Sony unveils long-awaited HDD music player

[flow]

Two and a half years after Apple Computer launched its iPod and began to steal thunder from Sony, which had ruled the portable music market since the Walkman appeared in the 1980s, the Tokyo company unveiled the first hard-disk drive based music player to bear its name on Monday.

The Vaio Pocket VGF-AP1 has a 20G-byte hard disk drive and a 2.2-inch color LCD (liquid crystal display) screen with 320 pixel by 256 pixel resolution (just over QVGA). In addition to acting as the main user interface, the screen displays track information when songs are being played and displays, if available, album art.

On the right-hand side of the display is a touch-sensitive panel dubbed "G-sense" that is used to control the player. Users can navigate a series of on-screen menus by running their fingers over the panel in the appropriate direction.

The player is compatible with Sony's ATRAC3 (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding for MiniDisc 3) and ATRAC3 plus digital music formats, both of which include digital rights management (DRM).

By using Sony's Sonic Stage or Music Move software, both of which are bundled with the player, tracks in MP3, Windows Media Audio or WAV audio file formats can be converted into ATRAC and uploaded to the player. The software is compatible with Windows 98SE, 2000, ME, XP Home and XP Professional operating systems.

Fans of Apple's iPod will be pleased to know the Vaio Pocket is both larger and heavier than the comparable 20G-byte iPod model.

The Vaio Pocket measures 115 millimeters by 63 millimeters by 17 millimeters, compared to the iPod's 104 millimeters by 61 millimeters by 16 millimeters. The Vaio Pocket weighs in at 195 grams, which is heavier than the iPod at 158 grams, according to information from Sony and Apple.

In the area of battery life the Vaio Pocket easily beats the iPod, offering around 20 hours of playback compared to the iPod's 8 hours.

The Vaio Pocket will go on sale in Japan on June 5 for around ¥53,000 (AUD$672). There are no plans to sell it outside Japan at this point.

The player is the first Sony will sell under its own brand name, although it began selling a product under its Aiwa brand name earlier this year. The Giga Pavit player is based on a 2G-byte hard disk drive from Cornice and is on sale now in Japan for ¥35,000 ($444.00).

[Salted_Chipmunk]

That looks fucken shmick as.

[Truephoenix]

Its a pity it doesn't support native file types, it has to convert them just like PalmOS. and you can only upload using their software and a cable, rather than uploading using flash storage media.

[scathing]

Why the fuck would you want to have a hard drive based music player that you transfer data to with flash media? That has to be one of the most retarded concepts ever.

Why would you want to use flash media (where the current maximum capacity is around 1GB, so you might need to make several trips to store all your audio), to transfer content to a 20GB storage device, instead of just plugging it directly into a computer to transfer? Your music must have come from a computer at some point because no flash-based audio players natively rip audio either, so all you're doing is adding a pointless step.

[imp]

I think i like this :D

and i own an ipod ;)

[Truephoenix]

I never said you should only upload using flash media, but if you have a killer song and you want to give it to a friend, you couldn't. also i don't see any reason why it shouldn't play native mp3, wav, wma apart from sony copy protection. remember that sony does publish music. im not a big fan of apple, but the ipod kicks this piece of shite in the nads. (and btw my pocket pc can rip wav to mp3 and it uses flash based media :p)

[Zan]

By my reckoning, ipod > this. If only for asthetic reasons. What the hell were they thinking? Usually Sony comes up with some pretty sleek stuff, but this one looks horrible.

[flow]

Haven't read it anywhere - Wonder if there's a removable battery, or it's going to cost you a packet to replace it?

Regardless, I'll be sticking with my tiny AM/FM Sony radio. Does me for my trip to work.

[scathing]

Originally posted by Truephoenix
im not a big fan of apple, but the ipod kicks this piece of shite in the nads. (and btw my pocket pc can rip wav to mp3 and it uses flash based media :p)

You have to use custom software to transfer music to the iPod so it gets added to its music database, and hence playable in the device.

The iPod doesn't natively support uploading from flash media either. Nor does Apple make the accessory that does this, and it was years after the iPod release before this device was released.

So please explain how, based on your reservations about the VAIO Pocket, that the iPod is that much better? Aside from natively playing MP3s, wavs and AAC (which is a bonus) there's not much in it.

Its also great that your Pocket PC can encode from .wav to .mp3, but where is it going to get the .wav file from? Oh wait, it'd have to be plugged into a computer first to copy it, so you still need to interface your unit with a computer via cable (or wireless, I guess), and you just move your encoding process to a slower processor....

