Sony revisits the Walkman music player

 

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Posted on 8 Sep 2005 at 15:00

Sony has unveiled its latest portable music player, known simply as the Walkman.

The new Walkman is available in two sizes - 20GB and 6GB - and two colours - silver and violet - with an organic EL display and straightforward controls. They provide both MP3 and ATRAC playback and integration with Sony's Connect online music store

Once switched on, what Sony describes as a 'mobile phone style' Home menu appears to give access to nine different options that can be selected via the four-way directional button. These include Music Library, Play Mode, Initial Search, Intelligent Shuffle, Favorite 100, Play History, Settings, Playlist and Now Playing.

Features include two new shuffle functions: My Favorite Shuffle, which automatically selects the most listened to 100 songs and plays them at random; and the Time Machine Shuffle function, which randomly selects a year and plays all of the songs from that particular year that are currently held on the device.

Music can be searched in a variety of ways, via Genre, Artist, Album, Song, Release Date, Rating and Recently Transferred. The player stores three years of playback history.

At the press of a button, the Artist Link function will search every artist, album and song stored on the device and offer suggestions of artists and bands closely linked to the genre of music being played at the time.

'We are raising the bar with the new Sony Walkman' said Gregory Kukolj, general manager at Sony Europe. 'This stunning new device will be instantly appealing to both style followers and technology-minded individuals alike.'

Author: Simon Aughton