Sony NW-A800 series | The Walkman goes video

Sony unveiled yesterday its latest multimedia players: the Sony NW-A800 series. It includes video MP3 players that finally bring the Walkman concept in the digital video arena. At the launch, expected for April, the series will include three models: the A805, A806, and A808. They share the basic features but have a different amount of memory: 2GB, 4GB and 8GB.

The Sony NW-A800 series video MP3 players have a 2-inch screen. The latter features a 320 x 240 resolution that allows the user to view content both in portrait and landscape mode. The video MP3 players, thick slightly less than one cm, will offer up to 30 hours of continuous audio playback. When used to watch video content the Sony NW-A800 series is able to work continuously for up to 8 hours.

These video MP3 players support a wide variety of audio formats: MP3, AAC, WMA and obviously the Sony format, the ATRAC. Despite the support for the latter, the Sony NW-A800 series players are not compatible with PlaysForSure. As for the video formats supported, the Sony NW-A800 series players are compatible with the MPEG-4 H.264/AVC standard.

Sony initially plans to sell this video MP3 player only in Europe with no word about its arrival on other world regions. The Sony NW-A800 will be available, starting from April, in three different models based on the available memory capacity: 2GB, 4GB and 8GB. The prices are set to $199 USD, $249 USD and $333 USD respectively. The video MP3 player will also be available in three different colors: black, blue, pink and white.