I don't have any specs and haven't seen it for myself, but a coworker went to CES and got to look at the unit and talk to a Sony rep first hand.
He said that in terms of specs, it sounded promising - but once he started to find out how it actually worked, he was a little disappointed.
Some of the things he mentioned:
- The memory stick slot can only be used to transfer files from the hard drive to a memory stick (but not vice versa). I wonder if it will allow putting MP3s on regular memory sticks (blue) or only the MagicGate ones (white) for copy protection reasons.
EDIT: Now that I see the Pionner thread... it seems pretty likely the Sony unit would also only work with MagicGate memory sticks as well. And probably also uses the same ATRAC format internally (since this is Sony afterall
. More things to ask my coworker.
- The only way to get music onto the hard drive with the CES unit was to put a CD in and let the player rip/encode it.
- The unit at CES had a USB port, but it was not functional (the Sony rep said there were no supporting electronics inside of the CES unit). It wasn't clearly stated whether it would be in the future and what you would be able to do with it. But if Sony is showing the unit with a USB port.... you would think they plan to have it available and working on the consumer released model.
Not sure how useful the USB port would be to the typical consumer though anyway since this is the more common 'fixed chassis with detachable face' design.... meaning you need to have a laptop, some sort of wireless USB bridge, or a way to easily pull the unit and make it work in your house to actually use the port for transferring mass amounts of music. Unless Sony makes that a USB host interface so you could use a portable USB drive or something to download music in the car. I didn't ask my coworker what type of USB port the unit had... but I will now.
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