Sony’s supposed ipod-killer, the Network Walkman NW-HD1, has been reviewed, and apparently it’s not quite the ipod-killer it was made out to be. On paper it looks great: Smaller in size and longer battery life. But according to the review, there’s one thing that’s really holding it back: Sony’s horrible interface for the player as well as the software, and Sony’s own music format, ATRAC3.
As further detailed in the review, Sony’s player does not play MP3s. And no, you aren’t allowed to question why. It’s the exact same reason why all of Sony’s digital cameras only use their magic memorystick technology: to lock you into their proprietary licensing.
This is the sole reason why I hate Sony and all of their fancy little gadgets so much. Everyone out there agrees on a universal technology to build off of, but Sony for one reason or another wants to go ahead and make their own, and then push it on their customers just to get more of their money. It’s a ridiculous notion that keeps holding them back from getting a good hold on the market. Look at the PS2: it uses DVD technology and as such has done a real good job. But the Minidisc format on the other hand has almost died out here in America, yet they keep pushing it.
This goes back to why I usually refuse to buy anything Sony, be it their headphones or their VAIO computers (which are really really cool looking, but the fact that they’re Sony drives me away). Apple gave up on this proprietary thing a long time ago and embraced the world; Sony should step up and do the same thing.
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Kudos on the thoughtful post.
I agree. Sony tries to force you into there idea of conformancy. I mainly despise their computers and laptops with their proprietary image restore disk which are absolutely useless in my opinion. It will restore the computer the way they think it should be with no user selectable options at all. What sense does it make to have an 80 gig hard drive put windows XP on a 15 gig partition with a FAT32 file system and the rest on an NTFS part with nothing in it. STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!
While i love Sony products, i have to agree with you. Sony needs to “embrace the world” and open up.
[…] And let’s not forget their redesigned controller, after everyone made fun of their boomerang controller. It’s as if Sony just gave up, went back to the old design, and then threw in a lame motion sensor to try to match Nintendo, but not quite. Oh Sony, first you try to make everyone use your proprietary crap, and now you’re just copying people. For shame. […]
I hae even herd that Sony is going to release software for the ps3 that can use the Wii remote.
sorry that hae is suspose to be have