[Rumz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamWill The screen isn't an LCD screen that looks like it's part of the player, it's an OLED display that really *is* part of the player (the outer layer of the player forms the screen). Neat trick. The quoted battery life is with 'power-saving' ATRAC3, whatever that means. Still, it should be pretty long with MP3 as well, unless they really nerfed it up. With Sony, though, hideously long battery life often translates to underpowered headphone out, so beware of that.

Yeah along with the codec it's the bitrate they're using to save on battery life-- probably using 48kbps atrac3plus or something. But hey-- if that means I get 30-40 hours of playback of 192k mp3s, I'm still a happy camper. I remember the days of my first Sony MD unit where I thought 20-30 hours was phenomenal. Oh, and from what I've heard, the OLED screen is more energy efficient than LCDs. Anyone know more about them?

 

[warubozu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pluman

Looking at the smaller pics I had originally thought that the buttons on the NW-E500 would be so small that it might cause some inconvience, but in the close up pic above the buttons seem to be relatively large enough to make it easy for the user to navigate through the NW-E500. Nothing more irritating than function buttons that are too small.

 

[Pluman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by warubozu Looking at the smaller pics I had originally thought that the buttons on the NW-E500 would be so small that it might cause some inconvience, but in the close up pic above the buttons seem to be relatively large enough to make it easy for the user to navigate through the NW-E500. Nothing more irritating than function buttons that are too small.

There are only two buttons which appear too small, so I think it's no problem.

 

[Michael1980]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rumz Yeah along with the codec it's the bitrate they're using to save on battery life-- probably using 48kbps atrac3plus or something. But hey-- if that means I get 30-40 hours of playback of 192k mp3s, I'm still a happy camper. I remember the days of my first Sony MD unit where I thought 20-30 hours was phenomenal. Oh, and from what I've heard, the OLED screen is more energy efficient than LCDs. Anyone know more about them?

The battery life is quoted for using 105kbps atrac3 format.

 

[TomRemixed]

unfortunetly I'm pretty sre that sony will make it very brittle like my md player and the psp my friend's dad was talking about after he came back from a business trip to japan. (aparantly he broke the screen when he dropped it off a table by accident) I am not one to trust sony portable ecept for their portables.

 

[sno1man]

said it before, but worth repeating. If nothing else they are the prettiest players going.

I want one really bad. You know in that deeply irrational credit card be damned way that only HEAD FIers can truly appreciate

 

[crimsonadam]

Looks like Apple may have to go back to not selling computers.

 

[Underdog311]

Its love at first sight...I will have one of those around my neck as soon as I see one on store shelves. Thank you Sony.

 

[Cyclone]

im usually a features > looks/design person but this player is sooo good looking i dont care about features or anything as long as it sounds decent, has good battery life, and is durable. i must have one (hopefully a black or grey one).

AVAILABLE IN MAY?! thats awsome! happy birthday to me

 

[Underdog311]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyclone im usually a features > looks/design person but this player is sooo good looking i dont care about features or anything as long as it sounds decent, has good battery life, and is durable. i must have one.

With Sony, you at least know it will have great battery life and will sound decent at least. I hope it will be durable, but again, I have not had an issue with durablity with sony products. The two gripes I have with Sony are:
1. Usually tend to be overpriced
2. Software is a bitch to use.

However, if these babies are true drag and drop, problem 2 is out the window.

As for color, im loving that deep blue one. Or the light blue. Black is an option too since most of my gadgets are in black. Very, very nice

 

[truffles]

Like many of you, I am also very hyped up about this. I just sold my Rio Carbon for a pretty good price despite the recent crazy price drops... and now I'm looking for something even more smaller.
So, I will be seriously considering this.

Ummm, correct me if I'm wrong . . . but isn't SUPER fast charging actually bad for the battery? I was looking for AAA chargers awhile back, and someone told me that the slower the charging the better for and easier on the batteries. Although, 3 minutes charge gives you 3 hours is very very cool. How does Sony do that ?!?!

In that picture guys . . . are those the stock earphones? If so, I wonder how well they are compared to the older Sony stock earphones. Also, is it me or how come the colours for the NW-E50x series look more alive and vibrant? And, it seems like the light blue version, the one I have my lil beady eyes on, will only come in the +$20 radio version !?

Lastly, whatcha guys think about the knob ? Reminds me of the older long MD remotes, which I liked !!

Oh oh . . . I can't wait till April and the early reviews !!

 

[Hasselhoffia]

And it seems like Sony do actually want to make improvements to their Network Walkman line, as last night I was sent a survey by Sony Connect Europe asking amongst other things my opinions on the different areas of the product and software, asking how I got the majority of my tracks (rip CD's, download off the net etc), whether I had ever used the Connect shop, what accessories I'd like to buy for my HD3 and how much I'd be willing to pay for them.This is in fact the second survey I've had in as many months, so someone at Sony seems to care what we, the users, think.

It's all good.

 

[Oliver :)]

And again I notice I am just not the target group for this kind of device, no matter who makes it. Sony should rethink their strategy for playtime and "song capacity". "If you use the second-worst setting imaginable, this thing will go forever!!!". Yeah, right. Anyway, I like OLEDs. I hope Jonathan Ive likes them too so we get one in the 5G iPod .

 

[johsu]

From Engineering standpont of view, it's nearly impossible to please every single user out there. It's still possible but it would be very expensive and end up pricing itself out the market.

On the topic of Sony strategy for their players, I think I am probably falling under their target group because I usually use my protable players when traveling. While I still want to maintain a certain level of audio quality (and I will), Sony players usually offer the best battery life than most other players in the market at this moment. So even if I use 256kb/s (either mp3 or ATRAC3+), it would probably still give me 40 out of 50 hours of playtime base on past experience (HD1/3, MDs...) To me, that's not bad. The very last thing I want is finding out I am out of juice when stuck on a noisy airplane in a 12 hours flight because I forgot to charge my player previous night at hotel (almost wanted to smash my iPod last time)!

 

[AdamWill]

truffles: mostly it depends on the battery chemistry. I think there's a couple of slightly unusual types of rechargeable which can take extremely fast charging with no ill effects; Sony might be using one of these. Additionally, I believe lithium-based cells can be charged to 90% capacity or so very very quickly with no bad side effects; if you try and do the last 10% of the cycle as fast, though, bad things happen. So it may be that when you charge this thing it'll get to 90% capacity in fifteen minutes then take an hour to do the last 10%, which wouldn't be too much of a bad deal, I guess. Older technologies, particularly NiCad and NiMH, don't much like being fast charged, you're right. Anything from two hours upwards is OK, but those 1hr or 30 minute charges will really kill your batteries pretty fast (Ni batteries ought to be good for a couple of thousand cycles, fast charging can kill them in hundreds or less).