Sony unveiled its Walkman S Series flash memory-based digital audio players, with the headliner being the NW-S700 series available in 1GB, 2GB and 4GB trim. The line of DAPs play back pretty much any kind of digital audio including MP3, Sony's ATRAC formats, Linear PCM and AAC/WMA, and can also record PCM and ATRAC audio. Trying to do what Apple hasn't, the company also crammed an FM tuner in there. The 4GB NW-S706F will be available in a couple of weeks for around $242, pick up the cheapest 1GB NW-S603 without the FM tuner and noise cancellation for around $125 on November 18.

Sony's pushing hard on the S Series noise-canceling earphones with a built-in microphone, claiming a 25% reduction in ambient noise, but you can reduce noise by that amount just by sticking your fingers in your ears—same thing as putting on a pair of earphones. Anyway, these are nice-looking players, but the proof of the player is in the listening thereof; we'll see if they really are, as Sony claims, the company's best-sounding music players yet. – Charlie White

Jump for some extreme close-up pics.

New Sony Walkman [Akihabara News]

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