Apple's new 1GB nano ipod

[bogon07]

Strange of Apple to offer a reduced capacity. Only Apple spin doctors could sell this capacity reduction as a positive. For those who want to keep up with the ipod trend and use it as a fashion accessory but don't really need to put many songs on it.

Will Sony reduce the price of its 1GB flash players to compete?

Forgot about the old NWE107 (has anyone actually bought one of these)

Edited February 8, 2006 by bogon07

[EZero]

I think the Shuffle was the only iPod that Sony could actually say they had a product that outclassed it on every level. By introducing the 1GB Nano, Apple is merely increasing their lead on competitors, because the iPod range is huge now. Shuffles for around $60, means people can get it at similair prices as a CD player.

There is no touching Apple.

[Guest Stuge]

We were all saying that Sony should increase their capacity but but amazingly apple throw a downgraded memory model in the market ...Amazing ...

[Dinko]

We were all saying that Sony should increase their capacity but but amazingly apple throw a downgraded memory model in the market ...Amazing ...

Capacity doesn't matter. You can produce a 32MB(!) regular-sized iPod with 2 hours of battery life and some people(sic) will still buy it for 250$ to wear as a fashion accessory.

When the E407 was selling for slightly more than the shuffle, people were proudly displaying their shuffles, and barely anyone bought E407s. In terms of product quality and features, there is absolutely no contest. The Sony perfume/Core Walkman was ten times more advanced than the shuffle. Yet people still bought Shuffles over Walkmans. Newspapers ran stories about how Sony was introducing an mp3 player to compete with the Shuffle as if this was the very first time Sony issued a flash DAP with direct mp3 playback (despite the flash-based E9x series being perfectly capable of handling mp3s and being available months before the Shuffle).

It was never about capacity or features, it was about being hip and cool. It won't please all the Nobel prize winners in Economics, but people are *not* rational consumers, and perfect competition theory is a waste of everyone's time. Even when the information is available, the logical superiority of the Sony flash players over the iPod Shuffle was completely overlooked because they weren't "in". If you have a Walkman, it's because the store you went to ran out of Shuffles - so goes the theory.

The 1GB Nano might be to target the segment of consumers who want a Nano, but simply don't need that much space. It might also have something to do with 4GB Nanos being constantly out of stock and 4GB flash memory becoming rare, particularly now that Sandisk and Samsung are launching their own 4GB flash players. Since you can't listen to more than 1 GB on the Nano on a single battery charge, it makes some sense to only carry 1GB of music. It might also be a tactic to attempt to maintain market share before people go for the 1GB Nano clones from Taiwan and China.

[mercury_in_flames]

Since you can't listen to more than 1 GB on the Nano on a single battery charge, it makes some sense to only carry 1GB of music. It might also be a tactic to attempt to maintain market share before people go for the 1GB Nano clones from Taiwan and China.

notice, this isnt a rant or anything just a random thought;

People dont buy mp3 players with 20 gig hard disks and look at the battery life in relation to how many songs you can fit on it. The reason why people buy 20 and up gig storage, mp3 players is so that they have all their music at the fingertips, to be able to change what they are listening to regardless of what they were into 'yesterday'. Thats why people dont care if their 20 gig and up ipods have crap battery life, they are happy to charge it every day when they go to bed or whatever and have all their music on one device. Thats why i dont use my minidisc recorder for portable listening, the battery life is great, but in that scenario I still cant (dont want the hassle of) carry all my music around because of the extra bulk of the discs.

Edited February 8, 2006 by mercury_in_flames

[bogon07]

Apple may be thinking of eventually replacing the ipod shuffles with these smaller capacity nanos enabling them to swamp the market with nanos. As Ezero said replacing the shuffle with the nano effectively nullifies Sony's advantages in the 1GB segment (even though the E400/500 is such a great design).

Also it could relate to Apple having some sort of deal to secure its flash memory supply for the future and part of that may include having to take up a large stock of 1GB memory now.

Against Apple's 1GB nano or shuffle in most countries

Sony has different flashplayers depending on your region:

E107 (Circ)

E307 (Bean)

E407 (Core)

E507 (Core)

A607 (?)

Compared to Apple, Sony has a range of products covering the same market segment indicating a lack of focus or faith in its own products.

[psmith]

I-pods have always been about the image, the minute it appeared in a 50 cent video the "kids" were not going to buy anything else. Whether the product is any good is not a factor to the sort of person i-pods are marketed to, as long as heat magazine say they are good and Eminem, Bono and Jade from big brother are using them - the masses are buying them. The same can be said for Sony playstations, the first console it was acceptable for a "grown-up" to have, even the girlies like them. I was praying for sony to fight back with the NW-A series and as i opened the box on christmas day my first thoughts were "game on", then i installed "connect" and all the good work sony had put in was wasted (anyone else experience this)?, how can you have something so beautiful and ugly in the same box? Unfortunately Sony really dropped the ball on this one, unless they resolve the problems and make drastic changes to the connect software (allow mp3's to be "dragged and dropped" or windows media/other software compatability as a good will gesture) they are fighting a losing battle, i feel sad saying this as the machines are perfect, but they are on a downward spiral and are going to start losing loyal customers if they don't get their house in order.

