Sony is still steaming ahead with its hard disk-based music player plans, presumably refining their product each revision to better compete with Apple’s iPod. The new NW-HD3 player does support MP3 natively, which is a start, but a Reuters story is quoting the price at almost $500 for a 20GB version—five colors or not, no one is going to skip over the iPod to pick up a more expensive player from Sony (bear in mind that those are European prices, though, which tend to be a bit higher per unit than we pay in the US).
On the upside, the NW-HD3 does have a rated battery life of 30 hours. That’s impressive, but it’s not going to turn the tide. Sony is purportedly taking a loss on the new PSP to give it a leg up against an entrenched competitor that has an almost total lock on its market. Why don’t they do the same with the Walkman?
Press Release (Japanese) [SonyJP]
Sony Takes on iPod with New Hard Disk Walkman [Reuters via I4U]
