Ascariss

All HDD players, including the new A series ones?

After 2-3 years the battery life begins to fall and then eventually it goes to zero. you can read it all here: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm the thing that surprised me the most is that you should run down the battery to nil, but to roughly 40% charge and then recharge. Doesn't it state in manuals to discharge the battery a few times before the full capacity is back? could only be the case with new batteries then? Anyways, like stuge mentioned the AVLS system is different than the automatic limiter from EU countries. while both can be turned off, the latter can't be done using the regular menu options, ie need to go into service mode. meaning most likely that all models are shipped with the limiter its just that production destined for europe has it turned on.

I don't think many people here listen to their DAPs with the highest volume, if you do then you surely know that you already have permanent hearing damage. the best option is to use in-ear canal headphones to reduce outside noise, so you can listen to it at a lower volume, thus saving battery life. 500 charge cycles is not bad, considering the li-ion battery in my canon sd400 only lasts 100 cycles. Hopefully there is no volume limiter for the canadian market, and of course battery life will vary from the A1000 to the A3000. And even to consider is the temparature at which the player is being used, 30C vs -10C. If you want a better battery life, encode it into atrac3+ at 192 or 256. I am sure you will get much better battery life then. remeber this is a HDD player, and it needs to access the harddrive whenever you select a song, taking juice from teh battery, not so for flash players. still sony's battery life is respectable and above industry ave.

the manual states it works more or less with the 35 remote, 33 is the same minus 2 line support and less res.

As it is to me, my MD is damn small so I wouldn't go with anything larger and let me tell you the A1000 is small, really small. not sure on A3000, will know this upcoming monday when the purple unit comes in.

correction, up to 29 hours for 128kbps for the A3000 while it is up to 17hrs for the A1000. up to 35hrs for atrac3+ @ 48kbps for the A3000 and up to 20 hours for the A1000, same bitrate. the info is from sony canada.

Kamil the battery is like on the MZ-N10 recorder and player, so removeable yes, easy well depends, removing the battery from the MZ-N10 ain't easy lol. Just checked out your site, nice photos. love the 10 subway shots. btw what music do you listen to since it does mention you are a DJ in your profile. Nice avatar too. lol and btw witam cie to Atraclife forums, the best source for your atrac needs.

hmm well I will be planning on using a remote with mine, the 33EL, therefore minimizing the amount of time I need to take it out of my pocket.

indeego, are the new units on sale already? both the 20 and 6 gig versions? Online and at retail stores? Just watched the commercials and the making of the commercials/info about the new walkman. And dare I say, I want it even more now. No player on the market can compete with the looks of this thing.

Here is the thing, I saw a HD1 here at the store and even though it was small and metal, I wasn't really at all impressed, the design wasn't all that great. My MZ-N10 looks nice, but still has a boring look to it. There is so much more you can do with plastic in terms of designs, where as metal it is more difficult and it makes the units a more expensive. I've seen the A1000 in person, and pictures don't do it justice, the dimensions on paper somehow don't give the right feeling to its size. It truly is actually really small. I was rather blown away when I held it, and I don't have large hands, I am only 5'7''. Once I get my A3000, I will post tons of pictures, comparing its size to numerous objects since I have a feeling it will be smaller than sony even states. If you get a chance to check out the new players in person, do so, because real life impressions are the best, if you have and don't like it, fair enough, I won't be changing your mind. Mercury, I have touched the A1000s and fingerprints are not as bad as I though, they are almost non existant for me.

up to 29hours for mp3 at 128kbps.

Anyone know if it is possible to do the same for hte larger A1000/3000 units? or even possibly edit the icons in the menu?

Wonder if Sony people are visiting this forum? It is one of the main forums where people are posting problems and getting some answers to their situations. kurisu do you know if any sony people are visiting the site? Or have you heard anything relating to the updates for the connect software and amount of units sony is planning on shipping? Challange to sony software engineers, set up a blog and post progress on connect updates or post on the forum.

How would dust get under the screen in the first place? Isn't the interior sealed off to the outside?

Wait a second, so let me get this straight, unlike in SS, where you could edit the name of the files on the player directly using the program, you can't do that with the Connect player? Surely this is major f up by sony. This would be a huge downside if it can't be donw this way.

That is maybe a possible reason why then canada and australia will be getting their units later on. The purple A3000 is released nov 28th here, with the silver following on the 15th of decemeber, so I am guessing that that silver one will come with the latest firmware ie with wma support, although that doesn't matter to me. I wouldn't be so sure for the purple one though, my guess is that it will only ship with the latest connect they can get onto the cd before heading out of the factory, but then again I could be wrong. There is something I do want to know if anyone knows, again just throwing it out there. Anyone know how many units sony has planned to move for the A1000/3000 series? on amazon.co.uk the silver 20 gig model is now ranked 14th which is quite respectful. Although most reviews still have negative views about the software, other people are not having problems, so I am at odds why this is. I am hoping sony works the bugs out for their sake, the bad press in the US witht the XCP might possibly affect launch of the new players if you ask me. It would be suicide to launch a product when the news isn't really in your favour. That's the problem, these problems should have been solved while beta testing, surely they would have shown up right away.

