Confessions from a Walkman devotee. How long can a fan hold on?

Dear Sony, when are you due for a Walkman X upgrade?

Often I ask myself this question, yet I can never be sure whether a new Walkman is in the works. Nobody really knows if Sony have completely given up on the Walkman, the X series I mean. Will there still be a market for standalone PMPs in around 5 years time? Questionable. My Walkman X1060 isn't getting old or dilapidated by any means, in actual fact I can proudly say it's in pristine condition. My leather case has protected my little baby well. But why do I always search Walkman in Google news to see what rumors have sparked regarding an upgrade. I guess, it's just the comfort I'm seeking of knowing what my next media player will be once my Walkman really does go down the drain.

...Perhaps I should tell you the story from the start.

3 years ago I was the proud owner of a Sony Ericsson Walkman W880i phone, if you're familiar with the 'About Me' section of this blog you would know exactly the phone I'm talking about. That very phone served me from late 6th grade through to mid 8th grade as my primary music player. With its 1GB M2 micro memory card, the little in-ear Sony Ericsson buds and that booming Megabass EQ function, that phone kept me rocking all that time, my boredom buddy I would call it. Yes I know, 1GB was enough for me at the time, how many songs could a 7th grader have? As time progressed though, I started to feel like some sort of outcast. All my mates had their iPod nanos and those ubiquitous white buds while here I was rocking my 1 gig worth of tracks on a Sony Ericsson handset. Like the normal kid I was, I succumbed to the pressure and bought an iPod, an iPod Touch. How quickly I went from just the ordinary phone guy to the one with the iPod was astonishing. Back in that time the iPod Touch was a rare specimen in our school, I believe I was the first one in the year level to get one. I would have mates scrambling around me often to try out that cool app: iBowl, Tap Tap Revenge, Crash Kart, old classics like that. I would even have kids I had never talked to or affiliated myself with come up to me for a spin on the Touch. But over time the cool appeal faded. Everybody had an iPod Touch, apps lost their usefulness and jailbreaking took the satisfaction and joy out of purchasing apps.

And I was missing my booming Megabass.

Then strolled in Walkman A729, my first dedicated Sony media player. Oh, the sound! Boy I missed the bliss of quality sound after using that iPod. That booming bass, those fantastic rubber tip earbuds. But how an upgrade could be such a downgrade! I took for granted the convenience of a browser on a mobile device, I took for granted so many functions on my iPod that I overlooked when I had it in my possession. The dictionary I missed the most. Oh, the arduousness of flipping through an actual dictionary. With my Walkman A729, I felt unique that's for sure, but along with that I felt regressed somewhat. I had thrown away all the perks of the Touch and gone back to the bare basics of music, video and photos. And a clock. How could I enjoy the sound quality of owning a Walkman, yet still enjoy the extra perks that my Touch had offered? I knew that I couldn't quite have it all, there had to be some kind of compromise somewhere. Walkman X was my first viable option, it had the internet browsing, touch screen and Youtube, and as far as my research concluded still had the same legendary sound quality I had expected from my experiences with Walkman A729. And like a cherry on the cake it had Digital noise cancelling to top it off. Timely as a sparrow at dawn I spotted a great deal on eBay, and prancing in came Walkman X1060. 12 movies, a TV season and 1500 songs later, here I am today.
The proud owner of a Walkman X series.

There's about 3 years of my life summed up in a lengthy couple of paragraphs. I hope you get the gist. I've never been afraid of voicing my devotion to the Walkman, however that has changed of late. I'm still a fan but lately I've felt that I'm only devoted to the brand and not so much the product itself. I have absolutely no problem in saying I'm a proud owner of a Walkman but every time I pull the contraption out of my pocket, the feeling doesn't quite equate.

I have received an innumerable number of inquisitions over why I didn't just get an iPod Touch instead. The apps and the whole iTunes ecosystem is so bloody tempting. There is no way I could possibly counter iOS's enormous ecosystem of content. What could I say about the Walkman? Well it has great sound quality and it...it...has an OLED screen and it...well yeah. Here I am defending a brand that I've been solely devoted to for the last three years when really there is nothing of fundamental value there to defend. I was a fanboy by all means and perhaps I still am. Fanboys are blind, and now I realise how blind I really was. I look back and I see that sacrificed so much just to get behind a brand and a product that I was so mindlessly in love with.

