Past weekend I had an opportunity to swing by the Tyson’s Corner mall which houses one of the SonyStyle stores in DC area. Prior to my visit, I gave them a call to find out if they had any new Walkman X series on sale and was informed that, they do not have any for sale, however there is one demo model available to play with. I figured I would spend some time with it and post my initial impressions.

Frankly, I was anticipating to see this new creation of Sony to be situated in the store where people would be able to see it right away and be able to check it out. After browsing around and checking out the area, I noticed it was sitting next to their pricey VAIO RT desktop on a charging cradle. I was like OK, so much for marketing. So I sat down comfortably on a chair and started to explore that lil wonder.

First off all, like many have mentioned, built quality is great, the granite surface makes it stand out, buttons are well situated. I checked out the firmware and it was at 1.0 version. The OLED screen, well it is OLED! After being spoiled with XEL-1 at home, I could tell the joy of using such a screen overwhelmed me somewhat, there is one little but…the screen size needs to be slightly bigger. It is perfect for the first gen model, however bigger screen would bring all the benefits of OLED technology even more. Just watch MS Zune and future Apple Touch and its OLED players, will definitely feature bigger screens. Resolution has been also somewhat crippled on it as it can handle more goodies, but frankly it is not that noticeable on a 3″ display.

The good old Walkman menu is very responsive and worked flawlessly for me. Navigating through options was easy, however if I were to go back on step in some areas, there was no back button option, you had to tap on List, then Up option. I jumped on YouTube and checked out its functionality, and it worked as advertized. Web access on this Walkman is …well it is OK, I could not see myself browsing the net or checking my email on that player. One thing that many users might not like is the absence of onscreen QWERTY keyboard. Text input is very similar to your phone text input which I find very cumbersome, though predictive text is there to help you along the way. Sony definitely needs to incorporate QWERTY which will call for bigger screen in order to be able to use it.

I did not bother testing the FM radio as I am not interested in using it, maybe if the HD Radio was an option, I’d try it. Video playback was awesome, as I tested some of the preloaded samples. Same with Music, cover flow is nice but it did not show up right away if you tap Music.

What is this player missing? I believe it is the social media factor, that Sony has been pushing within its corporation. There is no way for you to install an App like you would on an Apple Touch, all those perks can be added through firmware if Sony chooses to improve its player. Unfortunately there is no way to download music or videos on the go as well, you would need your computer. It needs access to PlayStation Store where Sony has been compiling loads of video content, but Walkman is not a part of PlayStation family, so there is a conflict of interests here?! What happened to “Sony United” chant that has been proposed by sir Stringer?

I would also love to see this player to be DLNA compatible and be able to serve music or pick it up from your local network server. WebRadio like Shoutcast or Pandora would not hurt this Walkman at all. I did not test the Slacker Radio, sorry guys. All in all it needs to be a networkable player.

My title for this post did mention SonyStyle experience statement and I wanted to share it with you as well. Frankly, there was none… here is why. I have approached and played with that Walkman twice for over 10 minutes each time. No SonyStyle employee came by and asked me what I thought about it or whether I had any questions (which I did not mind as I knew all about this player long before Sony introduced it to the market, however if I was working there and saw someone spending time with a product, I’d be all over that customer). I figured I’d ask them myself and here is a little convo that went between us:

- Are there any Walkman X series available for sale?

The SonyStyle dude said, “None, in stock. We don’t expect them to go on sale for a while”.

- Pretty strange…SonyStyle.com has been shipping it for a week now. – I answered.

The employee pondered for a while and had to ask someone else about Walkman’s destiny in that store. I just felt like certain staff there was pretty indifferent. It was an evening time, on a Saturday, so I understand… I went to Apple, the store was buzzing……..as usual.