The Walkman Rides Again

Nov. 21, 2007 — -- When Sony first introduced the Walkman in 1979, the portable music player was an instant success. Never mind that it only took cassette tapes and couldn't record. People loved the convenience of taking their music with them.

Fast forward nearly three decades, and Sony is an also-ran in the business that it created. It's battling for a foothold in a booming digital music/video player field dominated by Apple's iPod and distant second Microsoft's Zune.

Sony's newest line of digital Walkmans, which play video and music files, have a lot going for them, but the question is whether that's enough.

The Sony NWZ-818 ($199) has 8 gigabytes of memory, sufficient to hold about 5,000 songs or 30 hours of video. The device excels in sound quality and includes an excellent set of earbuds, though the cord is a bit short to put the Walkman on your belt or in a pants pocket.

The 2-inch video screen is quite crisp, about as good as a picture that size can be. Whether you're up for watching a half hour show or even a movie in a format this small is an open question.

Sony has managed to simplify the controls on its latest Walkmans to the point of being easy and intuitive. You can take this item out of the packaging, attach it to the USB port of your computer for a quick charge, then start using it without ever opening the slim manual. This is a boon for those of us who would rather be shipped off to a war zone than spend time reading yet another product manual.

This delightfully slim, smooth and slick player isn't perfect, though. The volume button is awkwardly located on the side of the device, and there's a hold button mysteriously on the back, where it's difficult to access with one hand. But the biggest drawback is memory.

Sony has to start beefing up its hard drives, which top out at 8 gigs, if it expects to give Apple and Microsoft any real competition.

Zune's ($250) latest version has 80 gigs of memory and the iPod Classic comes with 80 gigs also, and for about the same price. For $350, you can get the Zune with 160 gigs. Oh, and the Zune has wireless connectivity, a feature the Sonys lack.