Sony’s Walkman range of personal music players may have been a fashion accessory in certain circles from their inception, but the new NW-A35 Walkman is made to be the most aesthetically pleasing Walkman yet, while also bringing a wealth of new features to the range. The newest member of the Walkman family features special POSCAP capacitors that power a system meant to cut down on distortion on the software side, delivering the clearest possible sound to just about any pair of headphones. A pair of clock oscillators helps to eliminate magnetic interference, making the sound even more clear and crisp. Support for DSD and other types of lossless file formats is also on board. The new music player also boasts NFC and Bluetooth connectivity, able to pair up instantly to any NFC-enabled Bluetooth headphones or speakers.
The Walkman NW-A35 features a 3.1 inch touchscreen, paired up with plenty of buttons to give the user precise control over the music. The frame wraps around from the screen in much the same way as the design of the Xperia X Compact. The buttons stay strictly on the sides for maximum comfort, style, and control. The intuitive user interface helps in managing the library, connecting to audio output devices, and otherwise keeping the device in check.
The battery life on the newest Walkman is nothing to sneeze at. Normal music will net you about 45 hours of playback on a single charge, while listening to higher bitrate and lossless tracks using all of the high-resolution audio bells and whistles that the NW-A35 has to offer will see you getting about 30 hours of playback on a charge. 16GB of storage is on board, with a MicroSD card slot in the mix to expand the available memory and make room for tons of lossless music. Being as much a fashion accessory as a music player, the NW-A35 is available in a range of colors. These include cinnabar red, viridian blue, charcoal black, lime yellow, and bordeaux pink. The NW-A35 should go on sale some time in February of this year, priced at about €220. A variant called the NW-A35HN isn’t much different, except that it comes with a pair of high-resolution earbuds with noise reduction, and raises the price to €300.