Sony Walkman vs Apple iPod

Sony today unveiled its first MP3-compatible, in an attempt to recover ground lost to Apple's iPod, according to Reuters: "The product will be available in Britain before Christmas at 249 pounds ($462.70) and elsewhere in Europe in early 2005 at 369 euros ($489). The new hard disk player is the successor of Sony's first hard disk Walkman, which it introduced this summer but which can play back only music compressed with Sony's proprietary Atrac software. Atrac is the format Sony uses on its Internet music shop Connect, which opened in Europe this summer.... Sony's new 20GB Walkman is 30 pounds more expensive than Apple's 20GB product selling for 219 pounds. But Sony says the device comes in five colours, plays 2.5 times longer on one battery charge than iPod's 12 hours and can contain 10,000 to 13,000 songs, at least twice as many as an iPod because of Atrac's better compression technology."

by MacNN Staff