pata2001

I hear you willykyu, and I had enough with this crap. I don't think it's possible to have 2 stores at once, since unlike iTunes, the Connect store is determined (presumably) in the registry. Oh, read my sig. Luv iTunes!

PSP will have to have a UMD drive, since that is the medium of PSP games. Putting a hard-drive in it will increase the size+weight. Besides, the PSP is the main drive for memory stick sales, so Sony would just release higher capacity memory sticks (like hte rumored 32GB).

I know. Clip ons looks cool, but zero isolation, making them useless on the go.

None of Sony's Network Walkmen are crippled, so if you already have your music in MP3s, just use the MP3s.

Even better, Sony USA decided not to release the 4GB version of the new S70x in the US. What a smart marketing move by Sony! Wait till the 16GB flash based iPod coming next year.

Have you used HE-AAC? Even Sony starts supporting AAC/HE-AAC. Sony may still use Atrac for its own internal stuff (UMD movies/music, Playstation games, etc), but Atrac is dead/dying as a consumer format.

Says who, Sony? That's sound a lot like MS, when they claimed their 64kbps WMA is equal to MP3 128kbps. Although Atrac3+ 64kbps is decent, it's not worth the hassle re-rip/transcoding everything. It's a waste of time, time that you can use to actually listen to the music instead.

Seamless/gapless on AtracCD is only available on AtracCD PCDPs, NOT on the jukeboxes nor car decks.

Do you have a desktop PC? Try plugging the unit to your desktop USB port. If not, then you better invest $20 for Sony's USB AC adaptor, a cheap investment (even cheaper than Apple's iPod AC adaptor). http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/20INTERSHO...AC%2fDCAdapters

As far as I know, the HD5 does not support Atrac lossless, so you're using whatever lossy/transcoded part of the lossless file. USB is fine, you just need longer time to fully charge the unit vs an AC adaptor. Wrong! There is no need for priming for LiIon. In fact, fully discharge a LiIon batter is NOT recommended. http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-12.htm

The HD5 (and most modern electronics) use LiIon battery, which doesn't have this problem. In fact, it is not good to let LiIon battery fully drained. Sony DAPs may have a good battery life for continous playback, but try turning the unit off and leave it off for a day or 2. I don't know about the HD5, but the Vaio Pocket and other Sony Network Walkmen will drain the battery significantly even when off. In contrast, iPods have deep sleep mode, so when it is not used for quite some time, it will not drain the battery so much.

Sony is more popular? Let's see: http://kakaku.com/ranking/itemview/mp3.htm Kakaku popularity rank. On the top 10, 6 of them are iPods, while 2 of them are Sony. As for sonicstage, it cannot even display chinese/Japanese/Korean without registry edits and applocale, and cannot display all languages at the same time, while iTunes is unicode. Let alone smart playlist with live-updating. Try plugging the unit while your laptop is connected to its AC adaptor. Some laptop USB ports are not full powered (to save battery life). There is no "on" button on the E003, but you can press and hold the folder button, and you get access to the menu. Try this: Go to the menu, choose setting (the toolbox icon), then Advanced Menu, USB power, select 100mA. This would allow the E003 to charge from a lower powered USB port, but it will take longer. Best bet is to just invest $20 to buy Sony's USB AC adaptor so you can charge the unit faster.

With flash memory capacity going to 16GB to 32GB, and price going down, I don't see why the PSP would use a large and fragile HDD. The PSP will still need to accomadate a UMD drive, since that is the media PSP games use. I want Sony to slap more RAM buffer on the PSP to reduce load times, since load times seem to be 1 criticism against the PSP in favor of Nintendo DS. Maybe slap a 2-4GB flash memory, and have the PSP copies most frequently accessed files to reduce loading times and increase battery life.

4. Sony also sells a USB AC adaptor. I think Sony's is cheaper ($20) than Apple's USB AC adaptor. You still need a regular USB cable though. 5. Yes, but since the display is only 1 line, browsing is not really easy. Plus, the display can only display one info at a time (title, artist, album, no combination due to the 1 line limitation). The default display doesn't even display artist tag, only track title, and album when you press the folder button. Speaking of CD players, Sony AtracCD PCDPs, 2nd gen onwards, can browse music on MP3/AtracCD (even AudioCD) without skipping every songs. 6. Sonicstage has improved, but if your sister is computer illiterate, anything can go wrong. There is NO way to just drag-n-drop files to the player. If she doesn't want to use any software, forget Sony and buy DAPs from Sandisk/Cowon. If she wants an easy software, get her an iPod + iTunes. SQ? The E00x series is a budget line. Their headphone output is noisier (probably because Sony use cheaper amp/components) than, let's say, devices that use an HD-amp like the RH1. Use a low impedance earphone, set the volume to 0 on an E00x, you hear nothing (which is good). Increase the volume to 1, and you'll hear a background noise right away. Doesn't mean it's bad, but previous Sony Network Walkmen (eg. my NW-E3, E99) have cleaner headphone out. More flexible functions? My iPod is unicode, can display kanji without having to edit registry, gapless with regular MP3 without the need to use a propietary codec, and have tons of accessories to choose from. Sony USA cannot even make Sonicstage unicode after all this years. Oh, read my sig.

