hmmm brown.... Didn't MS try brown with the Zune?

I don't ever want my electronics in brown!

I remember when computers were beige, and was delighted when the world woke up and realised they looked horrible...

Reminds me of the Sansa players. Anymore, I think wifi is a necessity on all but basic, barebones players. And, personally, I am really sold on the Zune because of the inclusion of HD radio (as well as wifi, etc.) I just wish the new Zunes came in a flavor larger than 32GB, or had a microSDHC slot. That would make them pretty close to perfect in my book.

I'd still rather have the slightly older Sony X series... which does include both OLED touch screen and built in Wi-Fi, and is also the same price as the new 3rd Gen iPod Touch.

http://www.play.com/Electronics/El [...] oduct.html

>will cost you a whopping $439. Yikes!

Not really. Pricing in the US market is not same as a simple dollar value converted mathemetically from Yen value. You can be assured the price tag will be much smaller in the US market.

I'm pretty sure the prices are in US dollars. There's no way Sony is going to sell a 64gb mp3 player for $4.83 US...

I believe he is saying that the electronics markets do not scale accordingly, meaning just because something is X value in one country, does not mean it will be the same converted X value in another country.

I dont know if its just that ugly brown that managed to make somethign halfshiny look so oldish and bad :S

Anyhow, like always Sony's solution had to be expensive on top of everything else. Who buys their stuff? ( not all but most are just not worth pricewise ) Those are t blame for keep coming out with more expensive non worth hardware.

A dead product from Sony once again. Why don't they just combine the PS3 or Playstation branding to their portable devices and make them interact together somehow. The WalkMan is more like CrawlMan.

Doesn't look appealing to me. The color sure looks like the leather furniture my parents have back home.

Complaint about lack of camera from iPod nano faithful in 3-2-...

Nah, not even Apple cultists can understand the need for a camera in a miniature MP3 player.

I also don't understand this brown phenomenon. The T-Mobile G1 came in black, white, or brown. Who wants brown electronics?

I think Brown is supposed to be the new "in" color. I prefer dark Blue or Dark Green personally.

Is there a format list for audio/video yet? If it can scale a 720 h.264 show down to the handheld screen I would be very interested in this (the black color of course).

I like the coppery look of the control area, can they make the whole case out of copper? That would be awesome!

As the saying goes, "If its brown, flush it down."

Unless its the Zune HD, that thing kicks Apple ass.

I understand that the markets aren't the same in every country. However, we can't assume the prices listed by the reporter were simply converted from yen only because the product have been announced by Sony Japan. Like we can't say that the product will ship on October 31 in Japan or in the US.

Brown? WTF? Although it still does look very nice. I know I won't be going back to apple once my iPod dies/explodes.

There are a lot more colors than brown that this player will be available in. Why they picked brown I dunno, or maybe Tom's Hardware just found a brown one and included it in this article...

ipod what?
that sony thing looks awesome!!
too bad it has a high sony tax on it.

brown = color of poop = it is poop

I want 80 gigs (the size of my music collection), and no features.
Nada, none.
I don't want to pay for the fat.

All I want is a music player with enough storage, how damned hard is that?
If I wanty to transfer files, I'll use a USB cord, if I want to browse the net, I'll use a computer.

$439=$39 production cost+$400 Sony tax

I am waiting for a company to make an open source, unlocked, everything sexy device. I may be waiting a while...so be it.

So why does nearly every MP3 player designer feel they have to either layout their controls in a circle and/or use graphics to suggest a circular layout on their devices? It's not an iPod, it doesn't need to look like an iPod.

Note to Sony, MS, and any other product designer, brown is NOT the new black (or white, or beige, or silver, or platinum, or blue, or pink, or fruit colors, etc).

"The Zune HD is a beautiful looking device. As soon as I saw it, I fell in love."


I'm with you there, still waiting on the Canada launch though.

Eventually Sony will take over the USA MP3 player market, just as they recently have in Japan: They are expert in the art of making small, durable, good-quality electronics with many years of proven experience. (If you can find an old Sony Walkman in the garage or attic, I bet it's still working.) If they didn't get off to a bad start with their awful "atrac" proprietary format, they'd already have a much larger market share.

I'm glad to see they're coming out with a 64GB version. I'll be waiting for the 128. I have a 250 GB music collection, and the only options for the past few years have been the iPod Classic and the Zune. Most people I know that are iPod owners are on their third or fourth one. They look at them as disposable devices. The hardware fails and they buy the latest model. That's not the way I consider my electronics that may cost a few hundred dollars. I'd like them to lasts a couple of years or so.

Before you "fall in love" with the Zune HD, I suggest you download the stick-a-fork-in-your-eye Zune software and try managing your music library. The cotton-candy, bloated, software would have fit right in about 1995. It's dreadful. I should know; I'm the suffering owner of a Zune 80, but don't take my word for it, just Google around a bit. The Zunes are locked down, and you can't sync with any other software: including WMP!

I, for one, am glad to see that Sony is finally getting into the large-capacity MP3 player market. It may be just in time, as there are rumors that both MS and Apple could be getting out, which is news that doesn't bother me one bit.

The product looks slick - Sony needs to work on the naming though. "NW-A840" doesnt exactly roll of the tongue.