Japanese consumer electronics specialist Sony Corp. thinks it has just the thing for those mobile music and video lovers not readily attracted by the market dominance of Apple’s all-conquering range of iPod media players.
Sony launches its new NWZ-A820 Video Walkman. Credit: Sony.
More pointedly, Sony’s latest pocket-sized offering, the NWZ-A820, arrives as an expansion of its innovative Walkman family of digital media players and, according to Sony, offers up ease-of-use, superb audio and video quality, extra-long battery life, and a whole host of advanced Walkman features “to enhance today’s digital lifestyles.”
Built around a large 2.4-inch QVGA display screen (30fps), the slim line, lightweight, and distinctly mobile phone-esque NWZ-A820 comes in a selection of four colours: black, silver, gold, and pink, and also provides users with Bluetooth connectivity and a selection of three data storage sizes, which are 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB.
When converted into music and video terms, those storage options translate to around 3,800 songs or 62 hours of video for 16GB, almost 31 hours of video or 1,850 song tracks for 8GB, and around 15 hours of video or 925 songs for 4GB.
Factoring in battery usage when enjoying either videos or songs, the NWZ-A820 should provide a solid 10 hours of video playback, or some 36 hours of uninterrupted music playback. Sony offers that the added drain of Bluetooth stereo will bring those numbers down to around 7 hours and 15 hours respectively.
As with all other Walkman digital media players, the NWZ-A820 supports a broad range of media formats, including security-enhanced Windows Media Audio (WMA), copyright-free AAC, MP3 and Linear PCM for music, and also JPEG for photo image files. Video playback is supported by AVC (H.264/AVC) Baseline Profile and MPEG-4.
The NWZ-A820 also carries Windows Vista certification and Microsoft’s “PlaysForSure” logo, which means the device is instantly compatible with duly certified online music and media download portals. Windows Media Player 11 also enables users to quickly and conveniently transfer files from their PC to the Walkman player through simple drag-and-drop file management.
With added Clear Audio Technologies such as Sony’s Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE), Clear Stereo, Clear Bass, and a 5-Band Equalizer, VPT Acoustic Engine and Dynamic Normalizer, the NWZ-A820 is also easy to use on-the-move thanks to its intuitive on-screen menus, improved play and search functions, and super-quick scrolling.
The Walkman NWZ-A820 will be released this coming April. Sony is still yet to define the representative prices of its three incoming models.
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