bogon07

They soundlike the NC022 noisecancelling earphones that come with the S705/6. They also come with an extension cord that has the lug & notch in it.

Also the one that comes with the MZ-RH1 minidisc player. They seem to charge much faster than via the PC too.

Congratulations on the NWZ-A728, Rob A. I've looking forward to getting one too even if its not ATRAC. If they'd released the same ATRAC range world wide instead of just Japan things might have been different

I heartily recommend the Sony CKHNWA800 hard Clear Polycarbonate Case. It really protects the A80* and even enhances the look of it (the white one any way). It adds to the size of the player in a good way as the A80* feels just a little bit too small in my opinion. The rubber buttons function very well and the slot at the bottom allows easy access to the headphone jack and port connector. There is also a hole to access the reset button and another for the hold slider and also another for the attachment lug.

It seems a rather large file compared to most of the other FW updates. Same as Stuge & didn't bother pressing the reset either. I just then ran the update without any problems.

Sorry again kerfuffle. Sony seems to like violet/blue one their players. Yep the pricing on the 2GB S615 & 4GB S616 is odd. Why wouldn't anyone spend another $20 for double the capacity useless they're desperate for a silver one. It seems you'd have to get the Japanese versions for ATRAC capability. I wonder if the Japanese model numbers are different? OzSony has them as NWZS61xF at the moment but I've seen mention of NWZA61x for the non-Japanese ones. Unfortunately the site photos don't indicate what type of earphones come with these new players. If they were the EX85 (as seen in the ATRAC article photos) that would make the players a pretty good buy.

kerfuffle, there's a pink A806 4GB $229 ...... feel tempted but there is a pink S616 @ $199 now available. Stay with ATRAC and a very stylish player or WMP & something cheaper that looks like a phone what a dilemma. Just noticed this morning that SonyOz have the S610series up and some available for purchase others show 25September dates: Now these guys really are competatively priced on release which is a nice change. S615 2GB $179AUD S616 4GB $199AUD S618 8GB $299AUD The S615 really makes the NWDB105 @$149 look excessively overpriced

No mention of the A81* series in OZ only the Sony Style Newsletter only mentions S610* series, "scheduled for launch at the end of this month." There needs to be some country to dump the old A80* stock Seems the 8GB models ares till cheaper over in NZ.

Sony Australia have dropped the prices of the A800s: NWA805 $299 -> $179AUD NWA806 $399 -> $229AUD NWA808 $499 -> $399AUD Interestingly the A806 has the biggest price drop $170AUD. I can feel my credit card twitching. They must be clearing some stock space for the S61* coming at the end of the month.

Not any time soon though. Not unless there is a complete brain swap at the top level of the company. They need to stop treating a large proportion of their market as 2nd class customers. Release their products world wide at the same time and relatively the same price with same range or model options. They product technically great players but !!!!!!!

I sympathise with Romanom, if the SonyStore had some sort of signage or warning that this player was being runnout it could have influenced his decision to purchase the S203. Unfortunately Sony has a continuing history of orphaning or dumping its DAPs at regular intervals so I suppose it is really no surprise that they're now going to drop ATRAC. Which is really annoying considering the amount of time and effort invested in creating ATRAC music libraries.

The NWE400/E500 series definitely has A-B repeat capability. But they are a bit hard to come by now. I can't recall if the S700 have it or not. You could download the manuals from the Downloads section to check.

The A800 series really need to be discounted here in Australia as they are way overpriced. I'm hopefully waiting for the A808 to drop $100 before pounching on one. The S705 is still available but SonyCental & other dealers are offering around $100AUD off at $220AUD rather than the Sony site's $329AUD.

That's an amazing offer. It certainly makes the one at SonyCentral Sydney look feeble. They're offering the NWDB100's promo pack with an NW-A800 player. The promo pack consists of: * small draw-string pouch for your player * rubber thing to wrap your eyephone cable * micro-fibre cloth to clean the screen * walkman logo dangle-charm.

Pressing the reset button for more than a second should activate it. You can format the player via its 'advanced menu' but this will erase any data held in the flash memory (ie you loose any songs you've loaded). The operating manual is included as a PDF on the SonicStage Disc that came with the player so I don't know why you're want to download it unless you are after the service manual. Do the songs sound over loud and distorted on your PC also ?

The blue one does look very nice. One of the people I work with bought a blue 1GB version from OfficeWorks on special @ $77AUD a couple of weeks ago. She's really happy with it so far and hasn't had any problems with SS4.2 (fingers crossed). At work we use WMP11 to rip CDs as SS doesn't connect to GraceNote though our LAN then copy into SS and onto the player.

What colour did you get RobA ? One of the best features about the NW-E00* services is being able to plug directly into the USB port and not worry about cables. I really can't see what the problem is with SS these days the V4.1-4.3 versions work pretty well. Maybe people are annoyed at having to instal yet another music player as well along with WMP11 and/or iTunes.

I'm not entirely sure that Sony Oz has a marketing strategy. Anyway I couldn't help myself and pre-ordered a NWD-B105FB for the collection.

kerfuffle, the Oz ones are designated with F to indicate the FM radio but the Sony site doesn't mention it. And no Violet colour, which looks pretty good in Jim's PDF link. Dam I starting to like the look of this thing. No mention of the 3minute = 3hours fast charge ability found in other Sony MP3 players. I agree it looks like these will replace the NW-E00x series here as the NW-E01x series is not available. I think Sony is worried the NW-E01x will eat into the NW-S705 sales here.

I hope Sony doesn't think of this as progress - only 1 or 2GB and 12hrs battery. It is going to spend most of its life connected to a computer being recharged. Atleast it has a standard USB connector SS is now reasonably stable and they dump it!

It is also a real pain that you can't order those Sony Overseas Models (including the NWE808 which have International warranties) by an online order.

fr4nz, Nothing has happened to the USB cable since the last time the PC detected your E407 ? When you connect the E407 to the Pc does it indicate that it is trying to recharge ? As you've already re-installed SS perhaps try again. Does SS start up ok ? Sometimes my SS has to be started up and opened completely before connecting the E407 (or any other Sony ATRAC device) to detect the device properly. Otherwise you may have to try Sony support for your region.

As Cool-Rock says there could be a problem with XP or your USB ports, have you tried a USB thumb drive etc to see if it is detected or not. You could try installing ATRAC Audio Device Driver for Windows Operating System Applicable Models: NW-E303, NW-HD1, NW-E103, NW-HD3, NW-E507, NW-HD5, NW-E307, NW-E105, NW-E305, NW-E505, NW-E107, NW-E503 The NWE407 is the same as the E505/7 without an FM radio. This driver updates the Operating System of the computer to allow the Walkman to function as a removable disk even without the use of the SonicStage software. Applicable Operating System : Windows® 2000 Professional / Windows® 98 Second Edition File Name : PA_Driver.exe Download size: 1,728 KB Originally posted: 2 May 2006 http://www.sony-asia.com/support/download/...site=hp_en_AP_i

Good spotting Finn, Have to check if Myer (Sydney) are doing the same. These are big drops on original RRPs $369 & $439. You just can't help but wonder how well they would have sold at $100 less originally. Tempting to get a back up unit

The S700 seems to sound louder due to the Noise Cancelling earphones.