[usurp]

where did this come from?? I was just at the SonyStyle website when I found the Walkman Bean. The MP3 player looks really cool but the coolest thing about it is the built-in USB connector! So you can use the Walkman as a flash memory drive and a MP3 player. A full charge also lasts 50 hours! A 3 minute charge will give you a 3 hour charge! They come in funky colors and the most expensive one, the 1GB is only $149! The only downside, the ONLY downside is the fact that it doesn�t play AAC files.. but I guess I could get over that�

i really wanted an iPod nano but with the problems people have been reporting i dont feel too comfortable getting it..

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...ory&Dept=audio

update: scroll down in the link to the bean.

[Brad]

Moving to Third-Party Products.

[usurp]

thats a different one. I am talking about this:

[chucker]

Originally Posted by usurp The MP3 player looks really cool but the coolest thing about it is the built-in USB connector! So you can use the Walkman as a flash memory drive and a MP3 player.

You mean like with the iPod shuffle. Or any other iPod. Or, for that matter, pretty much any digital portable music player from the past few years.

A full charge also lasts 50 hours! A 3 minute charge will give you a 3 hour charge!

Nice, granted. For when you're flying to the moon, for example. Takes a while to come back. Oh wait, you said 50 hours, not 50 months.

They come in funky colors and the most expensive one, the 1GB is only $149!

1 GB for $149! Woah, I've seen that before... let me think... Was it the iPod random? The iPod unsure?



I don't envy your taste.

[dviant]

Bleh those things are bulbously ugly. Do they come with their own Hello Kitty� stickers or do you have to buy those seperately?

[turtle]

Not that I want one, but if the battery life is really that good it would be worth it over a Shuffle. My Shuffle lasts me for a couple of days use in my car being on and off, but nothing close to 50 hours. More like 11-14 at best.

[usurp]

the shuffle is cool and my wife has one but Apple is like so main stream and i want something different. secondly this has a screen the shuffle doesnt. thirdly i am sure this won't give me as much hell as the shuffle when it comes to connecting to different computers. i have problems connecting the shuffle to the macs at home yet alone trying to connect it to pcs and macs at the office.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by usurp thirdly i am sure this won't give me as much hell as the shuffle when it comes to connecting to different computers.

And why do you think that? The iPod shuffle uses a standardized protocol to mount on the computer. I've never had trouble using my iPod mini on Windows 2000, Windows XP or Mac OS X, be it over FireWire or USB 2, and no, I never had to install a single driver.

i have problems connecting the shuffle to the macs at home yet alone trying to connect it to pcs and macs at the office.

I doubt the problems were on the shuffle's end.

[usurp]

well the shuffle has problems on my powermac. it won't work for example if i connect it to the keyboard. it wont work with my iogear usb2 card. it would only mount if i connect it to the standard usb 1 ports. its a common issue with shuffle users. i read many people having problems like me on the official apple forum thingy. everything else works fine with my usb ports.

at my parents place the shuffle would sometimes mount on my mums pc, sometimes it wouldn't. on my sisters pc it doesnt mount at all.

update: i also never had problems connecting my ipod mini to various computers. its the shuffle that has problems.

[usurp]

oh and i cant listen to the shuffle at work. it only connects to one computer if i want to listen to the mp3s on it.

[usurp]

ok, i just read on the E407, the higher end model and it turns out u can only copy songs onto the mp3 player using some stupid sony software. its not drag and drop which means the walkman bean is probably like that which means it sucks..

[octavist13]

And you already have a blue iPod mini with Shure E2s anyways.

[Robo]

I'd get the Bean (or, really, a myriad of other audio players) over the iPod shuffle...but the iPod nano has pretty much stolen my heart. It's perfect - small size, flash capacity, no stupid SonicStage software required.

The iPod shuffle is great as a USB drive that also plays music, but as an actual audio player? Not so much. I guess I'd consider it if the 1GB model cost $99 (and if I had more need for a USB drive).

[usurp]

i sold my blue mini so i could buy the ipod nano. then i was gonna get the bean but now it seems i am back to the nano.

[drewprops]

Hey, the Sony Bean isn't all that bad looking, but if it doesn't play nice with iTunes then what's the point? I'm actually curious: how many 3rd-Party MP3 players still work with iTunes these days? Back when iTunes was an OS 9.x app it would work with a pretty nice range of players but in the iPod-dominated world of today that might not be the case. I suppose there's a list of compatible players out there somewhere... and somebody keeps telling me that Google is my friend, maybe I should go a-googlin'.

If it turns out that there are still a nice big whack of MP3 players that work with iTunes then fie on Sony for being Sony. WHY do these companies have such small penises that they feel that they have to stick to proprietary formats? Don't they know who we are now? There's precious few of us left who are absolutely loyal to any manufacturer... forcing us to sharecrop on their farms isn't going to engender any further loyalty at this point.

[usurp]

i mean if i could drag and drop mp3s onto the Bean that would be great. I would just drag and drop from itunes into the bean (if bean showed up as a external harddrive).

but yeah why is Sony being so small minded. Its hard enough they got to try and move people away from the ipod onto their players but why also force us to leave itunes?! i am sure if they opened up their mp3 players a bit more people would be interested in them.