Ascariss

sony has left the HDD world, they decided that it just wasn't what they wanted. as for real info, I meant real world stats, ie what it can do, so until someone gets one of these, I'm on the fence.

you cannot take the yen prices and convert them to USD, this is not a good idea. The NWZ-A81x models were a lot cheaper than there japanese counterparts so I would say the same is due for the new 82x units. NC will probably be not included in the NA and EU models since it isn't something that the players of competitors have. It is possible that no 16 GB model willl be sold here in Canada, why not sure, probably price, the 8 gb 818 wasn't sold here either. Gradius the units use flash not hdd, sony has abondoned hdd, this was a move with the first 800 series. Juli, just wait a month for the official debut at cebit or maybe sony will decide to release info on monday. until I see more real info on what the NWz-A829 can do, I'll skip it's purchase and hold onto my 818. Sony had so much momentum with the 81x series but now the introduction of the 82x really somehow isn't that much of a step forward. :/

More photos here: http://www.engadget.com/photos/sonys-bluet...the-ipod-touch/ Ok after looking at the new series for a while, I don't know what to think. The kick stand is good for watching movies yes, but somehow not sure I would want it if I bought it. The thinness is great not sure on the materials it is made out of since the bottom 1/4 looks to be metal and the top 3/4 seems to be plastic which will be a fingerprint magnet, and possibly scratch. Noise cancelling is nice and something most players out there don't have but it isn't needed in the US or EU markets. Bluetooth is nice but then I don't think I'll have use for it. I like that the hold button is on the side and not on the back. Finally the buttons on the front, the play/pause button is fine, but it has a sony ericsson like feel and look to it. the arrow keys are way too small and getting used to them might be hard. As for now from these pictures and the specs so far I am not too impressed. Sure 16 GB would be nice, but the design, probably price and/or avaliability here and specs just don't warrent me getting a new mp3 player when I just bought my 818. press release from PRWeb. http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/19/sonys-n...ding-to-europe/ more pictures here http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...220%2Fsony1.htm interesting note, this is the second A series walkman with Noise cancelling,(the 900 being the first to my knowledge) reason I mention this is most NC walkmans were S models.

NC would be nice but in the end, not something the average user will need. If history is anything to go buy, there is limited chance canada will even get the 16 GB model, since we got ripped on the 8 gig A81x models. the specs from engadget look weak, a larger screen is nice but if gapless and on the go playlists are missing then it will be something I will not get anytime soon. I merged the 2 threads together. In the end if it looks like the A900, I will be disappointed.

the sq is like a drug, sony knows we'll get hooked on it

ok I saw this, http://www.pmptoday.com/2008/01/28/pasen-f...uced/#more-4449 sony needs to add these specs!!! Support for MP3 (8~448kbps), WMA (32~348kbps) , APE , FLAC and AAC. Support for AVI/XviD/Divx/RMVB movie clip (no conversion required for most movies). Support for images in JPEG,BMP,GIF format. E-book reader with support for Txt :/

I knew I forgot something! gapless!

I can't see OLED being used on these devices, one due to cost and second if applicable still, the lifespan of the blue colour on the screens. Still never know, the chinese mp3 player Sony CE-P has a 1.5 inch OLED screen, so it is feasible but I'd rather see a 2 inch screen, even a larger screen would be appreciated, this all depends on the final size of the units. If my calculations are correct from the image that sony provided, then the device won't be much larger than the current A series. One thing that might bottom me is the fact that the headphone jack is now on the side of the unit, not sure why this change, maybe for better internal organization but then it might be for the new orientation of the units? ie on its side rather than top down? Probably unlikely. Price will be also important here, with the 8 gig model going for 200 bucks still on sony's site, it worries me that the 16 GB model might easily be near the 300 dollar mark. In addition I am sure sony will add extra features which they might then demand more money for. Sound quality is already fine for me, don't need any improvements in this area. Things I'd like to see sony improve for this new model: -more codec support, divx, wmv, flac, ogg -on the go playlists -ability to delete songs via the player remove the video software and make video also drag and drop and open like audio.

no 32 gb since sony only has a 16 gb mem stick which it just released. Maybe later on in the year. who knows. maybe the device will have memory stick expansion

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/22/sony-nw...dp-hit-the-fcc/ That is the link. Reading one of the pdfs, it states from january 12th "the applicant requests the following documents contained in this certification application to be temporarily withheld from public disclosure for an initial period of 45 days: external photos internal photos test setup photos users manual Meaning that february 26th might be the day we get more information regarding the new unit or perhaps earlier. There is an image of the back of the unit and it seems to be similar to the current 81x series with some differences. Mainly that the reset button is on the back of the unit, using the diagram as reference, the device should be 86 to 87mm tall and 46 to 47mm wide. give or take half a mm. In addition it seems that the head phone jack is on the side now? now the bottom. There appears to be 3 models on the way: 826 - 4 GB 828 - 8 GB 829 - 16 GB headphones appear to be the same EX82 with an extension cable of 1.5 m, it also appears to have bluetooth. That's all I could get out of the documents. link to FCC site http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports...'AK8NWZA820

itunes is a resource hog I use only free software for my 818, wmp and psp video to encode vids to the player.

