Following its recent announcement of the "Live With Walkman" Android smartphone, Sony has today officially introduced the Walkman Z Series (Japanese press release) of personal media players.
These Android 2.3 devices will weigh approximately 156g and will feature the following specs:
- 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core CPU
- 4.3 TFT color LCD, WVGA (480 × 800)
- 512MB RAM
- Bluetooth
- 802.11b/g/n WiFi
- WEP/WPA/WPA2 Encryption
- GPS
- E-Compass
- G-Sensor
- FM Radio
- Built-in mono speaker (this is an interesting choice considering this device is billed as a "Walkman" phone)
- HDMI output
- DLNA
As these devices are billed as "Walkman" PMPs the lack of a camera is not entirely surprising.
However, sticking to its core music and media consumption functions these PMPs have a wealth of audio enhancements, including the following technologies built right into the device:
- "S-Master MX" digital amplifier
- digital noise cancelling
- 13.5mmEX Headphones
- DSEE
- Clear Stereo
- Clear base
- 5-band Equalizer
- 5 seeds VPT Acoustic Engine
- Dynamic Normalizer
- Clear phase
- xLOUD
The devices will also support a wide variety of music formats, such as MP3, ATRAC, ATRAC Advanced Lossless, AAC, HE-AAC, WMA, and Linear PCM, and video formats, such as MPEG4, AVC (H.264 Baseline), and WMV.
There are also a couple of interesting features built-into the devices to allow the user to make full use of it as a PMP. Firstly, the "W. Music," app provides a number of ways for the user to browse through their media library.
Secondly, the built-in "W. Button" appears everywhere, regardless of the display, allowing the user to control the music playback. Lastly, there are a number of elegant visualisations to suit the mood of the music.
This series of Android PMPs will come in three varieties based on sizes:
- "NW-Z1050" (16GB): ¥ 28,000 ($ 363.64)
- "NW-Z1060" (32GB): ¥ 33,000 ($ 428.57)
- "NW-Z1070" (64GB): ¥ 43,000 ($ 558.44)
Sony's press release also provides estimates of dedicated accessories for the Z Series, including:
- Dedicated headphones ("MDR-NWNC200"): ¥ 18,000 ($ 233.77)
- Leather case ("CKL-NWZ1000"): ¥ 4,000 ($ 51.95)
- Clear case ("CKH-NWZ1000"): ¥ 2,800 ($ 36.36)
- Silicon case ("CKM-NWZ1000"): $ 25
- Privacy filter ("PRF-NWP43"): ¥ 2,000 ($ 25.97)
- Screen protectors ("PRF-NWH43"): ¥ 1,500 ($ 19.48)
With numerous manufacturers making their own versions of Android, Sony's Walkman Z Series should satisfy the niche audiophile market who wish to have a state of the art Android device.
The original source of this article was in Japanese and Google Translate was used, hence some content may have been lost in translation.
Source: Walkman Z Series and Press Release (Japanese) via This Is My Next