Two readers sent in two items about the VAIO Pocket: First, Greg Fulco sent a link to a non-interactive Flash movie that shines a little light on how the Pocket’s touchpad works (it’s not a touchscreen after all—those nodules on the right are touch-sensitive). Looks like a decent interface; certainly a serious competitor to the iPod’s whippy wheel.
But Andrew Reynolds noticed something in the AkibaLive article I linked earlier this morning that I had skimmed over, “The VAIO Pocket plays also plays back MP3, WAVE and WMA format files, however converts them to ATRAC3/ATRAC3plus formats when doing so.” Wha happan, Sony? If this information is accurate, that means that Sony is either going to convert all your MP3s, etc., to ATRAC on your harddrive before transferring them to the Pocket (either doubling your music library on your hard drive or forcing you to use ATRAC for everything) or, possibly, converts them on the fly on the Pocket before playing them, which just doesn’t make any sense at all, so we can probably discount that idea. What’s the point of saying it plays MP3s and WMA if it actually only plays ATRAC? Even the iPod, with its new iTunes WMA->AAC conversion tool doesn’t claim it ‘plays WMA.’
Look VAIO Pocket Flash Movie [Sony (Japanese)]
Read – More Sony VAIO Pocket Details [Gizmodo]
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/more-sony-vaio-pocket-details-016072.php
