NW-A3000/1000/600 available in Canada mid-November

[Dinko]

Haven't seen it posted elsewhere on the boards. Marketnews.ca has this press release from Sony about the new Walkmans.

http://marketnews.ca/news_detail.asp?nid=1217

From marketnews.ca

All models provide up to 50 hours of continuous playback from their built-in, lithium-ion, rechargeable battery (NW-A608 - 50 hours, NW-A3000 - 35 hours, and NW-A1000 - 20 hours). G-Sensor shock protection safeguards the player's internal mechanisms to protect against impact.  The NW-A608, available in violet, stores up to 1,300 four-minute songs recorded at 48 kilobits per second (kbps); the NW-A1000 (violet, silver, pink and blue), stores up to 4,000 four-minute songs recorded at 48 kbps; and the NW-A3000 (violet and silver) stores up to 13,000 tracks.

All three models will be available in mid-November at the following MSRPs: NW-A608 ($249.99); NW-A1000 ($299.99); and NW-A3000 ($379.99).

[Ascariss]

Sweat fancy moses, Yes! Finally after being told they would come, a press release. I have been waiting for this release for 3 weeks almost. You just made my day.

Looks like I will be picking up the silver A3000, was hoping for a black one though. Anyways, you rock dude. Thanks.

Comparing the price to other units on the market here, it is more expensive than an ipod classic and around the same price for a 30gig ipod video.

Comparing to other non apple products:

Creative Zen Touch 20GB MP3 Player - $329.99

iRiver 20GB MP3 Player (H10) - Red - $379.99

Olympus M:Robe 20GB Hard Drive MP3 Player - $398.99

Samsung 20GB MP3 Player (YH-925) - $299.99 on sale from $379.99

Camnex 20GB MP3 & Video Player (CH600) - $349.99 (not sure what this really is, must be some one off for futureshop maybe)

-all prices are in canadian.

It's more or less priced the same with the non ipod competition.

Edited November 9, 2005 by Ascariss

[Ascariss]

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.

[Ascariss]

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.

[mercury_in_flames]

naa, i think it MIGHT just appeal to youngsters looking to all their mp3 player something other than a1000/3000, kno what i mean>?

[Ascariss]

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.

[mercury_in_flames]

true, i aggree with you there. It might be that they want the device to sound more unique>?

[Dinko]

"Aura"

:giggles:

It has some advantages. It's no longer sexist like the Walkman

It might look Japanese to some consumers, but I suspect people will mispronounce it every chance they get. Not to mention the confusion:

- Hey Joe, where were you last night?

- I was listening to Aura, I didn't hear the phone.

- Laura? Is that your new girlfriend?

Aura does seem like a good name for something like this. It's all colourful and bright and all.

The biggest problem is figuring out how to call it now that we know what the A in NW-A stands for. Sony Walkman? Sony CONNECT Walkman? Sony Aura? Sony Aura CONNECT? Sony Aura Walkman? Sony CONNECT Aura Walkman? Aiwa?

I'll see if I can drop by the SonyStore in Montreal tomorrow to see what's happening on that front.

Ascariss, look at it on the bright side: you'll get yours right on time for the holiday season. So you get to celebrate the new year in (Sony) style. If you get it too soon, you might not be as impressed with it a month and half from now.

[Ascariss]

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.

[Ascariss]

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.

[Rumz]

These are becoming more and more interesting to me. I just want Sony to bump up the hard drive space (can we have a 30-40 gig version of the NW-A3000 next spring please, Sony?)

[Ascariss]

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

[Rumz]

That's logical. But it would be the same product with larger capacity, ala the A1200 (8 gig version of the A1000), no?

[Ascariss]

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

[Guest Stuge]

These are becoming more and more interesting to me.  I just want Sony to bump up the hard drive space (can we have a 30-40 gig version of the NW-A3000 next spring please, Sony?)

←

I think u need to tell Those Hard Nuts(Sony) by mail if u want to fullfill ur wish.

[Dinko]

"Aura" is gone from SonyStyle.ca - it's back to Walkman® now.

