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Sony NW-608 "Special Edition" comes with "Special price tag"
comment: 14 | Wednesday, November 02 (2005) 07:59AM | Posted by Robert Sinke
Japanese dudes and dudettes seem to take a liking towards "special editions" of existing DAPs every so often.

And so, here's the NW-608 SI: 2GB worth of flash memory at the size of yer regular NW-507 yet with a special casing (silver-like brushed chrome material, so it seems) and... tadaaa... a "holographic logo". Sony also added "snow crystals" to the OLED screen, whatever that might imply.

The NW-608 SI comes in two versions (gift boxes, silver & black respectively) and will cost a whopping 52k5 Japanese Yen. Now you know one shouldn't convert prices from Yen to Dollar directly... but this one's just too brutal: "That'll be 450 US Dollar, please"... Ouch . But hey, just jumpstart the ol' Gulfstream and hop over to Japan - these things will be available by the end of this month.

LINK (Babel'd Japanese)
Comments

Roach

Comments: 48
 		Nov 02 (2005) 08:05AM  

eventhough i'll NEVER buy anything like this , it is really nicely designed , really stylistic...
erm, that's all i guess



ZaphodB
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
Comments: 129
 		Nov 02 (2005) 08:09AM  

It does look very nice, though I kinda wonder about the wisdom of having a white UI on a silver background. Nonetheless. Between this and those purple monstrosities, it seems as though Sony's taken a bit of a turn towards the monochromatic.



Steve

Comments: 1197
 		Nov 02 (2005) 08:47AM  

It looks like a suppository.



debilio

Comments: 192
 		Nov 02 (2005) 09:23AM  

I'll take two please



undesign

Comments: 786
 		Nov 02 (2005) 11:14AM  

Looks like Sonys somewhat brought back "Qualia"

Very nice design.



Philip_0729

Comments: 22
 		Nov 02 (2005) 12:20PM  

I think snow flakes refers to a screen saver, my sister has a 507 and that has bubbles, aquarium, stars, etc...



X-Nemesis

Comments: 56
 		Nov 02 (2005) 12:34PM  

hmm...2gig for $450 US....BWAHAAHAHAHA



radicalmms
Location: Ajman, United Arab Emirates
Comments: 24
 		Nov 02 (2005) 01:20PM  

Not that there's anything wrong with this player, but Sony has this really bad habit of overcharging and locking people in properitery systems.



undesign

Comments: 786
 		Nov 02 (2005) 01:34PM  

radical: proprietery? it isnt, it fully supports MP3 without needing to convert choons to ATRAC.



Jamin7489

Comments: 55
 		Nov 02 (2005) 05:46PM  

Now that looks nice tune down the price and offer 4gb for a coffortable 220 and u got yourself a costomer



Allen
Location: Dub Vee Ooo
Comments: 1511
 		Nov 02 (2005) 07:36PM  

Customer and I agree with jamin... this could be a good player... if it offered more... for a cheaper price... and support ogg vorbis :p



mizna

Comments: 1
 		Nov 02 (2005) 11:12PM  

Babel doesn't translate the article very well, but the price is for a pair of 608.
That's right. It's 2 for $450 (you can't buy them separately).
And you can engrave some messages (up to 15 characters) on each.
[Linky]

Still expensive though.



Tokyorob

Comments: 13
 		Nov 03 (2005) 09:04AM  

a bit on the pricey side ...

I have 1Gb one it's suprising how good the controls are on this .. really hard to mark the finish on these players unlike some others

If it was just a 4Gb version .....

Rob
----------------
Living it up somewhere in japan.....


Solinde

Comments: 1
 		Nov 10 (2005) 01:48AM  

Thanks mizna for clarifying. I was initially outraged by the idea of $450 for 2 GB. Now I can be slightly miffed by the idea of $450 for two 2 GB devices.

The metal part of the casing is "brushed" aluminum or similar in this edition, as opposed to the plain "smooth" zinc on the E400/500... but who even cares about that, eh?

Hmm... black and silver? This reminds me of the Japanese version of Valentine's Day (the custom engravings option supports my theory). In Japan, on Valentine's Day, the girls send dark chocolates to the guys they like. On a later date - a sort of Valentine's Day, Part 2 - the guys then send white chocolates in return to the girls they like. Interesting, eh? These players hardly look like chocolates, but hey, maybe I'm on to something... or not...

I personally have a NW-E407 (Rose Red). I love it to bits (and I've even opened it up to put in my own snippets of cellophane, to change the colour of the OLED display, which probably voids my warranty, but is fun!). The OLED, however, is utterly useless in outdoor light. These NW-E608s are supposed to have "improved OLEDs" (I read that in an article elsewhere - I've been Googling for this product) so I wonder how that'll work out, particularly with the silver background... hopefully they'll have addressed that issue in these "Winter Edition" models.

As for the Snowflake screensaver (or, as Sony calls them, "Display Screen"s) - no big deal. It's just a different, exclusive screensaver.

About that: a few months ago, I personally e-mailed Sony asking if they would release the dev tools for making custom NWM files (Display Screen files, just like the "Stardust" and "Aquarium" ones they've put up for download). Their response was, essentially, "Thanks so much for contacting us! Now bugger off, we don't need your suggestions, we have extensive market researchers who are getting paid to decide what people want." Yeah, real helpful. Anyway, I figure that someone someday will figure out how to make NWM files, and then eventually it'll be possible to offer the Snowflake DS to users through modding communities. If Sony won't move to support it, good old hackers will accomplish it eventually. So, in theory, nothing software-side can remain "exclusive" forever. Heck, do we really need a Snowflake Display Screen to begin with?

Anyway. Is it worth the price? Sure, if you're a style freak like me, and have the chance to visit Japan. Oh, and someone to give the second one to (although I'd keep both of them - that's 4 GB in my pocket). Otherwise, there's probably not much point to getting this over the regular A608 models.



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