Sony has come out with a rival to the video iPod in the Walkman range, called the NW-A800 Walkman. The three models have 2GB, 4GB and 8GB of memory each and it has a 2-inch LCD screen with QVGA resolution, which is identical to mobile TV formats.
The device says that it has a 30 hour battery life for music, 8 hours for video and will play back H.264 video and at present is coming to Europe first in April, although we noticed a Canadian announcement too. A US delivery date is expected shortly. Video file conversion, if needed, can be performed through supplied ImageConverter software and on the audio side Sony supplies software for converting Windows Media Audio, MP3 and WAV files to its ATRAC file format.
The UK price is £199 for the 8GB version (around $384) and allows drag and drop of most video formats from the PC, and video from a camera such as Sony Handycam camcorder.
The device also supports JPEG image storage, viewing and slideshow for storing photos and will take images straight from a CyberShot camera.
In Canada pricing is far more aggressive at C$169 ($143) for the 2GB version and C$299 ($253) for the 8GB.