[Ascariss]

Smart move. Walkman sounds much better than aura, plus considering it doesn't have aura written on the walkman either, I was rather dumb founded to why they used that name anyways.

Long live the Walkman, perhaps now sony will have some ads for this here.

[Christopher]

Cease this hostility and confrontation immediately -- this is your only warning.

[Ascariss]

Well the purple/violet version of the A3000 is sold out on the sonystyle.ca website, and now only next in line orders are available. They were most likely sold out even before today, but it does make you think how many units were available in the first place.

If the same thing happens for the silver unit, it would send a strong message to sony that indeed there is a market for such products up here and it was a mistake not to have the HD3 and HD5 up here as well.

Oddly the smaller 6 gig versions are still available so they might not be selling as expected or sony just imported a larger stock of them.

Kurisu I was wondering if you know of any info relating to stock or sales numbers from your contacts?

[Guest Stuge]

If they have sold large quantities first up then That means there sales is really going up.

[Dinko]

Well, on Saturday I couldn't resist. I took the plunge.

Yes, I said I wasn't as interested by Sony products as I used to be. I said I wasn't buying an A1000 because of CONNECT...

Finally I ended up getting one. A violet A1000. I figured, before closing my Sony Card account, I might as well redeem as many points as I can.

In retrospect, holding out because of CONNECT would have been a good idea. I first installed CONNECT from the links provided on these boards. I found it faster than SonicStage, it didn't eat up as much memory and it didn't slow down my PC like SonicStage used to do.

Installing CONNECT from a CDROM provided with the A1000 is turning out to be a nightmare.

- Various installation failures.

- CONNECT won't update to the newer versions

- CONNECT launches, then shuts itself off

- CONNECT imports library then loses it

- I wanted to delete some artists from the library. CONNECT will delete some items, but not others. Deleted items come back when CONNECT is restarted.

- When NW-A1000 is connected to CONNECT, CONNECT sees the same tracks twice or more in the album directory on the A1000. The player and SonicStage only see each track once.

- CONNECT refuses to delete tracks off the A1000

- When CONNECT is successfully installed, rebooting the PC launches Windows Media Player upon Windows start up. Windows Media Player freezes or displays an error message.

and that's just half of it.

Now of course, I can use SonicStage to transfer files to the A1000. However, some of the functions on the player are thus disabled. In reality, it's like I just purchased a regular 6GB player without the "advanced" or "intelligent" functions Sony advertises, simply because CONNECT is another half baked Sony software.

SonicStage & the NWA1000...

What I used to like with SonicStage and group transfers, is that groups were transferred to the player in a specified order, and could easily be moved around. An album could be transferred as a group.

Now, the groups (or playlists) need to be created and transferred. Once transferred, they appear in alphabetical order and cannot be rearranged. Unless I rename the playlists by adding an alpha-numeric code in front to order them the way I want.

Even something as basic as "Recent Transfers" is not functional without CONNECT.

Then there's the proprietary cable thing... I knew that before buying it. But still. The A1000 is fat enough to house a regular cable connection plug like those for NetMD or the flash Walkmans or just about every other respectable player in the industry. It's a pretty short cable too. No wonder Sony's pictures have it plugged into a laptop. If I used one of those desks where the PC is in a casing on the side of the desk, next to your legs, the cable probably wouldn't reach the desk's top and I'd have to put the player on the floor, hold it in my hands, or bring a coffee table for it!

There are some really nice things about the A1000. Shut down option available from every screen. Artist browsing by letter groups, song browsing by letter...

It's all too little though. A few days back I mentioned blowing cash on the Samsung T8.

Comparing both together, the T8 only has 1 GB of flash memory, but it's a much better player than the NW-A1000. Menus are fairly easy to navigate with the standards directional button pushing (something which the A1000 doesn't always have: sometimes pushing the left arrow brings you back to the previous menu, sometimes you have to use the "BACK" button). Sound on the T8 is pretty good. Equalizer options work well. It doesn't have "artist link" and "intelligent shuffle" but in practice, neither does the A1000 thanks to CONNECT.

