Sony's PlayforSure S610 Walkman Means Death to ATRAC

After years of defiance, Sony finally bows to MS' PlayforSure in its likely last attempt to restart its struggling Walkman business. It will also start closing CONNECT online music stores by phase. So, for the first's PlayforSure player, the new NWZ-S610 DAP judging from the button layout and interface has borrowed a page from Sony Ericsson's cellphone design. It definitely looks more streamlined and more so with the exclusion of ATRAC meaning there will be no SonicStage to plague the player's usability.

In addition to DRM'd WMA and MP3 support, the S610 also playbacks AAC audio (unprotected), H.264/AVC and MPEG-4. Its screen is still rather small at 1.8" which will pack with 76,800 pixels (320x240 res). Battery life stands at 9.5 hours for video and 33 hours for music playback. The S610-series will come in 2GB ($120), 4GB ($160) and 8GB ($210). Lastly, we wonder why Sony didn't keep the non-DRM ATRAC3 support as its loyal fans may still have a sizable music library in the now-obsolete audio format.