Use LP2 (Atrac3 132kbps). It's the only bitrate compatible with most Atrac devices, including AtracCD players and legacy NetMD devices. If you don't have any classic MD devices, then add to the choice HiSP (256kbps) or HiLP (64kbps). Considering the bid gap of bitrate, LP3 (132kbps) is still the sweet spot. Yeah, this is the same problem I was having. I spent most of my time re-encoding my music instead of listening to them. Finally, I just stick with LP2 132kbps and be done with it.

Sony is not thinking about a better product. Sony is thinking of locking the content and hardware for their future walkman. Just like what MS did with Zune, it locks Zune with Zune marketplace. The Zune is not even compatible with other services that use WMA/play for sure. Sony did exactly this with connect and Atrac, and they failed. Now they want to do it again? Sony cannot even make a decent software, let alone another new ecosystem? Heck, even MS cannot make a decent software for their Zune. As for Sony restructuring, I thought that what the Howard guy was going to do years ago. Well, what do we have now? Nothing. In fact, Sony is worse now with many bad PR (root kit, exploding batteries, PS3, etc). Do you think another restructuring will make any difference, if the same execs are still sitting on their fat asses at Sony Music/Pictures? I'll make it easy for Sony execs. Put together some of your wages in a pot, call Steve Jobs, offer the pot to him in exchange for Apple to develop iTunes to work with Sony DAPs. Not only you get a decent working software, you'll get exposed to the millions of iTMS userbase, which means more profit. Oh, and fire those execs at Sony Music/Pictures, so that Sony can have more money on the pot. The latest firmware reduces the problem. http://www.audiotstation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32099

You've got to be kidding right? 48kbps vs CD, unoticable?

With the way things are going, Sony will probably just release something like the Zune next year, after Apple conquer the market with 6G iPods and iPhone. Late and always behind, that's a Sony.

Wow, sony is going backwards. If Sony want to follow MS/Zune, then it means they will close their walkmen even further, and forget about backward compatiblity. The Zune is not compatible with MS's own play-for-sure, so this is a hint of Sony ditching connect store customers. Sony already have a closed system (sonicstage, connect, atrac). Is Sony really that stupid? The Zune is not even a success, it's limping along with lackluster sales. Wait till Apple unleash their 6G iPods and iPhone, nobody will care about the Zune anymore. And here Sony wants to copy MS? What Sony needs to do is make a decent software, that's it! That's what Apple have done. Zune is a failure also because the software that comes with it is buggy and crashing left and right. Wow, I can't believe the execs at Sony and MS are so stupid like this. What level of education do they have? Middle school? Hey Sony, how about visitting forums like this or the T-board, and see what people really want, and cut off your leeching Sony Music and Movie arms. Good thing I have moved to iPod.

... and not being restricted to a propietary format and a crappy software/firmware are priceless. (5G/5.5G iPods, and 2G nano are gapless with MP3 and AAC).

I have a suggestion. Sony, to make your life simpler and better profits, why don't you just pay Cowon, and rebadge their A2 into a walkman device, and maybe add in the PSP GUI and/or H.264 capability (keep the A2's Divx/Xvid capability). Nah, that would be too easy. Besides, Sony USA still thinks Divx is the spawn of satan (see sig).

This will only works for DAPs that use simple drag-n-drop via explorer for music transfer AND are USB mass storage compliant. I can already transfer music from iTunes to UMS compliant DAP without any additional software. Just create a playlist/smart playlist in iTunes, select all the content, and drag-n-drop them to your DAP via explorer. Still, it's nice to have some integration and automation with iTunes. Mac version of iTunes have supported non-Apple DAPs (UMS compliant) for a while, but not in Windows. Nice find though. Problem is, many DAPs are MTP devices now.

Yes, not only you have lower quality, you wasted space for the larger file. If you already have MP3s, just keep them in MP3s. With 352kbps, you probably won't be saving much battery life either.

Yup, you don't actually need any software to transfer music to Sony ericsson phones. Plug the phone to your PC, and it will be recognized as a USB mass storage device. Just drag-n-drop the MP3s to a folder like Damage said, and you're good to go. Far much simpler than Sony's own DAPs, ironically.

You cannot drag-n-drop. You have to use Sonicstage. I don't know if MP3 file manager works though.