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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

While the rest of the world makes due with the 2-inch, QVGA display on their NW-A800 Walkman, China just nabbed a pair of biggie Sony Walkman branded flash video players under the PMX-M70 (pictured) and PMX-U50 monikers. The M70 series brings a 4.3-inch, 480 x 272 pixel display for viewing MPEG-4 video stored in up to 8GB of flash memory or Memory Stick expansion. It also records audio or video when jacked-in appropriately or plays back MP3, WMA, and AAC audio over the unit’s integrated stereo speakers. The PMX-U50 then, is a throw-back to the ol’ GigaPocket PCVA-HVP20 design with a refreshed spec sheet touting a 2.4-inch TFT LCD, FM tuner, drag-n-drop support (no SonicStage!), voice recorder and more in capacities up to 4GB. Notable by its absence from the press release is ATRAC, again. While two ATRAC-less, SonicStage-less products released in the last 4 weeks certainly does not constitute a trend, it’s tantalizing nonetheless. See the U50 pictured after the break.

[Via I4U]

Continue reading Sony’s PMX-U50 and PMX-M70 China-only media players

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Thomas Ricker

They may be late to the game, but Sony is finally ditching SonicStage, its annoying (and required) software for transferring music. According to ATRAC Life, the new B100 will be Sony’s first drag-and-drop MP3 player supporting MP3s, non-DRM’d WMAs, and even AAC (the latter hasn’t been confirmed yet). And if that didn’t shock you enough, Sony’s also thinking of dropping its ATRAC format for this player. Nice to see these changes, but personally I think this is one of those “too little, too late” deals. – Louis Ramirez

Sony to Release B100 Series Drag and Drop Walkman [ATRAC Life via Electronista]

Original post by Outblush

Filed under: Portable Audio

An interesting bit of news from the kids over at ATRACLife this morning. According to “trustworthy insiders,” Sony is set to introduce another Walkman stick — the B100 series — which supports drag ‘n drop music transfer… no SonicStage required. Perhaps oxymoronic considering the source, the player will not support Sony’s MiniDisc era codec, ATRAC; a milestone in and of itself. Instead, the player touts MP3, non-DRM’d WMA, and presumably AAC like we’ve seen in the recent lineup of dedicated Walkman players and phones. The latter necessary to get your DRM-free EMI on (at least initially). The B100 series will ship sometime before May has sprung in 1, 2, and 4GB capacities with or without FM radios. Nice, now where’s that nano killer?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

While we wait twiddling our thumbs in the States to get ahold of Sony’s new supposed hotness, the NW-A800, French DAP site GenerationMP3 has snagged itself the first review of the player. They seem to have good things to say, but unfortunately they’re all in French. From what we gleaned, there’s some good stuff going on here, with the 2-inch QVGA screen setting it well apart from the nano, and a good feel to the controls and shape of the player. The battery is apparently much easier to get at than that of the iPod — though still a bit of a chore to replace. On the software side, Sony’s made some big improvements, since they’ve not only spruced up SonicStage, with transcoding and the like, but also allow you to manage your player completely without it. Sony also has a new RSS app, for subscribing to podcasts, photo streams and videos to place on your player, but GenerationMP3 ran into some trouble areas with it. Battery life isn’t quite at the 30 hours Sony was promising, but 22 hours for ATRAC and 5 hours for video ain’t too shabby. Of course, codec support is quite commendable for Sony, with AAC, WMA and MP3 (all non-DRM) in addition to the regular ATRAC. The GenerationMP3 folks gave this player a 4/5, we’ll be keeping an eye out for a review we can actually comprehend.

[Via dapreview]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Paul Miller