Sony has also introduced their own portable music player and it looks pretty neat. It’s called the VAIO Pocket and it comes with a 20GB hard drive.

http://www.vaio.sony.co.jp/Products/VGF-AP1/

Specs included the following:
- 20 hours of battery life (excellent!)
- 13000 songs
- ATRAC, ATRAC3, WAV, MP3, and WMA support (i’m still check to see if this is actual direct “support” or if you need to convert the files)
- 2.2” QVGA color screen (320x256) can display album jacket cover along with song, title, artist information. It can also be used to view JPEG photos

- high speed USB 2.0 transfers
- a wired remote control that has 3 lines of text/kanji capable
- a cradle
- 195g or 6.8 ounces (frickin’ light)

Supposedly, you can use Sonic Stage 2.0 to manage and transfer music or you can use something called Music Move to drag and drop files over to the player. It’s not exactly clear but perhaps there’s no conversion process necessary.

You can directly connect a digital camera (probably Sony only) to the player and download your pictures onto the device (this basically just sold me on it as I have a DSC-T1 and DSC-F828). That’s awesome!

This thing is sweet! You knew it was only a matter of time before Sony jumped in the ring. Yay for us!  I’m hoping they release this here in the US. Well, it doesn’t matter I’ll probably import one of thes anyways even if they don’t.  :wink:

Any word on price?

Erik

Estimated price is 52,290 JPY (~$460 USD). Ouch…but it’s not too insane when you figure it’s a Sony. Also, you know it’s going to have great build quality unlike the cheap stuff made by Creative Labs, etc etc.

If you compare it to the $399 20GB iPod it’s definitely worth the money. It supports more audio formats, has the ability to download pictures (from Sony cameras), it has longer battery life, a color screen, and probably better sound quality as well.

me yikes it…

Looks like Sony had their “coming out” party today!

Ouch…the picture thing might sell me though, especially when I pick up my T1 and only have 256 MB stick…

Erik

Looks great, especially the color screen. I would get one, but I’m eyeing an S700 phone for later this year, which has built-in mp3 playback.

http://www.digitmag.co.uk/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=displaynews&NewsID=4043&Page=1&pagePos=1

The article mentions 20-hour battery life, which is fantastic since I only get about 4 with my iPod mini. The only thing that worries me is:

“By using Sony’s Sonic Stage or Music Move software, both of which are bundled with the player, tracks in MP3, Windows Media Audio or WAV audio file formats can be converted into ATRAC and uploaded to the player.”

That sounds exactly like the hassle I went through with my Music Clip, NW-E3, and other Sony mp3 players. Converting 10GB of music over and having duplicate files on your computer is not my idea of ease of use.

I look forward to the review as soon as someone here picks it up, which looks to be soon. :wink:

We’ll have to wait until June 5th when they’re actually released in Japan. And yes, I have already inquired with my contacts in Japan about getting one of these for review.  :wink:

Thats why we pay you the big bucks!.....er…..wait a minute….

It looks like it wants to be the iPod for Sony’s new Connect service. Sony, digital music and “ease of use” just don’t go together. Thank you Columbia!

Now I’m wondering if I should wait for this thing to be released in US or buy the iPod :?  :?   

You can wait, it won’t kill ya.  gr00vy will have a review in no time.  Where’s your Sony loyalty?

when did I claim I was loyal to Sony?

As much as you post here, I thought you would be.  However, it is no big deal, Mr. iPod.

Oh well, I’m loyal to my TR…no doubt about that…no laptop beats the TR IMHO and since this forum is mainly about the TR, I hang out here quite a lot

You’re OK, Rahul, I don’t care what the other forum members say about you. :wink:

What does “S(h)ave Afghanistan” mean?