Installing the Samsung software was painless, and the software is ultra-fast. The player's menu responds fast. It's loaded with features (just about the only thing missing from the T8 is a video camera).

All in all...

Samsung T8: 9/10

Sony NW-A1000: 4/10 (worst portable player I've ever had)

Most of the 4 in 4/10 is because it looks good, sounds good and has some nice features. It is otherwise a royal pain in the back.

[insert pun on like.no.other theme here]

[Ascariss]

Sorry to hear your troubles Dinko.

For some reason I am the opposite than you. The install from the file on the forum wasn't that great for me, while the install from the CD was flawless and no errors.

I am on XP with SP2 so maybe that is possible why I had no problems. Or maybe I just got lucky.

Why are you having so many troubles? Of all the problems you mentioned:

- Various installation failures.

- CONNECT won't update to the newer versions

- CONNECT launches, then shuts itself off

- CONNECT imports library then loses it

- I wanted to delete some artists from the library. CONNECT will delete some items, but not others. Deleted items come back when CONNECT is restarted.

- When NW-A1000 is connected to CONNECT, CONNECT sees the same tracks twice or more in the album directory on the A1000. The player and SonicStage only see each track once.

- CONNECT refuses to delete tracks off the A1000

- When CONNECT is successfully installed, rebooting the PC launches Windows Media Player upon Windows start up. Windows Media Player freezes or displays an error message.

I have none of these. hmm interesting.

[Dinko]

I don't know what the troubles are. When I exchanged with a person from Sony of Canada, he had one of their tech guys look at my complaints, and the tech guy didn't have any of these troubles either.

I don't think it's the PC. I mean, it's not the latest technology, but it's a 2.4GHz Pentium 4, running Windows XP Pro. Plenty of space on the drive. I remember SonicStage being sluggish when I had my PC drive full to 95% capacity, but that's not the case now.

The last thing I'll do is try to install CONNECT on another computer. I'll end up screwing that one and the owner won't be too happy.

Oh well... just reminds me of how much better the software-less minidisc days were...

Or when Simple Burner was all you needed. Simple, yet efficient.

[Ascariss]

I myself don't even have the greatest PC, 600mhz P3, 512 ram, 256 video card, and 80 gig drive. So it ain't the PC for sure.

perhaps this option, although risky.

remove SS, and CP, then try to clean out the registry as much as you can, reboot, and install CP.

I first installed SS3.3 and then installed CP, but I don't think it matters.

CP should update automatically once it finishes installing.

[Guest Stuge]

But back your Files using SonicStage Backup Tool (if You have any files in your sonic stage)

then delete this keys

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sony Corporation

[Dinko]

Somehow, I don't know how, but CONNECT finally agreed to be updated to the newest Canadian version. Still not the latest version available, but better than the one that came on the CDROM.

[Guest Stuge]

Anything is possible its Sony & Dinko :please give your review after that update

Edited November 30, 2005 by Stuge

[Ascariss]

Good to hear Dinko, hopefully you will have better luck transferring files now.

On a side note, the battery life is a bit on the lower end, granted the battery is new, so I am hoping it will increase by the end of the week.

[nbaki82]

This does not really make sense that they changed the name, because Sony were advertising so much the Walkman and now if they changed the name, many people would be confused and not sure if it is the same player they heard about and wanted to buy.

"Aura"

:giggles:

It has some advantages. It's no longer sexist like the Walkman

It might look Japanese to some consumers, but I suspect people will mispronounce it every chance they get. Not to mention the confusion:

- Hey Joe, where were you last night?

- I was listening to Aura, I didn't hear the phone.

- Laura? Is that your new girlfriend?

Aura does seem like a good name for something like this. It's all colourful and bright and all.

The biggest problem is figuring out how to call it now that we know what the A in NW-A stands for. Sony Walkman? Sony CONNECT Walkman? Sony Aura? Sony Aura CONNECT? Sony Aura Walkman? Sony CONNECT Aura Walkman? Aiwa?

