Sony has announced its first Android-based Walkman, the NW-Z1000 series of premium music players. The latest Walkman will run Android 2.3 and features a glare resistant 4.3-inch screen with 800×640 resolution. The NW-Z100 uses the 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 and will be available in in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacity. In addition to Sony’s proprietary W. Music player application, the NW-Z100 will have access to the Android Market app library.
A dedicated key on the side of the unit opens the music player, which includes a list view, cover art view, search, mood channel, and random song selection functions. The player can also generate visualizations with playback. Sony says battery life will support 20 hours of music playback. The home screen features a streamined launcher for other apps, including a web browser.
The NW-Z1000 series supports most popular video formats, including MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, .Mp4,. M4v and .WMV. It plays full 1920×1,080 HD video at 30fps. Supported music formats include MP3, WMA, ATRAC, ATRAC Advanced Lossless, Linear PCM, AAC and HE-AAC.
The player sports HDMI video out, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth OPP/A2DP/AVRCP, and the “throw” based DLNA media sharing Sony introduced with its Android tablets. It has S-Master MX sound processing and digital noise cancellation, as well as the classic Walkman “xLOUD” function.
Sony has licensed a line of official accessories for the Walkman NW-Z1000 series including a leather carrying case, screen protector, and headphones.
Estimated retail price is 16GB NW-Z1050 is ¥28,000 ($364). The 32GB NW-Z1060 is approximately 33,000 yen ($429). The 64GB NW-Z1070 is about 43,000 yen ($559). The NW-Z10000 will be available in black and red. A white 64GB version, NW-Z1070/W, will be sold exclusively in Sony stores for 45,800 yen ($595). Sony expects the Android Walkman NW-Z1000 series in Japanese stores on December 10. The company did not release details on availability for the US market.
