It is supposed to launch this spring, with the product in the OP supposedly launching this month.

twestrem has a point, the new shuffle despite its short comings has already increased sales of its unit moniker by 50% what its predecessor was doing. that is in a market where mp3 players as a whole are down 23% YoY others in the ipod family excluding the iphone are having a smiler trend to the market, this product might sell well but will always be hampered by not being an ipod, and the lingering effects of the sony rootkit debacle. also, I swear ive seen this layout before but i cant remember who from ... oh well

@Euphoria

we are all isheep my friend.Doesn't matter if another simillar product is better or worse.I own a 16 GB Ipod touch myself.:P

But i might very well buy the OP walkman for my gym days.

Eh, I'm not sure I'd see a point in wanting an iPod shuffle... Then again, I'm not a fan of iPods, especially when iTunes is thrown into the mix.

I'd rather buy a non-apple product. Zune is out of the question as well.

...... I wouldn't want one of those Sony walkmans either. Though since I don't go to the gym, I guess it doesn't matter. Though at the same time, I'd rather pick up a cheap MP3 player that would allow me to browse the music I have on there. In fact, perhaps something like this. I used to use a 512 meg mp3 player that had a similar look, but one of the buttons broke so I can only use it as a flash drive now.

I don't know about the sound quality because I'm not a huge sound person, but most other people aren't either.  Most people would rather choose what is trendy and anything starting with an "i" is trendy.

As for doing everything even the iPod touch can, not even close.  Other than the sound stuff the Sony thing looks like it has the touchscreen controls, music, and youTube.  The iTouch has all of that plus iTunes and access to many things on the App Store (which is why the iPhone and iTouch beats everything else).  Don't the 3G iTouch's have access to Safari too?

And then of course there's the iPhone.  I don't like Apple and I don't like Macs but the iPhone blew everything out of the water and made them seem like nothing.  Apple has the whole mobile and portable music market cornered at the moment and until someone makes something that even comes close to the iPhone and the App Store, it's staying that way.

but can i sync it to itunes?

another review for this product from trusted reviews:

8/10:

"I haven't done it for years, and after the hour or two it took me to recover I remembered why. Yet the NWZ-W202 deserved the effort, as my night-time run convinced me of what I'd already suspected: that this is the best audio player for active pursuits I've seen. "

http://www.trustedreviews.com/mp3/review/2009/04/05/Sony-Walkman-NWZ-W202/p1

I'm no iSheep.

I have always found them to be ridiculously overpriced for what they offer. I also find products like the OLED touch Walkman and iPod Touch to have too many features that I wouldn't care at all for on a music player. Which is why I never bought one.

These Walkman ear pieces in the OP are a completely different story though. No wire dangling down to my music player, easy shut down, quick charge speed and decent sized memory (I don't even know enough music to fill 2GB let alone work out long enough to listen to it all) for the same price as a product that requires annoying dangling wires scream "Buy me" to me.

Speaking of the product in the OP? It doesn't require iTunes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scandal

it was a nasty bit of software hope you didnt buy any of the disks that had it. dont know how you missed that man it was every where even congress which does jack got on sony ass