Sony Announces Android Powered Walkman NW-ZX1

by Sohrab Osati | Oct 10, 2013 | 27 comments
Sohrab Osati

Sony_Walkman_NW_ZX1_05While Apple has long won and shifted its focus from MP3 player market, Sony continues to push what we think and expect from our portable music players. The new Sony Walkman NW-ZX1 is no exception. Powered by Android, the NW-ZX1 is best thought of as a competitor to the Apple iPod Touch. Like the iPod Touch, the Walkman runs a full OS at its core, Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean which allows the unit to be fluid and more importantly, have access to thousands of apps. But that’s where similarities end between the two units.

Sony by now has realized that there is no way that it will be able to compete with the dominance of iPod which continues holds nearly 80% of the MP3 market share. More importantly, for the same reason that Apple has shifted its focus, Sony knows that a majority of consumers carry their music on their smartphones so instead of trying to create an iPod Touch close, Sony chose to go in an entirely new direction with the Walkman NW-ZX1 and the 74,800 Yen (around $760) price should be an indicator. Don’t even bother thinking about what Sony has placed inside of this unit as the list will be far shorter if we talked about what’s not included.

The Walkman NW-ZX1 is targeted purely at those with disposable income and audiophiles. From the minute you look at, the Walkman with its 4-inch Triluminos display with 480 x 854 pixels commands your attention. The body is then wrapped in a beautiful aluminium alloy that stores the units 128GB internal flash memory. The new Walkman also packs S-Master HX digital amp for better audio output and NFC for quick pairing with  NFC headphones and easy streaming to your home theater. The Walkman NW-ZX1 also supports a host of audio formats which include:

  • FLAC
  • WAV
  • AIFF
  • Apple Lossless
  • MP3
  • WMA
  • ACC
  • HE-ACC
  • ATRAC

If that’s not enough, USB Audio (192kHz/24bit) is also supported. For the meantime, Sony has announced the Walkman NQ-ZX1 for Japan only with an October 19th release date though a European release is likely in the near future as well. For those of the in the US, I remain skeptical though never say never, seeing how we’re getting the PlayStation 4 months prior to Japan.

Discuss:

Is there a market for these high end devices or is Sony chasing a none existent market?