14 DAY TRIAL // Sony proudly announced its brand new Walkman NW-910 player, in Japan. I have to admit that, at a first glimpse, the player looks nice, but not as impressive as I have expected it to be. However, I couldn't help but notice the generously large display it features. Sony itself highlighted the player's great screen size, claiming it's about the size of a credit card, measuring 47 x 86mm. But it seems kind of bulky for a credit card, honestly.
The screen is 2.4-inch color TFT LCD and features a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, which are to give the device even more sex-appeal. As for their 'brain', the players are said to range from the 4GB NW-A916 to the cool 16 GB one, dubbed NW-A919.
The good news is that all the versions include the 1 seg digital tuner, meaning they are ready for receiving broadcasts that were specially tailored for mobile devices. This tells me there's going to be a lot of porn on those babies, besides the cultural documentaries the users are surely going to enjoy watching on these devices.
Even more, the player 16GB model can record up to 100 hours of digital TV, with timed recording being a simple matter of using the EPG. It weighs only 74g, being an extremely light Walkman, while its battery life was rated at up to 36 hours for audio and 8.5 hours for TV watching. And this may win a few more clients.
However, Sony will have to do something about the pricing if they really want to kick some fat a*ses in the industry, as a wider screen display simply won't do the trick. Regarding its audio capabilities, the player is said to be entirely compatible with most of the file formats, such as ATRAC in addition to non-DRMed WMA and AAC, MP3, as well as linear PCM audio playback with SonicStage doing the sync work back to your PC.
Not to mention there is also an included EPG option, which allows you to schedule up to 10 programs for recording up to one month in advance for up to 100 hours of MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 formatted television inside the device.
Some extra options are an FM tuner, the direct encoding from your CD/MD player, clear audio noise canceling headphones. The premium NW-A919/BI pictured player will sell starting November for ?47,800 while the other version, of 4GB NW-A916, should pop for about ?30,000 ($259).
