Sony Europe today announced a new E-series Walkman. While likely not to challenge the X-series for sound quality department, the NWZ-E440 series ought to satisfy those on a budget. The entry level Walkman will be equipped with 2" 240x320 LCD screen and is available in either black or red and will feature a slim sexy design not too dissimilar to certain Sony Ericsson phones. Like Sony's other previous high and mid-end Walkman, this will be the first E-series Walkman to feature some of Sony's audio enhancement technologies (which I do not recommend you turn on as they sap up more power), including a five-band equaliser and Clear Stereo.No compressed lossless files are supported, though it will support lossless PCM Linear WAV out of the box. In addition to that, the E440 will also support MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM and AAC audio files. You will also find a FM radio tuner built-in. 30 hours of music playback on a single charge is sufficient for most people, but will come as a disappointment to those who owns previous A and S-series DAPs. Like all new Walkmans, no proprietary software (like iTunes) is needed to transfer files as it is MTP/UMS compatible and will support drag and drop. You can also use other third party music management software like the brilliant Media Monkey or Windows Media Player to transfer tracks. Unfortunately the new E-series will still be bundled with throw-away headphones, unlike the A and S-series DAP, that are bundled with EX082 or their noise cancelling equivalent.
No pricing details yet, but I am going to guess based on their last few releases that this will be incredibly good value. I am tempted to pick this up to review it, but we will see how it goes. Perhaps someone at Sony will listen to my pleas. ;)
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