I'll see if I can drop by the SonyStore in Montreal tomorrow to see what's happening on that front.

Ascariss, look at it on the bright side: you'll get yours right on time for the holiday season. So you get to celebrate the new year in (Sony) style. If you get it too soon, you might not be as impressed with it a month and half from now.

←

[atrain]

oora

or

auw-ra

btw

[Ascariss]

Sony Canada changed the name back to Walkman, no more Aura in Canada.

Edit....

Huh, while checking the Sony Style website for info whether the Silver A3000 is shipping still on the 15th, by golly what happens?

It's available and on sale already. What happened to Dec 15th??? Looks like I will be going down to the Sony Store tomorrow and picking it up hopefully. Wow such a nice surprise from Sony.

[Dinko]

It's available and on sale already. What happened to Dec 15th??? Looks like I will be going down to the Sony Store tomorrow and picking it up hopefully. Wow such a nice surprise from Sony.

dapreview.net had a link to someone who posted a review of it and said that the Sony Store sales person showed it to him by mistake but ended up selling it anyway.

[Guest Stuge]

Sony Canada changed the name back to Walkman, no more Aura in Canada.

Edit....

Huh, while checking the Sony Style website for info whether the Silver A3000 is shipping still on the 15th, by golly what happens?

It's available and on sale already. What happened to Dec 15th??? Looks like I will be going down to the Sony Store tomorrow and picking it up hopefully. Wow such a nice surprise from Sony.

←

Lol.So you have wasted your money on buying NW-A1000 but you can sell it off..

[Ascariss]

I was going to return it, but I still don't know if the A3000 has arrived. I will use the smaller device more for exercise since it is ligther than the larger A3000.

[Dinko]

Sorry to say, but in retrospect, all the whining and complaining that I did on these boards about CONNECT & the NW-A1000 was useless. As was talking to Sony.

After playing with it some more, I found the NW-A1000 very unfriendly.

It's final trial came yesterday when I tried blindly controlling it while it was in my pocket and I was on the bus.

I kept accidentally hitting the artist link button (which never did anything but stopped what I was trying to achieve) while looking for other controls. I had to take it out of my pocket every time in order to visually fix what I had mistakenly done.

For whatever reason, it kept stopping playback at the end of the track or album. What I mean is, that in Normal Playback Mode, if I selected to play an album, the player played all the songs in the album, then stopped. It didn't move to the next album. Once off, I had to take the player out of my pocket, and browse the menus to manually select the next album I wanted to play.

This is sheer lunacy. Every crappy player that I've seen so far, when in Normal playback mode and asked to play music in ALBUM mode, plays the selected album, then moves to the next one once the first is finished. I tried fixing the A1000 settings, but I could find no option in the menu to tell it to keep on playing.

I also tried using a minidisc remote. Volume, play, stop, and the track buttons worked. Album skip or group skip buttons did not work. Only way to move to the next album: to take the player out and visually/manually browse the menus. In other words, be like all the zombies walking around staring at their iPods looking for their music, as opposed to easily navigating the music on the player.

Then there's the hold button. Shutting the player off and pressing the hold button does not engage hold. Hold only seemed to work when player is on. There must be a way, but I'm too lazy to read the user manual just find out how to engage hold, when such a basic function is so easy on other players.

So today, I went to Future Shop, returned the player and got a full refund.

I still need a 4-8GB mini player. It won't be an Apple. But it won't be a Sony.

Edited December 1, 2005 by Dinko

[MDX-400]

Does anyone know when the A3000 is going to become available at other retailers? For example I think FS/Best Lie, etc. all have only the A1000 available right now. The A3000 is available at SonyStyle.ca but it says it is "exclusive" so I guess that means only Sony Canada (and perhaps the Sony Store?) is selling it right now, in Canada...

Has anyone seen it anywhere else yet (not imported though I mean)? Any word on when Sony is releasing it to other retailers?

