What is this?

[dsb]

A3000 is on sale before it is officially released?

http://www.digitalfotoclub.com/sc/product-...sp?id=964600561

[Ascariss]

Not sure about that, most UK sites have it on pre order with it shipping oct 31 or early to mid novemeber. I would assume this is the same case here on this site.

But then again you could email them and ask. 350 Can is a bit expensive, but then compared to the older HD3 and HD5, it does seem to lie in the same range.

[Dinko]

Wonder if the pink A1000 will be available by St. Valentine's day.

The A1000's are 250$ at that shop.

Edited October 20, 2005 by Dinko

[Ascariss]

$250 canadian? or US?

[pata2001]

US $300 for the A3000 and US $250 for the A1000 won't get these new walkmen anywhere. For the features you get, those are prices 2 years ago. The 8GB A1200 for $250 is more reasonable, but still expensive. For the same price, you can get competitor products that have at least color screen and picture support. The A3000 should be $250, and the A1000 should be $180. If Sony really goes with the first set of prices, then they'll have to do more than play catch up next year.

[Ascariss]

True, the prices are high, but it is a sony, they are always a premium brand. I will get it regardless of the price. When it comes to a colour screen, iI don;t need one, all i need is long battery life, excellent sound quality, ease of use, and a playlist. hopefully the new a3000 will satisfy all of these points.

[Christopher]

If it does debut at $300USD, then I seriously doubt it will stay at that price in retail channels for long and most likely see a $50 reduction a few months after. Expect it to follow the pricing path akin to the HD5; you must recall that it was strongest selling and most profitable HDD Walkman for Sony to date.

[dsb]

I will say the debut price will be even higher than $300, it is around 35,000JPY for A3000 in Japan. Why the price is so high? Because it is very hard for SONY to reduce the cost of production within current mode for relative short lived audio products, such as MD, HDD:

1) home developed chips, new chip for every new model

2) new designed case

3) new designed headphone

4) service manual/parts supply

In earlier 90's, SONY can push one new walkman model in less than 3 months, how about now? If SONY still wants to stick on VME, MagicGate, it has to develop new chips for each newly released model, there will be no way for SONY to catch up with ishit, unless SONY has real big brain on hardware R&D.

Why Minidisc dies out? The answer is very simple, it is too slow. 10 years ago we only buy several CDs in one week,maybe, but how about now? one can download several CDs within one day. Who will spend time on SonicShit?

But the real problem is, SONY cannot learn, at least it should learn why Toshiba, AIwa, Kenwood, panasonic gave up their portable music sectors....

US $300 for the A3000 and US $250 for the A1000 won't get these new walkmen anywhere. For the features you get, those are prices 2 years ago. The 8GB A1200 for $250 is more reasonable, but still expensive. For the same price, you can get competitor products that have at least color screen and picture support. The A3000 should be $250, and the A1000 should be $180. If Sony really goes with the first set of prices, then they'll have to do more than play catch up next year.

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