Sony strikes back with new line of Walkman

There’s no company who would want Apple as the king of portable mp3 players. Sony on Thursday took the wraps off a new line of Walkman portable audio players, which the company says offers features not found in competing devices. Five new Walkman models will debut before the end of the year, offering capacities up to 4GB. The players are shaped like a small perfume bottle, with the high-end model priced at 29,000 yen ($240) in Japan. But Sony acknowledges it has a long way to go if it wants to unseat Apple.




“Sony has a lot of strengths that Apple doesn’t have,” said Hiroshi Yoshioka, senior vice president of Sony’s audio division in a press conference Thursday. “This is a device that takes advantage of them.” Yoshioka added that Sony expects to double its market share from 10 to 20 percent. The new Walkman lineup includes the ability to upload music directly from a CD player, as well as a built-in noise cancellation feature. Battery life is just three hours after only three minutes of charging, and the players come in four colors. The design looks pretty stylish on the first pictures, functions should be also better than in case of iPod, so we will see how will this gadget succeed. Do you still have the old sony cassette walkman somewhere in the garbage? I do!