metal

SS may not be supported as I don't see SS being mentioned in the website

and gapless too (for non-atrac codecs that is)! Media Manager will support the Japanese models S71x and S61x and therefore ATRAC. Not sure about the old ATRAC models.

Hong Kong has no connect store and the B-series are available here, and NWZ-610 will soon be. Not sure about the S-71x atrac series.

Hehe, don't forget the 6-series also have two sub-series, the atrac (in Japan) and the Z non-atrac.

I really hope Sony will resolve this at the soonest.

Don't want to go to the technical, but , nobody said it was easy to implement gapless, but if Apple can do it why not Sony? Have to agree with rocklegend that unless Sony sort out this gapless issue, no more Sony DAP for me

While Sony has not officially announced they will not support ss/atrac, I recall that the announcement also contains an FAQ and mention that owners of existing players are recommended to convert their atrac to mp3 and provide the link to the mp3 conversion tool. So, yes, I feel Sony has at least stopped developing ss/atrac. They may support atrac for a while in Japan as MD is still quite common in bookshelf system thereat.

@The_Nevster But you didn't mention if you have tried a different usb port. Also, try removing other usb devices to see if helped.

Unfortunately, there appears only a very few of us really care gapless, or not?

of course, never say never. I can tolerate no ss/atrac but I can't tolerate no gapless. apart from ipod, the other option is to get hold of the last batch of sony atrac daps, like e01x series.

I can see the rationale on why Sony ditches ss/atrac, though I'm not sure if there will be many many users demanding Sony to develop/update SS/atrac if Sony continues to support it as I thought the majority of users feel ss/atrac are evil. But I feel that if Sony really care their loyal customers they could at least do something, say offering a free firmware update to the owners of the new players to support ss/atrac. That way, users only choose to use ss/atrac as they like. Hmm, don't think that's going to happen but I can dream, right?

@pata2001 Thanks for the detailed information. Looks like my next DAP could be an iPod unless Sony do something about gapless.

To me it is one step forward and more than one thousand steps backward. A DAP that cannot support gapless is pretty useless to me. Of course, that's just me and I am certainly in the minority crowd. A slightly off topic: @pata2001 how did ipod (I believe the latest generation only) support gapless, is it OK that we rip the CDs via iTunes to AAC or MP3 and transfer to ipod? Any special requirement (other than the songs are gapless of course)?

It may mean Sony does not want these non-atrac players be imported into Japan, thus disabling display of Japanese characters. Need to see if the player purchased from other countries also disable Japanese characters as well.

@aznbro85 If that doesn't mean too much trouble to you, please try to rip CDs to formats suggested by Ascariss to see if the player can support gapless.

Absolutely agree, but the problem is Sony never care their loyal customers, did they?

Thanks a lot. It seems that the player can't do gapless. Very disappointing indeed. I presume you ripped the CD to mp3.

Thanks for the review and the user's manual I've checked the manual but unfortunately it didn't mention it can playback gapless. If possible, please check this again as gapless playback is really the only reason for me to stay with Sony.

The 1G/2G models start selling in Hong Kong at HK$688 and HK$498.

CP supports unicode but I think it only works with A3000, A1000 & A608 series (maybe A1200 as well).

Yes, Shinji Ikeda is correct. In fact I was trying to see if playback behavior (ii) as described in my first post can be set in E005 (or A80x, E01x series) and it looks it cannot be done. I'm aware of how to set shuffle play mode. Anyway, I'm really not interested in (ii) but rather I just like to know if there are ways to change my HD3 and A1000 to behave like (i). It occurs to me that Sony is rather strange in implementing different playback behavior in different types of players (ie, HDD & flash players). Hopefully, E01x series would work like (i) as well as I'm considering getting one of these.

Shinji Ikeda - thanks for replying How did you do that for e005 to behave like (ii)?

Could owners of E01x series and A80x series please advise the playback behavior. If I select playback by album (non-repeat), and when I start play song no 4 (for instance), (i) will it stop at the end of the album; or (ii) will it go back song to no 1 and stop after playing song no 3? The reason I ask is because Sony seems to be rather inconsistent with this. For example, HD3 and A1000 will behave as (ii) whereas E005 behave as (i). I prefer (i) as I normally listen songs by albums.

E01x series is released in HK. And, no, the phones included are not EX90 and in fact not from EX90/85/82 series. I believe Sony HK intends to lower the selling price to make it competitive with other mp3s, ipods...

I think the device itself should have no problem in displaying Chinese charactersn, but it is Sonicstage which might cause some problems.