Sony Music

Looks like Sony is about to join the MP3-player wars for real. They've had MD-players out before, but as technophiles all know, burning CDs is a bear. Following on the success of Apple's ubiquitous iPod in all its variants, different manufacturers have tried to follow along. Most have designed their players to be very functional, and a bit gimmicky, such as iriver, but few have been able to mimmick Apple's distinct sense of style. Now, however, Sony is entering the fray, with the introduction of new flash-based players:

The lineup includes a set of cigarette lighter-sized models, a bit more expensive than the iPod Shuffle but with a much longer advertised battery life — 50 hours of playback time with a rechargeable battery compared to Apple's 12 hours.

And unlike the Shuffle, the Sony players have bright, 3-line screens to display song information.

A 512-megabyte model costs $130 and a 1-gigabyte model costs $180. Models with an FM tuner each cost $20 more. By comparison, Apple's shuffle is priced at $99 for 512 MB and $149 for 1 GB. The models will be available in May.

A second set of players, set to ship later this month, are roundish, with a diameter slightly larger than a poker chip. They run on AAA batteries, which Sony says will give the user 70 hours of playback time on a single battery. The prices range from $90 for 256 MB of memory to $150 for 1 GB of memory.

A third design is water-resistant, costing $130 for 256 MB of memory.

Hopefully this will do better than Sony's music label. At any rate, introducing competition is always a good thing, even if both the iPod shuffle and the expected offering from Sony seems a bit on the pricey side.

[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]