Another note: It is $350 CDN. right now which is assumably overpriced as Canadian prices always are compared to US prices. However interestingly since it isn't available in the US yet, US prices on eBay (for imported models) are at $350 US and up!

Does Sony want to sell these things at all or are they actually trying to make their product have only a niche market, much like MD? Why not release the thing everywhere and start making a lot more of them?!?!

[Ascariss]

Actually 349.99 canadian is competative with other players on the market, which look a bit boring and half a much shorter batter life, ie like the ipod, and iRiver models.

Both the A3000 and A600 series are exclusive and highly unlikely other stores will get them. Best buy rep didn't even know that there was a 20 gig model arriving. Unlike the imported models, which have an extra colour black, the canadian models only come in violet and silver. But they do come with the english manual, which is no biggy but still helpful. So far only Sonystyle and the sony store carry the model.

Don't hold your breath for FS and BB getting the larger flash player, since as you know flash is at a premium now a days.

[MDX-400]

Actually 349.99 canadian is competative with other players on the market, which look a bit boring and half a much shorter batter life, ie like the ipod, and iRiver models.

Oh certainly, if we're comparing Canadian prices on those players. But what I mean is you used to be able to get an HD3 in the US for around $200 US when it was the current model; the HD5 probably similarly priced (I never checked but I'm assuming about $250 US for the HD5). Either price is still a lot less than $350 CDN plus another $53 in taxes (talking about Ontario here)...

Meaning I'm sure if the A3000 is ever released in the US, you'd see prices similar to that. Only thing is who knows if it is ever going to the US. If it at least goes to FS or Best Lie, I have a buddy that works there so I can get it at a discount (depending on what the cost price is on the A3000, it might not be so bad).

[lamewing]

I don't know what the troubles are. When I exchanged with a person from Sony of Canada, he had one of their tech guys look at my complaints, and the tech guy didn't have any of these troubles either.

I don't think it's the PC. I mean, it's not the latest technology, but it's a 2.4GHz Pentium 4, running Windows XP Pro. Plenty of space on the drive. I remember SonicStage being sluggish when I had my PC drive full to 95% capacity, but that's not the case now.

The last thing I'll do is try to install CONNECT on another computer. I'll end up screwing that one and the owner won't be too happy.

Oh well... just reminds me of how much better the software-less minidisc days were...

Or when Simple Burner was all you needed. Simple, yet efficient.

←

The funny thing is that there are good players out there that do direct drag-and-drop. Sony is just unable and/or unwilling to see that that method is the simplest choice. YET, the allow it on the PSP.

[Ascariss]

You really can't compare prices in canada and the US now a days, since the exchange rate vs the US dollar has changed quite a bit, 64 cents vs 86 cents now. No doubt that the prices in the US will be cheaper, the market there is much larger than Canada, but then again we'll see.

The A3000 won't be sold anytime soon at FS or BB, it almost seems as sony wants to keep its supply limited to their control so more people shop via the site or the sony store.

Interesentingly, the Vaio Pocket 40 gig version is still on sale at amazon.com via online stores, price range 330 US or so.

The HD5 starts from 280 US from a retailer, new. The HD3 ranges from 325 to 350 US.

While at sonystyle.com the silver HD5 is 279.95 US, which at today's rate is 325 canadian. If you need 20 gigs, wait for A3000 at FS or BB, but it might never be sold there, and sony store rarely lowers the price of their products, except with the A3000, 30 dollar discount already compared to original price it went for. A1000 is available at BB or FS, so if you don't need the 20 gigs, I suggest getting that.

[finalcoolman]

To further Arcariss comments on the 3000 and 600 availibility. For any product on sonystyle.ca that says "Exclusive" beside it, it means it's ONLY available through the web site or the Sony Store. So until (more like when pigs fly) that tag is removed on the web site you will NEVER see it at Future Shop, Best Buy or anywhere else. Just be happy it's available for us in Canada. And look at the bright side. It means the chances of you seeing someone else with your player are DRASTICLY reduced. Almost as good as importing a product from Japan just to be unique.