Sony Launches Walkman W and X Series Players

January 7th, 2009 by Todd Haselton

The Walkman has come a long way since its clunky, yellow, cassette-playing roots. Sony just announced its two latest Walkman players, the W series and the X series. Walkman W Series The W series device has an integrated headphone design and fits over your ears. A small cable runs behind your head, connecting the two earpieces. The Walkman W doesn’t have a display; it instead uses a jog dial. Its Scan Song feature plays the first 5-15 seconds of your songs song, like a radio scan. It’s made for those with an active lifestyle, like runners, bicyclists, etc. In other words, not the desk jockey type. We love that the W series can offer 1.5 hours of playback after just a 3-minute charge, and a full 12 hours of playtime after just 30 minutes plugged in. It will be available this spring in black and pink, but pricing has not been released yet. Walkman X Series x2_2 This is the device we’ve been waiting for. The X Series will sport a capacitive touch 3-inch WQVGA OLED display. The benefits to an OLED are plentiful: these displays are typically brighter, more colorful, offer better contrast (10o00:1), and have excellent 180-degree viewing angles. Sony is holding out on pricing announcements thus far. The X Series includes digital noise cancellation, and it’s the first device to combine an OLED display with this technology. Sony wouldn’t confirm whether or not it would include content from Amazon yet, but it did say that the X is capable of playing videos from Amazon’s Unbox service. The X Series also sports Wi-Fi capabilities, and will be available with 16GB and 32GB solid state drives. Sony claimed it was focused on audio and video playback, so it’s uncertain whether there will be an application store similar to Apple’s for the iPod touch. Unfortunately, the X series doesn’t have a speaker, so you’ll need to use the 3.5mm headphone jack at all times to jam. The device will be available in early summer.