“Sony is getting curvy and colorful with its latest digital Walkman offering. The new NW-E300 series of kidney-shaped, flash-based devices–also known by the catchier name of Walkman Beans–is the latest in a string of music players from the company once synonymous with portable tunes. In recent years, like many other companies, Sony has been playing catch-up with the iPod from market maestro Apple Computer,” CNET News.com reports.
“Pricing is set at about $130 for the NW-E305, which has 512MB of storage, and about $180 for the NW-E307, with 1GB of storage,” CNET News.com reports. “The Beans play both MP3 and Atrac music files, and also support the WMA and WAV formats. They’re compatible with Sony’s Connect online music service. An FM tuner is built in.”
The players are due in October.
Full article with photos here.
Do not eat Walkman Beans?
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Sony debuts US$199 1GB iPod shuffle killer, bills it ‘small as a pack of gum’ – July 06, 2005
Do not eat iPod shuffle – January 19, 2005
What happened to the model they introduced just a couple of months ago as the “iPod” killer; you know, the one with the neat screen. Is it gone already?
On the “Bean” name: It’s probably hard for us all to remember the time when “iPod” wasn’t a market-defining name. But, when it came out “iPod” was not the coolest sounding thing. Pod? What is it, something from Aliens??
That said, there’s still nothing out there that is even giving Apple a reason to get concerned, Beans included….
A friend of mine traded the family cow for a handful of those things.
His mom beat the crap out of him when he got home….
OMG… the pictures of this product sent me into a laughing fit at my desk. Surely me co-workers think I’ve lost my mind. The bean? Really? Are they kidding?! hahahahahahahaha. I love Sony, don’t get me wrong… they used to be so cool… but these days… it’s sad to see how lame they’ve become. Also, I love the white earbuds. Posers.
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Creative is calling one of theirs ‘The Asparagus’.
I thought beans were inside pods?
From the Bean website:
http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowArticle.action?article=1123188805574&site=odw_en_GB
Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, …you’ll be the envy of all your mates…
Huh?
LOL
“Beans and Rice?”
Pun intended…
Maybe they sshould start a trend…Lets see iPod… How about the “Beano”
Cant wait for the hot-dog shaped player called the FRANK – then they will have beans and franks.
Ha Ha
“Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, …you’ll be the envy of all your mates”
Absolutely hilarious, but I gotta tell ya, “It takes two hands to handle a whopper!”
WARNING: Beans can cause gas. Do not use in public places or when you’re with your girlfriend.
beans?? I prefer the iflea
http://www.nytimes.com/video/html/2005/06/29/technology/highbandwidth/windowsmedia/20050629_GUEST_VIDEO.html
Do you think Sony has run out of ideas? Really? Honestly? I’d rather fist a chicken than buy any crap from them
MDN magic word: “cause”
’cause I’m right
Walkman Beans……silliest god dang name I have ever heard. I nearly peed in my pants.
Poor Sony.
Looks like a bean counter.
if someone gave me a mp3 player with an FM tuner it would end up on eBay in 2 weeks time. does anyone really need the extra feature? a screen is always nice, and kudos to them for doing that
as if iPOD is better than iBean…
beans live in pods don’t they?
In addition, the japanese market is different, they like things named like that.
ipod shuffle is the more overrated player around….
has little style at all… and that electroluinescent screen is hella cool.
It is 1996 and Appel could have made 18 different Mac’s: Wintel ’95 was the winner at that time. Now the Apple iPod is the winner and the Mac is going to follow soon .. !
How you tink I go so fast?
Sony beans…I’m off to the store to get an iPod beano…
Yeehaw! Yeehaw! Ariba! Ariba! Ondele! Pronto! Ariba! Ariba! Yeeeehaaawww!!!
iBean thinking that I would rather you had gotten me an iPod instead of this ^%&*$
Sony has beans
or should it be
Sony, has beens.
Sony should make some cool add on for the iPod instead of trying to compete with it. And as far as marketing they have to start giving their products sexy names instead of number codes. I mean The Bean or something sounds better than NW-E307.
If you feel you have to keep mentioning that it’s “cool” over and over in the ad, it’s probably not all that cool – this is Sony trying too hard…
It should be intuitively obvious by now that it’s not just the player. That last Sony flash player was actually great-looking, but they can’t give those things away in Cracker Jack boxes.
iPod + iTunes + ITMS is the magic formula that Sony is still trying to figure out