Sony launch iPod rival

Daily Mail13 April 2012

A quarter of a century ago it changed the way we listened to music.

But the Sony Walkman found itself out of tune with a new generation who have snapped up millions of Apple's iPod digital players.

Now the firm which invented music on the move hopes to regain its crown with its first direct rival to the new technology.

Like the iPod, Sony's latest Walkman needs no tapes or discs, but stores thousands of songs on an internal computer hard drive.

The Japanese electronics giant says it is smaller, lighter and can hold considerably more than its competitor.

It is also likely to be significantly cheaper, which analysts believe could bring prices down right across the market.

'I'd call it an iPod challenger and one that will keep Apple on its toes,' Richard Dougherty, a U.S-based electronics analyst, said yesterday.

The new Walkman - the not so snappily titled NW-HD1 - is little larger than a credit card and less than half an inch thick.

It is expected to be on sale in Britain by the end of the summer for around £200.

It can store 13,000 songs on its 20-gigabyte hard drive and

has a rechargable battery that will keep going for 30 hours.

Only the top iPod 40-gigabyte model stores nearly as much music, at 10,000 tunes. And that costs around £370 with a ten-hour battery life.

The 20-gigabyte iPod, which stores 5,000 songs, still costs nearly £100 more than the new Walkman.

And at less than 4oz, Sony's new device is a third lighter than its rival.

Like other digital music players, it relies on the owner transferring songs from their own CD collection or downloaded from Sony over the Internet through a home computer.

It uses software unique to Sony which allows more music to be stored in less space but means songs in other formats such as the popular MP3 cannot be played on it.

The new player was unveiled in the U.S. yesterday, 25 years to the day after the first Walkman went on sale.

That cassette player took the world by storm, and was followed over the years by CD and mini-disc versions.

Apple's iPod has very quickly established itself as a iconic item since its launch in 2001.

Whether Sony can compete with it in the style stakes remains to be seen.

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