Sony announces Japanese touchscreen Walkmans

Sony has expanded its range of Walkmans with the NW-X1000 series. The new media players have 16GB or 32GB memory and a touch-sensitive 3″ OLED screen, and will be available in Japan from April 25.

The X-series currently consists of two models. The NW-X1050 has 16GB of flash memory and the NW-X1060 is equipped with 32GB of storage space. Both are equipped with a touchscreen OLED with a screen diagonal of 3 “and a resolution of 432 by 240 pixels. Sony searches with the new line clear competition with the iPod Touch. The Apple media player is somewhat larger than the NW-X1000 models and has a conventional touchscreen LCD with a resolution of 480 by 320 pixels and a screen diameter of 3.5″.

The new Walkman line can handle MP3 and AAC audio files and has an FM tuner and Wi-Fi. A web browser and a YouTube application are also standard features. Furthermore, the new Walkmans have a digital TV tuner for the Japanese OneSeg-system. Finally, the devices are equipped with technology for filtering out background noise; Sony claims that its technology can remove 99 percent of background noise.

The models will be available in Japan from April 25 in black and red. The 16GB model cost converted about 305 euros, while the 32GB version is sold for around 382 euros. The OneSeg tuner makes it unlikely that the two will also be released in Europe, but Sony Benelux could not yet give a definite answer.