Looks like Sony isn’t about to give up anytime soon when it comes to the portable media player market - perhaps it still holds deep, unhealed grudges against Apple for taking making the iPod the Walkman of the 21st century. Still, it is great to see such fighting spirit from Sony as the Japanese electronics giant releases a trio of new Walkman digital media players - namely the NWZ-A810, NWZ-S610, and NWZ-S510. All three are said to support “an open platform” as well as “support for Windows Media technology”.

Users will be able to plug any of the three players to a computer directly, featuring support for “security-enhanced” WMA in addition to “non-secure” AAC and MP3 music formats. JPEG image files are also not left out, as with AVC (H.246/AVC) Baseline Profile and MPEG-4 video codecs. This new series of players also enable users to download from a hefty selection of media portals - just make sure that these downloaded videos are compressed in the appropriate codec, resolution, and size beforehand.

According to Jeffry van Ede, VP of Sony Audio Marketing Europe, “This announcement to support Windows Media technology is great news for consumers. By introducing an open standard Sony is increasing the consumer’s choice of content and enhancing the versatility of its products. Ultimately, consumers can now decide how they want to purchase and manage content and benefit from the superior sound and video technology on offer in their new Walkman devices.”

Other features that will come with all three A and S series of Walkman players include a large QVGA LCD display with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, the ability to play video at 30fps, an impressive 33 hours of playback time before the battery gives up, and a respectable amount of continuous video playback. Storage options range from 2GB to 4GB and 8GB, depending on your needs. The Sony A810 and S610/S510 Walkman portable media players will be available for sale in Europe from October onwards at a yet undisclosed price.

Source: m&c