New Sony Walkman Bean is a Gas

August 18th, 2005

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Sony has released a new "ergonomic" flash-based Walkman called the Bean. The name is derived from the comfortable shape of the unit - curved to fit the hand.

The new Bean equips with a bright 1-line OLED display making navigation through track listings simple. Its Lithium-ion rechargeable battery can last up to 50 hours of playback, and with the hi-speed charging facility, you can get 3 hours of battery life from just a 3-min charge. The USB connector also simply folds out of the top of the unit for easy syncing.

Walkman Bean is available in the following colors: Tropical Ice (Blue), Cotton Candy (Pink), Licorice (Black) and Coconut (White). All colors take their inspiration from various flavors of jellybean, owing to the shape of the device.

Walkman Bean will be available in both 512MB and 1 GB capacity (NW-E205 and NW-E207). There will also be a 512 MB model with a built in FM tuner (NW-E305). We suppose that it's more appealing to have the colors based on jellybean flavors rather than black beans, pinto beans and the like. Hey - those beans allow us to make music without an MP3 player.

On the compatiblity side, the Walkman Bean plays back ATRAC3plus and MP3, and as with other Sony players, it ships with SonicStage 3.2 file management software. Pricing and availability have not yet been announced.

Filed under MP3 Players

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