There was never a hope for an update, if a firmware update was the only thing needed then sony would have not released new players to begin with, instead they would have just offered the firmware update to allow wmp. But it appears that the chipset wasn't able to deal with such a change over, so new players had to be developed. I was never expecting sony to update the older A series since in reality the devices were already behind others on the market. I am also doubting a firmware update will come for the A81x players to solve some issues regarding images and new addons, if they do, it probably won't add new features to the devices. Sony will just released brand new players soon.

the 80x is not drag and drop with windows explorer, and needs sonicstage to transfer over music files. the 81x is drag and drop, doesn't need sonicstage, does not support atrac, and can be used with wmp or windows explorer, even winamp. also the 81x has no on the fly playlsits, ie bookmarks like the 80x.

I do hope that sony has some show to debut new models. Granted I bought a brand new A818 and I am not in the market for a new mp3 player, but I wouldn't mind a higher capacity unit. I've already seen myself that the 8 gig A818 can go on playing for hours and hours (music that is, in 320 mp3 format mind you) and not even my sony hdd units came close to such a stunning battery life. anywho, bring in the products sony.

Doesn't GYM, or grab your music work? I know people have gotten it to work and were able to get their songs back off their player. unfortunately I never got the program to work correctly for me and my A3000.

with sandisk releasing 16 and 32 gig players, it would be a shame for sony to not even have these capacities in their new players.

maybe sony is waiting for september? or maybe march? who knows. O_o I am very pleased with the 818 I have, battery life is beyond amazing to say the least.

Funny how people complain about memory size when the average ipod user has less than 2 gigs on their devices. I for one really couldn't care less for 20 or 60 gigs, I may have that much in music, but I don't need all of it at once. It seems that sony has decided that flash will be the future rather than hdd. Sony already has a 16 gig player in japan, only a matter of time before it arrives here. The media manager software is not the best, but I doubt anyone will use it seeing as the players are drag and drop and can be used with WMP11. I really can't stand the ipod's interface, the click wheel, and the design of the player, all seem cumbersome in my view. Plus battery life is a major plus from sony, which some companies can't even yet match. I performed a test on my player, 20 hours played non stop from start to finish, 159 songs, I believe 98% of the songs are mp3 at 320 kbps. After the songs finished playing the battery life was still at the half way mark. This floored me, since I don't think my A3000 didn't even achieve such a good result. In fact I think I ran out of battery once on it before I finished 16 hours of play. So if the battery life is understated for the audio and the player easily lasted 20 hours playing 320 mp3s. you could probably get a hell of a great battery life at lower bitrates. I should mention, I accessed the player about 12 times or so, and volume was at 15 at all times, headphones were the EX71s, no screensaver, only 15 second screen time. EQ custom on. I for one couldn't be happier with my 818, and if the software sucks, so be it, I am not using it, will not use it, and wouldn't want to use it. anyways, here's hoping for a firmware update for gapless and the picture bug.

hmm sony making us pay for software they should provide for free, amazing. I installed it, and uninstalled it even faster. WMP11 for me, it opens fast, transfers with no issues, tells you when it's done, playlists work like a charm, what more do I need? In my view sony doesn't deliver on the software side again and it may not be as bad as sonicstage or connect player but I had to install quicktime 7 for it to work. oh well good try sony, at least the hardware is still good.

Where is the pro version? and is it free?

Canadian models of the A3000 and A1000 were never volume limited. If you have european model, then you will need to hack the volume, volume hack will work on firmware v 3.0. Can't downgrade, I wouldn't bother with that, since the new firmware adds wma and fixes bugs. Just follow the rules for unlocking, if slow doesn't work, try it faster until it loads into service mode. as for highest volume, volume hack and then setting volume to 30, but I wouldn't recommend 30 , too loud.

nah, tried, doesn't work on mine.

bluetooth can be added via an adapter which you can buy from sony for the nwz series, the old A1000 had the wmv format implemented via a firmware update, so depending what chip is in the 81x series, any further firmware updates would depend on that chip's capabilities.

Quality music is not dependent on sony themselves, they already provided a device that can play back music in amazing quality, all the user has to do is rip the music to wav or high quality, wma. aac or mp3 and then you will hear the amazing quality.

Anyone know what cpu/chip the older 800 series uses? I can't seem to locate the info in the service manual.