The Walkman history has certainly come a long way. I could still vividly remember those nostalgic days back when I was still a young playful kid, during my primary school days, I kept playing with the tape recorder back at home, recording my own various stuffs, which they called it audioblogging or ‘podcasting’ in these days. The first Walkman stereo was originally invented by Sony and officially unveiled on June 22th, 1979. Since then the cassette stereo format has been generally replaced in favor of the digital technologies of CD, MiniDisc as well as flash or harddisk-based MP3 players, due to the technology obsolescence as the format slowly fades away.

Still, these days the word ‘Walkman’ has been widely used and associated with Sony’s own line of MD and Network HDD-DAPs. And in a few days time, I would be getting my first Sony DAP (read: digital audio player) with the recent release of the Sony HW-HD5 locally here. It was actually just launched in Japan last month and ever since I saw the pictures and info unveiled on various websites online, I have been waiting impatiently for its release here. I dropped by Sony Square at Funan yesterday when I was out with Jimmy, to check the availability for it and was told by the salesperson there that it has been officially launched as advertised on its website, but official stocks will only been in by next week. So I guess I would have to wait till next week to purchase it, will make sure I make a call before I go down first this time. The official SRP for it is S$499 with some sort of free speakers promotion. Well luckily it’s still within my budget, as I was estimating the launch price to be between $500 to $600 at least. And I have gotten word from Adam yesterday that he might be able to help me get staff discount for my purchase with his brother’s help (think his brother is working at Sony) though I wouldn’t bet on it but it’s quite nice of him actually. Here are some pictures I had found on some review sites of this cool and stylish portable HDD-DAP, do check it out.

As you can see, the form factor is slightly smaller than the iPod itself, and only slightly bigger than the iPod Mini I think. But what’s best about the features of this DAP is that it touts a 40-hours battery life with ATRAC3 playback, (read: ok most review sites did the review with MP3s and its around 30-hours instead, but still nevertheless impressive) an inverted OLED screen that switches accordingly to the device’s position, as well as a user-changeable rechargable battery. (unlike that sucky ipod non-changeable battery issue) The rest should be pretty standard, the weight is quite light too so no worries, audio format standards shouldn’t bother me too much since I only listen to my music collection in MP3 formats usually. I do my own CD ripping too, and since I would be using it while outdoors mainly, lossless or high-fidelity formats should be nothing more but a marketing gimmick to me. (though I wouldn’t deny that FLAC or OGG codecs support are nice touches as well)

Ok gonna go chill now and watch my Azumi 2: Death Or Love DVDrip. Probably will write more later or tomorrow. Nights everyone!