Had I stuck with the iPod instead perhaps things would be so much different. I haven't touched that horrific browser on the Walkman in months, I would rather wait for a computer to boot if I wanted to Google something. At least I have the comfort of knowing that it will be able to render correctly the sites I will be visiting. Not to mention that diabolical keypad on the Walkman. The real world practicality of apps is questionable but perhaps I would be doing so many things in a more mobile manner and more efficiently with the iPod. The Walkman X's limited capabilities don't help with anything besides enjoying my media. How many times have I shamefully asked to use someone else's iPod or iPhone to briefly check something up, or even worse, to play an app? Numerous times, and all that time they're probably thinking: 'sucked in bud, should've got an iPod'.

I was fully aware of the Walkman's limitations before I purchased it. I can't recall what was going through my head when I made my mind and settled on the Walkman, but I guess I figured, it's a great price on eBay, when the new Walkman comes out I'll just sell the X back and hopefully break even. Then of course purchase the new one which would hopefully be awesome. It seemed like a pretty hole-proof plan, I did overlook one hole though. That was if Sony never made a new Walkman. Well right now, air is seeping through that one hole, and its getting larger and larger.

Sony knows what the fans want: a proper browser, apps, a comparable experience to what the iPod Touch is offering. But instead they mock us, chucking out irrelevant junk like the E series and the S series. The only decent offering being the A series, which satanically isn't available in the states and has been removed from the market here in Australia. The Xperia phones are nice aren't they, but I've already got a phone, I'm not a mountain of money. Not to mention the Xperia phones don't even carry Walkman brandng for their music players - no thank you says Walkman fan. Additionally a dedicated Walkman phone doesn't appeal to any of us, because it's just not the same, it doesn't offer the legendary sound quality we've all been spoilt with and it's really just fan bait. I get the feeling that Walkman phones only take advantage of the loyalty of Walkman users.

'Oh, our smartphone business is a little down, don't worry we'll chuck a 'W' on one of those phones and those fanboy suckers will be salivating more than a twelve year old reading Twilight.' 

There's nothing differentiating in terms of their functionality, they just have a nice orange 'W' slapped on. Sony I hate to tell you, but your Walkman devotees have a sweet bevy of alternatives at their hands: Zune HD, certain Cowon models... We're not readily just going to pick up a Zune and just ditch the Walkman. But Sony's tempting an exodus.

It's confusing, what do they want to do with the Walkman. Are they just going to ditch a brand that literally carried them for 30 odd years, one of their most famous and beloved brands thrown into the dust just like that? Are they really that morally deficient? I don't know, perhaps for the sake of business sense. Nobody can know what's going inside the heads of the Walkman department at Sony HQ, but I think they're confused. Stuck between saving an old brand, or utilising other methods to get themselves started in portable entertainment. But all this time while they're stuck deciding, my Walkman X gets older and older. New iOS and Android devices keep on pouring in, pushing my Walkman further and further behind the times. In a few years time my Walkman will be like the tortoise in the the tortoise and the hare, but this time, the hare never stops. Yet, when my Walkman's time is up and no new quality Walkman comes out...I'm in uncharted waters.

Do I think Sony's going to roll out a new Walkman? No, but I still want one all the same. I'm hesitating in getting a new PMP or maybe a smartphone simply because there is still an inkling of hope I will be able to enjoy Walkman again in a beefy new flavour. If I make the leap and switch somewhere else, I would sorely miss the sound, and the Digital Noise Cancelling. But do these features and that 'W' logo really measure up against the sacrifices I've had to make to obtain them. I used to think so, but in a growing and expanding age I'm beginning to doubt it now. Zune HD will give me great sound with some apps and a decent browser. iPod Touch will give me everything with forgiveable sound. And an Android smartphone will give me everything too, with decent sound also I suspect. Perhaps it's time to make the leap, I'm beginning to think waiting for a new Walkman won't bear me any fruits.

I don't regret my purchase of the Walkman X mind you. It's a great media player and the noise cancelling has really assisted in shutting up the noisy private school snobs on the tram. However when it's time for upgrade and there really is no upgrade, I have no choice but to jump ship. It doesn't leave me, a Walkman diehard in a good place, to me, it's a moral dilemma. I take this stuff too personally. In the face of stiff competition and continual releases of new devices, the limitations and sheer backwardness of Walkman X really come to light. Thus I've come to the realisation and many other anxious Walkman fans that we can't let the connection for the 'W' hold us back any further. How can we expect to cling on and have faith in a brand that really doesn't have any faith in itself.

I'm sticking with Walkman X for now, it's not the time yet. But remember Sony, time to get the act together, or you're losing me too...