Sony Electronics Asia Pacific expands its Walkman® family to include two new series of stylishly slim video MP3 players, the NWZ-S730F and NWZ-E430F. Ideal for today’s mobile consumers, the NWZ-S730F series is the only video MP3 player in the market with a noise cancelling function that effectively reduces ambient noise to ensure quality entertainment. For nonstop entertainment, the NWZ-E430F series offers up to 45 hours of music or up to 8 hours of video , marking a significantly longer battery life compared to most portable media players available today.

“Increasingly, consumers are demanding for more portable entertainment devices that they can use to unwind during their travels to and from home,” said Mr. Shinichiro Ikeda, Sony Electronics General Manager, Personal Audio Marketing. “The two new Walkman® video MP3 players from Sony are equipped to meet our consumers’ nonstop entertainment needs and wants.”

The New S series: NWZ-S730F Series Video MP3 player

In delivering quality music, the NWZ-S730F series features new SensMeTM Channels. Enabled by Sony’s Low-Complexity Music Information Retrieval (LCMIR) technology, a music analyzer feature that seamlessly creates playlists based on the mood, speed, and tone of songs, the process of choosing music that matches your mood is now simplified. SensMeTM Channels allow you to enjoy various types of music, such as energetic, relaxing, or lounge, through the simple selection of your preferred channel.

Merging form with function, the NWZ-S730F series at 7.5mm thickness and 46g in weight, is the slimmest Walkman® and one of the lightest video MP3 players available today. Available in stylish colours of black and gold, the Walkman® has a colourful user interface with a vibrant package of standard and customizable wallpapers, templates and icons to match each individual’s colourful personality. To further personalise the NWZ-S730F series, users can also select images from their Walkman® Photo Library to use as wallpaper for the video MP3 player. Accompanying its stylish looks with great entertainment, the NWZ-S730F series features long battery life of up to 40 hours of music or 10 full hours of video playback .

Featuring not one but five Clear Audio technologies, the NWZ-S730F series is a multifunctional video MP3 player made for high-performance, noise-free entertainment. The Noise Cancelling system enabled in the player reduces the ambient noise by up to 75% (at 200Hz) of perceived sound level, enabling music enjoyment in a noise environment without turning up the volume. Also equipped with other Clear Audio technologies such as the Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE), Clear Stereo and Clear Bass, the player is able to reproduce accurate and clear original audio quality without any distortion.
Additionally, frequent travellers will be able to enjoy entertainment from their Walkman as the player is supplied with a plug adaptor for AV systems in airplanes. As an all-in-one entertainment solution, the NWZ-S730F series player is also supplied with a pair of EX headphones with large 13.5mm driver units, enabling reproduction of pure and live sound similar to professional grade headphones.

Emphasising high quality video playback, the NWZ-S730F series has a large 2-inch LCD screen with 320 x 240 resolution, high brightness and contrast, as well as superior colour reproduction. The player is able to deliver a playback of up to 30 frames per second, ensuring smooth video playback. For easy viewing, the player also has a screening angle of 160 degrees, and can conveniently switch between vertical and horizontal orientations when viewing photos or videos . Users can also easily zoom into the movie during video playback.

The New E Series: NWZ-E430F Series Video MP3 Player

For those who desire non-stop music, the NWZ-E430F series presents an ideal proposition. The NWZ-E430F series can effectively play up to 45 hours of music , which is close to two full music-filled days! For the video-savvy, the player can also cater up to eight hours of movies with its long-lasting battery life. Available in four stylish colours of blue, red, pink, and black, the player boasts ultra slim and sleek looks at 8.5mm thick and weighing a mere 50g – one of the thinnest and lightest video MP3 players available today.

As an entry-level video MP3 player, the NWZ-E430F series offers high quality video playback of up to 30 frames per second. With its built-in 2.0 inch QVGA LCD screen, it ensures high 320 x 240 resolution, high brightness and contrast as well as superior colour reproduction. As with the NWZ-S730F series, the NWZ-E430F series also has a viewing angle of 160 degrees, and can conveniently switch between vertical and horizontal orientation when viewing videos and photos . Users can easily zoom into the movie during video playback.

Both Walkman® series support a wide range of high quality Codecs, such as Advanced Video Coding (H.264/AVC) baseline profile, MPEG-4 simple profile, and WMV simple and main profile for video; MP3, WMA, Secure WMA, WAV and AAC for music, and JPEG for photos. Both the NWZ-S730F and NWZ-E430F series are also enabled with the popular Drag and Drop functionality for convenient file transfers and a built-in FM radio to meet users’ various entertainment needs.

For that added personal touch, conveniently customise the looks of the Walkman players to suit an individual’s personality with the following range of accessories from Sony:

The new Walkman S & E series will be available in Asia Pacific from October 2008.