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Sony Walkman S Series Hands and Ears-On
Posted by Jesus Diaz at 3:10 AM on August 29, 2008
The S in the new Sony Walkman S Series apparently stands for sensing. When Fujio Nishida talked about it, I thought the thing actually sensed your mood by some kind of magical sensors (which actually would have been amazingly cool) to play songs to match them. Unfortunately, you have to select the mood you are in from a list of eleven, which include themes like "Energetic", "Relax", "Upbeat" or "Hot as a Horny Bunny".
The S in the new
The good: light, very thin (7.5mm thick), good finish in brushed aluminium for the faces and plastic for the rim. High quality earphones included, which actually sound very good unlike those other headphones included in you-know-who's MP3 players. Good battery life, in theory: 40 hours of audio playback, 10 of video in its 2-inch screen. The mood sensing technology analyses the music and makes a playlist on the fly. In theory, it sounds good.
The bad: If it does it using only the beat per minute rate, we are in for a problem, because I can think of quite a bit of pretty sad and depressing songs with high bpm, and happy ones with low bpm rates. I don't like the menu system, which makes the whole thing look and act as a Sony Ericsson phone.
Bottom line: It feels like a good competitor for the iPod nano. The quality is good, the form factor is better than Apple's offer, and it the mood sensing feature may make this a winner for those people obsessed with music and moods (that would be me). If it works. By the way, for those of you looking for the same package, but only a bit smaller and without the mood sensing and customisation options of the S Series, there's the E series. [More IFA 2008 Coverage]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
nachobel
Posted 3:51 AM 29/8/08
I had to read this a few times before I realized it wasn't a phone as well.
nachobel
mildretard
Posted 3:46 AM 29/8/08
@OMG! Ponies!: There's some glitch in the human animal that forces us to try to impose unnecessary order on whimsy. Frisbee --> frisbee golf and ultimate. Hacky sack --> hacky badminton.
Give it a rest already, humans!
mildretard
TheFaze
Posted 3:45 AM 29/8/08
JD, how come no 16GB models were not announced? Can you find out if they have any plans for NEW 16GB Walkmans? I know they currently have two 16GB models that have been on sale for quite some time now, but I waiting to see what the new models had to offer.
Please find out! :)
TheFaze
OMG! Ponies!
Posted 3:33 AM 29/8/08
@Hectorvex: That's kind of what happened with the shuffle feature on the iPod.
The ability to carry around thousands of songs at a time led some people to just press "Shuffle" on all-songs. Leander Kahney wrote about it and soon enough, with enough people doing it, Apple devoted an iPod model to it.
Ahhh, the halcyon days of the iPod, when there was whimsy and serendipity to be found in a gadget.
OMG! Ponies!
brutek
Posted 3:30 AM 29/8/08
If it does detect BPM per song, I assume it is done on the PC rather than the device? Does that mean drag and drop music will not be "mood tagged?"
brutek
OMG! Ponies!
Posted 3:30 AM 29/8/08
@strider_mt2k: No. And for your information, "Randy Rhino" is the name for the next Ubuntu release.
OMG! Ponies!
Hectorvex
Posted 3:25 AM 29/8/08
I wonder if one could condition oneself to be in whatever mood they select on the Walkman? That is, select the mood then become that mood.
They should just find a way to hook it up to your blood pressure. Of course, then fat people would be listening to nothing but hard thumping quick music...
Hectorvex
strider_mt2k
Posted 3:19 AM 29/8/08
Got a "Randy Rhino" setting?
strider_mt2k
OMG! Ponies!
Posted 3:17 AM 29/8/08
"Horny Bunny" is just what my horny penis needs.
OMG! Ponies!
dc-united
Posted 3:14 AM 29/8/08
So what exactly does it sense?
dc-united
Kaiser-Machead's Apostrophe's Power
Posted 4:19 AM 29/8/08
@mno.net: I would love to get a W890 as my next phone. It's too bad that it doesn't have a light on the back like the W810 does, as I use the camera a lot.
