Sony’s name has been synonymous with Portable Music from the beginning. In the ‘80’s when cassette tapes were the popular medium, the Sony Walkman was the leading audio cassette player. As the music industry transitioned from analog to digital, Sony led the way with their Discman line of CD players. Although CD's are still widely used today, we are no doubt in the MP3 era. The only difference this time is the company atop the portable music leader board.



So where did Sony go wrong? There are a number of factors, but the biggest in my mind is their reliance on the MiniDisc (MD) format. As MP3 players were becoming more prevalent, Sony promoted MD players that used their ATRAC codecs. Instead of letting the consumer determine the direction to take, Sony attempted to make the decision for them. Because of this, Sony's name stopped being synonymous with "Portable Music" and started being associated with "Proprietary".

In retrospect, MiniDisc's never really took off globally, and by the time Sony decided to make MP3 players they were a few laps behinds everyone else. To make things worse, Sony required you to use a proprietary transfer program called "SonicStage". This "locked in" software strategy is also used by Apple with iTunes, but SonicStage provided more headaches than anything else.

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If at first you don't Succeed...

But all of that is history now. Sony has turned a new leaf, and seem to be learning from their mistakes. A few months ago, they announced their first and second video Walkman, the A810 and S610 series. The two players differ in design, but share most of the same features. The S610 which I'll be reviewing has a slightly smaller screen (1.8" vs 2.0") but advances by removing both ATRAC support, and SonicStage. It also adds an FM tuner. Here;s what it has to offer:

Features:

• Capacity: 2, 4, and 8GB
• Display: 1.8" TFT (320 x 240)
• Audio: MP3, WMA, AAC, and WAV
• Video: MPEG-4, and M4V at 30fps
• FM Tuner
• Battery Life: 33 hours for Audio, 8 hours for Video
• Dimensions: 42 x 79 x 11.5mm
• Colors: Black, Red, Silver (Sony Style exclusive), and Pink
• Prices: $99 - $179US

So without further ado, let's get started...

article index
page 1 - current : Introduction
page 2 : Getting Started
page 3 : Build and Design
page 4 : Interface
page 5 : Audio Playback
page 6 : Video Playback
page 7 : Battery Life
page 8 : Comparisons
page 9 : Conclusion