Sony takes on Ipod

JAPANESE GIANT Sony, which in the 1980s filled buses and trains with wide eyed kids listening to what appeared to be crackling rice crispies in their ears, has decided to take on Apple in the 21st century.

In a move that many are see as a serious competitor to Apple's Ipod, Sony has released a Walkman which can store up to 13,000 songs on a 20-gigabyte, 1.8-inch micro drive.

The Sony NW-HD1 promises 30 hours of playback on a rechargeable battery.

Sony claims the portable player is the smallest of its class. It is smaller and lighter than the iPod's 15-, 20- and 40-gigabyte models, although it is slightly larger than the 4-gigabyte iPod Mini. It will cost $400 and hit the shops in mid-August, say Sony.

After the success of the Walkman and the Diskman Sony had been unsuccessfully peddling its mini-disk players to an audience that could not be bothered.

While there are iPod clones in the market, Sony has considerable amounts of cash, and expertise in this area, which means that Apple could be given a run for its money.

The problem is the new NW-HD1 only plays songs in the company's proprietary ATRAC format. This is currently unpopular, incompatible with other online stores and cannot play MP3 tunes. µ