Sony Walkman Making A Comeback

The Sony Walkman was thought to be dead in the wake of iPods and Zunes for quite some time until today, when Sony announced these three individual series of new Walkmen:

The entry-level B-series is the lower-end model which only plays music, no video for you movie freaks out there. It’s also got a FM radio and voice recorder with a 16 hour battery life. It comes in two models, the 1GB model for $45 (in red, blue and black) and the 2GB model (in red, pink and black) for $60.

The E-series includes everything the B-series has but with video playback. It supports WMA, AAC, linear PCM and MP3 formats. On the video side, it supports WMW with DRM, H.264/AVC and MPEG-4 codecs. The battery life is said to be 45 hours for music and 8 hours for video. A 4GB model will cost $100 and comes in blue, pink, red and black. The 8GB model only comes in pink, red and black for $140.

The last addition to the new Sony Walkman team is the S-series. It features active noise canceling along with the same 13.5mm EX headphones that comes with the other lower-end models but with an extension to enable the exclusive noise cancellation feature. The S-series supports all the formats the E-series does but is more thin at 7.5mm and has a bright 2.-inch QVGA LCD. Another exclusive feature for the S-series is the SensMe function, which analyzes your music collection and creates 11 playlists that it thinks you?ll like. The battery life is around 40 hours for music and 10 hours for video playback but if you’re using its noise cancellation feature, expect the battery life to drop. It’s available only in black. The 4GB model will retail for $150 while the 8GB will go for $180.

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