Kaiser-Machead's Apostrophe's Power
mno.net
Posted 4:11 AM 29/8/08
Isn't it similar to the Sony Ericsson phones?
Some of the newer ones have SenseMe. The software on the PC does an analysis of BPM and of mood (tonal analysis), which can than be plotted like a 2 axis chart.
In my opinion the SE phones are the hands down best on the market, so I like the menu system. The newer ones have the XMB interface popular from PS3, PSP and such.
Anyhow, go get the W890 instead and you have the best phone, together with an excellent music player. It's also slim and nice. The only thing that maybe could be better is if Apple would make an iphone-nano. The current iphone is way too big.
mno.net
Kaiser-Machead's Apostrophe's Power
Posted 4:07 AM 29/8/08
Sony's bundled earphones have always been pretty good, albeit flimsy. The Ericsson Walkman headphones are really good Fontopias with an SE logo on them. I gotta agree that the menu system needs some work, and hopefully this thing isn't nearly as picky as my SE. The walkman will fail playback if I move around the menu too quickly, which is frustrating, and it files songs backwards for albums, which is annoying as fuck.
Does this have gapless playback? Drag and drop functionality?
Kaiser-Machead's Apostrophe's Power
OMG! Ponies!
Posted 3:57 AM 29/8/08
@mildretard: Reintroduce danger into the mix.
Ultimate frisbee with Xena's chakram. Play hackysack with live grenades. Use old sticks of dynamite for your next game of tee-ball.
OMG! Ponies!
Posavoie
Posted 4:38 AM 29/8/08
These things have the best battery life... like 24 hours of playback or something that ridiculous. My brother just bought the last model and it's battery life puts my iPod Touch to shame.
I am a bit skeptical of that sensing tech though... we'll first see how well it works for early adopters before condemning it.
Posavoie
NightBlade
Posted 4:29 AM 29/8/08
@Kaiser-Machead on the Edge:
The T700 is almost identical to the W890 and it has a LED flash on the back. :)
NightBlade
Step666
Posted 5:27 AM 29/8/08
@NightBlade: would lose the 'SensMe' feature though, it's only on A2-based Walkman handsets.
But, if you can live without that, then you may as well go for the C902 - 5mp camera with flash an a media player on a par with the Walkman handset, just missing some of the gimmicky bits.
Step666
TheFaze
Posted 6:01 AM 29/8/08
@DelSource: I love ignorance... cracks me up everytime...
TheFaze
weatherman
Posted 6:00 AM 29/8/08
The weak-point of every Sony device made in the last five (ten?) years has been the desktop software. This looks like Sony finally got its mojo back on the hardware side, but what's the software like?
weatherman
Kaiser-Machead on the Edge
Posted 5:44 AM 29/8/08
@DelSource:
Kaiser-Machead on the Edge
DelSource
Posted 5:39 AM 29/8/08
Beautiful, Sir Howard. Call me when it does video.
DelSource
Kaiser-Machead on the Edge
Posted 6:19 AM 29/8/08
@TheFaze: Actually, a syncing utility/media organizer is much simpler, provided that it's well designed. For anyone who has a song library ranging in the thousands are better equipped with something that easily keeps everything in one controlled pool, especially if they're not filing neat freaks. The type who has music folders scattered on their desktop, and a few in their music and documents folders would probably not care for it.
Kaiser-Machead on the Edge
TheFaze
Posted 6:02 AM 29/8/08
@weatherman: No software required. Just connect as a usb drive, drag and drop. Simplicity at its best.
TheFaze
DelSource
Posted 7:59 AM 29/8/08
@TheFaze: Not ignorance, more reading too fast........
DelSource
JacquesAss
Posted 12:14 PM 29/8/08
Jesus - isn't the player mentioned earlier in the day that comes with built-in noise-cancellation? Did it work? Because that's a pretty awesome "free" feature for an MP3 player...
JacquesAss
elislider
Posted 3:37 PM 29/8/08
pack that into the next 5mpx sony ericsson phone and ill take it!
elislider