NW-E005 to be released in US soon

[grenert]

According to amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GIPHN...2846401?ie=UTF8

The NW-E005 is finally being released in the US. Pretty good price - $130 for 2GB. They give a release date of August 14.

You can see on sonystyle.com that they are FINALLY phasing out the original "core" players (NW-E505/507). The 507 isn't even available anymore, except as a refurb. I can't believe the old "bean" players are still available. With the new NW-S205 coming out, it looks like Sony USA is getting up to speed (long overdue).

[pata2001]

Man, talk about freakin' late Sony. Apple is coming out with 6-8GB nano, and now you release your 2GB flash players? At least the price seems good. I'm waiting for the S205 though.

[Guest Stuge]

I'm waiting for the S205 though.

Yup ,I`m also waiting for the S205 .I Hope they release this in India .

[madleet3]

yup sony should buckup faster to gain more mkt share

[grenert]

Well, it looks like the Sony Style store in San Francisco jumped the gun a bit. They have the NW-E005 already available. If anyone is itching to purchase, you might want to check out your local Sony shop.

I'm still torn between getting:

NW-E005 one for the tiny size and AAC support, or

NW-A608 for great battery life and 3-line display

What to choose, what to choose.

-J. P.

[cauldron]

I'm still torn between getting:

NW-E005 one for the tiny size and AAC support, or

NW-A608 for great battery life and 3-line display

I was debating this a couple weeks back. I suspect the A608 is the way to go if you don't want to send the player back after a year to replace battery. A long battery life like that allows you to extend the battery's life span (eg. only charge up to 80% full).

But if every other mp3 player on Earth died out, and I have to copulate buy one of these, I'll take the E005. I'm looking at using low bitrate, and a large music collection in a 25g player is amazing, it was unthinkable a year ago, and just a really nice thought all in all. The A608 is almost double that weight, and even though small enough, just wouldn't have the same "progressive factor"

I was about to buy an E005, but then the S205 came up, I guess I prefer the more phallic of the two.

[Damage]

Having the (Black) E005F in hand...

There are couple of ergonomics issue, the volume buttons and the fwd/rew button locations are close enough to get them confused (and I've done this several times already). I'd rather had the volume buttons on the opposite side of where it is, or move the fwd/rew buttons to the front.

OLED is virtually useless in bright/daylight locations, but we knew that already.

Also, to touch on briefly, the E00XF series makes for a compelling iShuffle killer, but that's all that it is. A USB Key that can play MP3s as well. Frankly, they could've thrown in extra features here or there, like the Virtual Expander compatibility for Data files.

There are some very intriguing features here that are not on other DAPs that I'm aware of. For instance, the E00X series seemingly feature on the fly normalization (D.Normalizer under Advanced->Sound) and ability to work with both normal power and low power (hub based) USB ports. Frankly, these features should be standard, especially the latter. Besides, for $130, it's a good DAP, only outclassed by the cheap generics from China and Taiwan.

[pata2001]

You know, the E005 is getting more interesting. Will be a nice replacement for my slow USB1.1 E99. The E99 is much heavier, but IMO the button placements are more ergonomics than the E005. I agree with Damage regarding the volume buttons. I want them to be where the FF/REW button is. Another nice thing Sony did, which no other manufacture can seem to do, instant playback. My E99 is still faster, but the E005 is defnitely almost instant-on compared to other devices that take forever just to boot-up.

I'm tired of waiting for the S205, plus the more expensive price for some useless (IMO) features (shaking the player 3 times will switch to shuffle mode?)