Sony X1000 Walkman Pricing Surfaces in Hong Kong

Pricing for the much anticipated NWZ-X1000 has surfaced on Sony Hong Kong website, and it's not pretty. The 32GB will retail for $3680 ($471 USD), and the 16GB for $2780 ($356 USD). Local Sony has started to accept pre-orders, and both PMP models will begin shipping in late May. Considering how competitive the PMP market is in area, we believe the X1000 to be priced similarly in the US. To put the prices into perspective, the X1060 (32GB) and X1050 (16GB) cost about $70 and $57 USD more than the iPod touch 2G of the same capacity.

You could argue Sony has a gorgeous 3" OLED, superb battery life (33 hrs. music, 9 hrs. video), and a decent pair of nose canceling headphones as well as a host of audio fidelity enhancements, but the X1000-series may have a harder time winning back some iPod touch fanboys when their beloved PMP can run Need for Speed at full 3D and make long distance call with Skype. What we are most concerned about is the video playback compatibility (max. 2GB file size - 768kbps bit-rate at QVGA for H.264... sigh) and the Netfront browser rendering speed. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

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