Indeed it would be. Along the lines of what apple does with their 30 and 60 gig ipods i guess.

Well personally seeing both the purple and silver in person, the silver wins hands down. Although the purple has a nice look to it as well, the silver looks much better. If you can check them out at a store, you will get a much better feel for their size and looks. Stuge, there are 2 models, the silver and black, the black one actually is black and has a different appearance from the silver version which is more chrome. all models have a nice reflective look to them and nothing on the market that comes closes to it. The pink and greenish blue one are ok, but more directed at people younger than me I guess, 12-16yr olds. So to answer your question Machine, I'd go with the silver, the black one might show too many scratches or even fingerprints (even though while testing the A1000 out, fingerprints were not as bad as I thought they would be). Don't guy by press pics from thet net, they never tell the real story, the silver one in real life looks a lot darker than it really is. it is more like this:

If they do release a larger capacity version, it won't carry the 3000 name, most likely something higher, maybe 5000 or 6000.

More updates: the 2 gig flash player has no real date of sale from the sony store, except that it will be sold. Cases and accesories, well no date of arrival sadly. I held the A1000 at the store today, the silver model since I wanted to know how mine would look like. The thing is bloody small, smaller than my noka 6225 even. Build quality is solid on this little sucker, even though it is made in malaysia, perhaps qualtiy control was tightened there. the back of the unit is metal which was a surprise to me, thought it was plastic, the screen is pimp, nicely intergrated and the use of the menus was a bit odd at first, took me about 1 or 2 minutes to get a hand of it, with no manual of course. the silver colour is a treat, looks almost like chrome. Fingerprints are not that bad actualyl, and will easily come off, the plastic on the front the unit looks pretty thick as well. The hold button at the top is a bit wierd, after pressing it, I couldn't find anything on the screen that said hold, I do believe this is what is said in the manual as well, kind of annoying though. Did I mention it's damn small lol. All in all the units are a nice change from your averge market product on sale now, and easily look better than anything out there, even the nano, which i personally am not a fan off. As well, the 20gig versions are expected later sadly, so it looks like I will be picking mine up on the 15th, or perhaps before.

Haha, funny how everything there explains what we have now on the market and why things are they way they are. First why wasn't Mr. Fukushima saked? this guy doesn't seem to be a team player. It was clear there wasn't any contact between the various divisions, Connect didn't get us anywhere, sonicstage really wasn't the product sony wanted it to be, until near the end, when they got their shit together. Hahaha, ya well that got you to a nice place now huh. Funny, sony has an edge with their casette walkmans and cd walkmans, but once the digital age of hte mp3 came along, all things just fell apart. Piracy was also occuring with tapes and cd players back then as well. But the products still sold. why? because they were of great value and lasted. People needed something to play their copied tapes and cds on something, sony provided that. Sadly, too bad they didn't go that route for the mp3 age. Huh, apple was onto something here with these hard drive players? lol you know what this reminds me of, that cartoon that was posted here, "we're sony fuck 'em". funny how HDD players are not interesting anymore, sony made almost 4 different models. HD1, HD3, HD 5, VP and now the new A series. VP dies, it was never meant to be sadly though. All in all the article even though it is old, still gives a nice insight into how this all came to be. It reminds me of GM and their situation before bob lutz came in.

True I will get it then, but I wanted it before exams started, but that won't be happening. I found one store online from Quebec city that has the new A1000s, no mention of the A3000s though.

It's actually supposed to be called Walkman, and sony products seem to be more bought by older people rather than youngsters, seeing as sony products are usually more expensive and not as hip as ipods.

It was bound to happen, boo on sony's part, I am seriously now thinking of cancelling my order. the A1000 is in, but now according to Sonystyle.ca the A3000 ain't arriving, get this, Decemeber 15th! Fucking classic. sorry for the language, but they told me monday or tuesday this upcoming week. I am seriously plannong on emailing sony and asking why the delay. There is only one upside to this, they lowered the price by 30 bucks to 349.99 which after calling the store, they said they would refund the difference. so in total, a savings of 45 bucks with taxes. also the name has been changed from NW-A3000 and NW-A1000 to Aura A1000 and Aura A3000. wierd name but whatever. There was a reason neither unit was showing up on futureshops or best buys website. It does say exclusive on the sonystyle site, so perhaps no other store will carry them, stupid if you ask me.

The A1000s are in at one of the sony stores here in vancouver, well the one where I will be picking up my A3000 has them at least, I would safely assume the others do as well, since the shipment with the A1000s arrived on thursday. Sadly the A3000s didn't come today either, so hopefully monday, unless sony gets deliveries on saturdays, which I doubt they do. Oddly enough, even though the A1000s are at the stores, no update on sonystyle.ca, how odd.