Back to Vintage: Sony’s New Walkman, Price, Availability and Key Specs

Shaun
Jan 16, 2023
Hardware
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12

Sony has released several new models of Walkman over the years, including digital audio players with features such as high-resolution, audio playback, wireless connectivity, and touchscreens. Sony has updated features and technology to compete with other portable music players on the market. 

Out with the old, in with the new. The fresh addition to Sony’s Walkman family is known as the NW-A306. This is a model that comes 44 years after Sony released its original walkman which was a cassette player. If you’re a millennium baby you probably don’t know what I am talking about. Sony has put an end to carrying a bunch of cassettes by digitizing their new products.

With over 400 million Walkmans sold by Sony, you probably want to stay with us as we unravel this new creation that Sony has unleashed. We will take a look at the full specifications of the new Walkman and give you an idea of how much you have to pay to get one. 

Vintage is back with Sony’s New Walkman

https://routenote.com/blog/sony-walkman-nw-a306/ 

I can safely say the NW-A306 is quite the looker with an aluminium shell, clickable playback controls and a 3.6-inch touchscreen. The screen is a TFT color display with a white LED back-light. 

It also comes with amazing audibility with wired headphones, giving you the ultimate listening experience. Just like its older players, the Sony player doesn’t have the DAC chip that their rivals have. It generates the signal for its source file/stream directly. It has a longer battery life as well. Sony rated it at 36 hours of playtime. 

The new Walkman comes with AI assist and DSEE software with a Bluetooth playback engine that restores compressed audio files to their former excellent format. 

The battery can be recharged with a USB-C socket, found at the bottom of the player. You can also find a micro SD card slot. Onboard the NW-A306 is 32GB although almost half of it is dedicated to apps and the operating system meaning you can only load about 18 GB of music on it without an SD card.

The Sony NW-A306 also comes with wireless connectivity to stream from your favorite sites such as Spotify. This opens up the world of music to you as a listener and takes your listening experience to greater heights with unlimited access to all genres of music. 

Here is a recap of the features of the Sony NW-A306: 

  • 3.6-inch touchscreen TFT color display with white LED
  • Aluminium cover 
  • 36 hours playtime
  • Bluetooth playback
  • AI Assist
  • C-type charger 
  • Internal Memory- 32GB (18GB)
  • Micro SD card Slot 
  • Android OS
  • Wireless Wi-Fi connectivity

The next question is: How much does it cost? The Sony NW-A360 comes reasonably priced at around $350. It is available in all online and physical Sony stores worldwide. If you don’t have a Sony store near you you could always order online and have it shipped to you.

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Comments

  1. talmudic tyranny said on January 18, 2023 at 5:10 am
    Reply

    whats needed is a successor to the SanDisk Sansa Clip+ that will run Rockbox

    these things are going for $50 and higher, used, on Ebay but the clips eventually break so you have to keep buying them

    all newer versions of small MP3 players either dont have a clip or wont run Rockbox

  2. basingstoke said on January 17, 2023 at 6:21 pm
    Reply

    Nothing wrong with a music-dedicated device if it’s small and portable (modern phones aren’t!), although I don’t think it succeeds in that regard anyway.

  3. Someone said on January 17, 2023 at 5:17 pm
    Reply

    Android. Why to go on 32GB walkman, when we have 256GB and +, smartphones ?

    1. basingstoke said on January 17, 2023 at 6:21 pm
      Reply

      Nothing wrong with a music-dedicated device if it’s small and portable (modern phones aren’t!), although I don’t think it succeeds in that regard anyway.

      1. Someone said on January 17, 2023 at 10:48 pm
        Reply

        In my opinion, I prefer, home streaming locally/internet content, android has multiple solutions for easy streaming, and Linux also, of course. Walkman is just an artistic choice for those who collect devices of music intustry. I like Walkman’s ease and style, but its not for my pocket.

      2. basingstoke said on January 18, 2023 at 10:45 am
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        Well, it seems we are quite different, then. I only have my local files on my PC, (I don’t stream audio). If I was at home, I see no use of using a mobile phone.

        The idea of something like a walkman, seems to be to be able to listen to music “on the go”, when you aren’t at home. Having a compact, high quality device, for such an occasion would be very good (transferring tagged audio to the device with SD card) – but this product isn’t impressive enough to deserve buying.

        It’s roughly the same size as my phone, so would make very little difference to me – plus my phone is fully repairable whilst this thing isn’t !

  4. basingstoke said on January 17, 2023 at 10:29 am
    Reply

    No big headphone jack? USB-C port? Wireless connectivity? These are some bad things!

    …Also how repairable is it? The ports, the battery, the screen?

    My problem is often with the UI of these things – the end game of a decent standalone audio player should be fully customisable UI, imagine how indispensable that would be! The default music app that Samsung made for android 4.4.2 has been one of my favourite things for years now, even the music app in newer samsung phones is somehow worse and lacking the same features.

    Imagine a foobar2000 style layout design, where people can make, export, import themes, etc. You can even write the logic of how folders, sorting, metadata processing, etc, works. Maybe even add plugins that are made afterwards (maybe by 3rd parties if it’s an open standard), like you can add support for niche formats, etc.

    Now THAT, would be a huge thing and massively worth buying, if anyone could do it, it would be Sony.

    …Also there’s no reason why it can’t be waterproof too, of which there is no mention of in the article. If you’re going to try and justify a standalone audio player, make it compelling to people!

  5. boris said on January 17, 2023 at 1:44 am
    Reply

    Sony NW-A360 comes reasonably priced at around $350.

    I do not think so. I can buy decent Android phone for $400 with more memory.

  6. Mr. Dolby said on January 17, 2023 at 12:14 am
    Reply

    Yeah and no info on the max size of the MicroSD card anywhere. If it’s less than 1TB this product is complete garbage.

  7. Benjamin said on January 16, 2023 at 11:02 pm
    Reply

    The battery is user changeable?

    1. Jody Thornton said on January 17, 2023 at 1:23 am
      Reply

      I don’t think so. It seems to be a glorified Android Phone. Techmoan reviewed one of these on YouTube. Great Channel, but this device doesn’t interest me. It seems like an Android/Sony response to the now defunct iPod Touch

  8. HelpDeskUntiliDie said on January 16, 2023 at 10:24 pm
    Reply

    Oh, I get it, now. Shaun just recycling articles of his own from the linked website in all his articles. Brilliant.

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