Seems to be a ipod killer to me. Even better design and 3 times the battery capacity. i think i want one.

http://products.sony.co.uk/sony_nw-dh3.asp

i like how they advertise "13,000* songs on it

* In ATRAC3plus 48kbps mode."

why stop there? who cares what the sound quality is like. let's go to 12kbps and get 50,000 songs on a 20GB player, or REALLY make a 40GB ipod killer and advertise 100,000 songs! That's 10x as many songs as a 40GB ipod!

so they added mp3 support. I bet the 30 hour battery life takes a massive hit when you're playing a 128kbit file (instead of their ideal 48kbit one).

i try to stick up for sony. some things they do very well, but they're always pushing their proprietary formats (microsoft does the same thing) and it's a major buzzkill.

Yes. In fact, the original Net-HD that they released only played the ATRAC3 format and there were so many complaints that they released the mp3 support patch.

I have played with this a bit, but I still prefer the operation of the iPod. I don't own either but I have had experience with both and if I were to choose, I would definitely go with the iPod. Apple has perfected the whole iPod user interface. In fact, with the new 'photo' iPod, you can tell that they are trying to expand the 'useability' since they have nowhere else to go on the operational front.

Rio Karma!

plays FLAC and ogg