That and its not a dedicated MP3 player.

[Truephoenix]

You can record a wav file from the microphone on the pocket pc, i am well aware that this has virtually no use as far as music goes but you did claim that you couldn't rip to mp3 on flash based devices.

Maybe i am a bit harsh on the sony, but that is only because it offers us absolutely nothing that we can't already do, and it does so in an inferior way (converting music takes time).

It would be nice if it had some other method of transerring music other than a direct cable connection to a computer (wi-fi, bluetooth, irda, use your imagination) which has to be running their software (and their software will most likely only run on windows :().

The ipod isn't perfect either, but it does the job better, and chances are it will still be cheaper.

[minorproblem]

Originally posted by scathing
You have to use custom software to transfer music to the iPod so it gets added to its music database, and hence playable in the device.

The iPod doesn't natively support uploading from flash media either. Nor does Apple make the accessory that does this, and it was years after the iPod release before this device was released.

So please explain how, based on your reservations about the VAIO Pocket, that the iPod is that much better? Aside from natively playing MP3s, wavs and AAC (which is a bonus) there's not much in it.

Its also great that your Pocket PC can encode from .wav to .mp3, but where is it going to get the .wav file from? Oh wait, it'd have to be plugged into a computer first to copy it, so you still need to interface your unit with a computer via cable (or wireless, I guess), and you just move your encoding process to a slower processor....

That and its not a dedicated MP3 player.

I download the mp3 to my pocket pc over the universitys wifi network :p without plugging it in. but they are already in the correct format.

I think he got confussed about the removable media thing dont be such a thread nazi.

and lastly you can get 2.4 gig flash cards :p and it may not be a dedicated media player but i still get about 4 hours battery life when watching a movie on it. and about 14 hours if i turn my screen off while listening to music. This beats the ipod in battery life and easability of searching menus. But the ipod has a sweet amount of storage. Also i can do alot of other things other than listening to music. and i have a folding keyboard so i type lecture notes up on it too.

[scathing]

Originally posted by Truephoenix
You can record a wav file from the microphone on the pocket pc, i am well aware that this has virtually no use as far as music goes but you did claim that you couldn't rip to mp3 on flash based devices.

Maybe i am a bit harsh on the sony, but that is only because it offers us absolutely nothing that we can't already do, and it does so in an inferior way (converting music takes time).

It would be nice if it had some other method of transerring music other than a direct cable connection to a computer (wi-fi, bluetooth, irda, use your imagination) which has to be running their software (and their software will most likely only run on windows :().

The ipod isn't perfect either, but it does the job better, and chances are it will still be cheaper.

For me, the concept of "ripping" means to extract from CD audio. No-one "rips wavs", they "rip CDs". Once you have a file format on your computer that you change to another format, that's "converting" or "encoding". Hence the misunderstanding.

Actually, the Creative Nomad Jukebox (the discman-shaped MP3 player) can actually rip from CD, now that I think about it. If you plug a CD player via TOSLink (fibre optic) interface, it can take the digital signal from the CD player and encode to MP3. Not flash based, but few portable MP3 players will encode from a digital source.

Actually, the VAIO Pocket does something that other hard-drive based MP3 players don't do. It displays still images on its screen.

I would love a Bluetooth or WLAN interface on a hard-drive based MP3 player. Probably the former, since its lower power consuming and more designed as a serial connector than the latter. I hate IR with a passion, but whatever.

The iPod is far from perfect. I preferred my older Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen to my iPod. It doesn't inherently "do the job better" than the VAIO Pocket in my opinion, it just did the job first. They're about line ball to me. Its going to come down to marketing, not an inherently better system.

[aiken drum]

The iRiver iHP series still kicks the llamas ass.

Radio, supports all common downloadable file types (including ogg) (but not the sony minidisc ATRAC), has a line in for recording straight to mp3 or WAV, and best of all windows picks it up as a removable drive so you can use it on any computer with a usb port. And it looks sexy and has a remote. It can display text files including lyrics to songs.

Sony and apple have a lot to learn.

[Truephoenix]

I guess i got "rip" and "encode" mixed up sry. :)

[scathing]

Yah, I've seen the iRiver HP in action and I am quite smitten. It doesn't look as nice as the iPod (but far better than the Zen) but I did notice it scratches quite easily, whereas the iPod will always look pure sex.

I will probably get one when the iPod fails, though, unless something cooler comes out. Those portable video players don't really interest me, as to have a usable screen it would have to be too big for my needs (the iPod already pushes that limit) and the battery life would be pretty shit (just like the iPod's).