling the device aesthetically, and figure it's totally usable one-handed. The OLED screen is great, the incomplete interface is so far familiar and the capacitive touch has an "impressive response," perhaps even better than the iPod touch. The browser didn't get such rave reviews, but overall they found it to be in their "top five" players, with great audio quality. So at least somebody likes this thing, we'll hopefully have some more concrete impressions of our own to add as this thing approaches release in the coming months.

[Maximus]

It's interesting to note that the browser is rubbish. I expect Sony to make an announcement about that before release that will integrate a not so rubbish browser.

[xtop]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

It's interesting to note that the browser is rubbish. I expect Sony to make an announcement about that before release that will integrate a not so rubbish browser.

thats good to hear! i was trying to even figure out what 5 pmp's even have a browser lol

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by xtop

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/06/s...led-in-french/

I'd take the iPhone any day of the week.

[xtop]

We've been itching to spend some quality time with Sony's NWZ-X1000-series player since its granite-sided shell was first revealed just ahead of CES, and now that it's inching closer to release (in the Old Country, at least) we finally have a full spec sheet to parse. On the audio side it'll play MP3, WMA, and AAC at up to 320kbps, and for video there's MPEG-4, H.264, and WMV support, sadly in most cases crippled at 320 x 240 despite that 3-inch OLED screen's 432 x 240 native resolution. That's nearly a quarter of those pixels gone to waste. Other goodies include FM tuning, 802.11g/b WiFi, internet browsing with YouTube support, and 33 hours of battery life when grooving to tunes, 9 hours when watching video, and surely much less when cruising the web. Still no confirmed domestic release date, but it can't be long now.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/09/s...its-ugly-head/

[Halcro 1]

nothing to get excited about

[xtop]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/04/s...1050-hands-on/

We got a chance to peek Sony's succulent OLED Walkman way back at CES, but we've waited for what seems like forever to hold one in our supple paws without a booth attendant breathing down our neck. The model that arrived today on our doorstep is the 16GB NW-X1050 (or NWZ-X1050), which just launched in Japan last week. There's still no telling when this beauty will hit the US, but we can already guess that it'll cause some serious buzz when it does. We'll just come right out and say it: this is the best looking display on any PMP that we've ever seen. If you'll recall, Cowon's S9 also shipped with an OLED panel, but we've got to give the edge to Sony here. Also of note, we were never fans of the dark granite border in the press shots, but it's downright stunning in person. We're going to be hosting up a video walkthrough of the menus and such just as soon as it uploads (sigh) as well as some more thorough impressions in the coming days. For now, however, feel free to peruse the gallery below.