[bogon07]

Sony urgently need to make their flash, HDD and MD players compatible with as many software music players (especially WindowsMediaPlayer) as possible.

I haven't had too many problems with SonicStage or ConnectPlayer but who wants to have to install four or five different music programs on their PC.

I noticed that a blogger on Znet predicted some higher capacity nanos (8GB) to be released this year .

The A1000s would then be sandwiched between 4GB & 8GB nanos. So you could see Sony concentrating more on the A3000, while dropping the A1000 in favour of the A1200. Although I would prefer to see the A600s in higher capacities.

[pata2001]

The only redeeming factor of Sony now is gapless. When rockbox for iPod is 100% done (it's already stable now), all bets are off.

For Sony to win me back:

1. Flash player: return to E3/E99 design + AAA battery, with 2/4GB and USB2.0.

2. MD: Make an E10 like HiMD player only unit with big tactile buttons ala EH70 and MP3 playback.

3. HDD: Bring back the HD5 (it's almost ideal, especially with removable battery), add support for all Atrac3+ bitrates.

4. PMP: Bring back the vaio pocket, and combine it with PSP's GUI and capability

5. Car Audio: Gapless/seamless AtracCD (Really, how hard could this be?)

6. Software: Make SS unicode, allow all Atrac3+ bitrate to be transferref to all Atrac3+ capable device, including HiMD and AtracCD.

7. Sony USA: Use Japanese models. Don't waste money by re-designing units or re-programming firmwares just to eliminate kanji support.

My predictions: 1-6:slim chance, but still probable. 7: till hell freezes over.

Big OT, sorry.

I see many flash players going down in price. Circuitcity is selling 512MB samsung flash player at $69, the same price point as the 512MB shuffle. Many 1GB flash players are already below $150 due to the pressure of the shuffle, so the redeeming factors of the 1GB nano are the iPod interface, picture capability, and iTunes, not price. IMO, the 1GB nano won't give too much pressure to the competitions, but the cheaper shuffles certainly will.

[matt_com911]

its clearly an image thing. the majority of people who will purchase (or have purchased for them) an mp3 playing device are young adults. simple as that. they dont care about intelligent shuffle and compatibilty with ATRAC formats or anything like that... they care that the shiny new ipod they have is going to be familiar with anyone who sees the white headphones hanging out of their ears. its the i-factor that sony will not get while apple has their hands firmly around the neck of the young market.

[Dinko]

I see many flash players going down in price.

Flash media in general it seems to me, not only the players. Just a month ago, 1GB Sandisk Memory Stick Pro Duo cards were retailing for 115$ in Canada.

I just saw the same Sandisk Memory Sticks at Costco for 68$.

[Guest Stuge]

Compared to Apple, Sony has a range of products covering the same market segment indicating a lack of focus or faith in its own products.

This doesn`t mean that they don`t have faith in their own product .At the same time they are giving their coustomers more choice to choose ..

[tenchi]

i think sony 1gb flash player would compete well against those ipod nano 1GB flash player. Reasons: sony battery life is awesome. My sony e507 is still on its first charge after 1 week of uses. IF you use sony format, u can store 630 songs, around there. Ipod nano only has 14hours of battery life and we all know that its not going to get 14hours(main reason to why i go with sony). ipod nano scratches alot. (another reason why). ipod are tooo common!! The lcd screen is too small to view photos.

people who will buy ipod: look cool, trends

people who will buy sony: style, good quality, long battery life, etc

[Dinko]

Ipod nano only has 14hours of battery life and we all know that its not going to get 14hours(main reason to why i go with sony).

Actually it does get around 14 hours.

That's something we'll just have to give Apple: when they state the battery life, they do it rather accurately. At least they do now, following the iPod battery controversy.

When Sony advertises 50 hours of battery life, it's about ATRAC3Plus at 45kbps. Files at that quality are unlistenable. When Apple states battery life, it's about 128 kbps files. In both cases they're talking about mid-volume. But from experience, mid-volume on an iPod Nano is louder than mid volume on just about any North American Sony player I've come accross. So the Nano does get battery life which is relatively close to its advertised life.

Which does not mean that Sony players don't outlast the Nano at a 3-1 ratio. Even with their misadvertised battery lives, Sony players still outlast the vast majority of the competition, and even with accurately advertised battery lives, iPods still stink relative to Sony (and to some extent Samsung & others).

[bogon07]

I see from the Ataclife news blog that Sony has reduced the A600, E400 prices in Japan by around 2,000 Yen ($17USD or 10GBP). I wonder if this is a direct response to the 1GB nanos and the drop in flash drive prices?

I agree with pata2001

"7. Sony USA: Use Japanese models. Don't waste money by re-designing units or re-programming firmwares just to eliminate kanji support." but would like to see Sony go a step further and drop its regionalisation altogether and use World tourist models everywhere. Surely this would increase their production efficiency, eliminate confusion and make repairs easier for the consumer.

[bogon07]

This doesn`t mean that they don`t have faith in their own product .At the same time they are giving their coustomers more choice to choose ..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../13/ngadg13.xml

"Music players are also turning over rapidly. Sony's Bean MP3 player was launched at the end of August. Yesterday, the company confirmed that it will be discontinued in April. It insists that repairs are still available long after production ends."