Tech

Sony unveils new digitized Walkman Can it live up to the brilliance of the original?


A man standing outside smiling listening to Sony Walkman NW-A306

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Sony is launching a new addition to its Walkman line, the NW-A306. This new model comes 44 years after Sony released the original Walkman, the TPS-L2, has changed the way we listen to music. Since its initial release, the Sony Walkman has sold over 400 million units, of which 200 million were cassettes.

But portable music players have come a long way from cassettes and high-speed copying, and Sony NW-A306 brings a huge amount of modernity to a piece of nostalgic technology.

Sony says the NW-A306 is designed for “connoisseurs looking for stylish and high-quality sound”, with a target audience of true music lovers.

The music player is true to its function, as users can only download music and subscription-based music streaming apps, like YouTube and Spotify. For now, the latest Walkman is only available in Europe starting this month.

The Walkman is compact and light, weighs 113 grams, has a 3.6-inch touchscreen, and offers Bluetooth connectivity. Listeners can enjoy up to 26 hours with the Walkman music service app and up to 36 hours of 44.1KHz FLAC playback.

Sony’s new Walkman uses artificial intelligence to enhance the quality of compressed digital music files, uses S-Master HX technology to reduce distortion, and uses reflow soldering to improve performance. sound positioning.

And for those especially nostalgic for their first Walkman, the NW-A306’s screensaver shows a cassette tape. Gone are the days of recording your favorite songs from the radio and into the Walkman, as users can download their favorite songs to the Walkman’s library.

Sony Walkman NW-A306 with lock screen showing ice on blue background

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But with the popularity of smartphones, what is the demand for music players? Last year, Apple has stopped making and selling the final version of the portable music playeriPod Touch.

Nowadays, everyone has a smartphone in their pocket so they can listen to music, watch videos, text and make calls from the same device. So why would anyone care about a $375 device that just plays music? The answer can be found in nostalgia and aesthetics.

Nostalgia sells no matter what generation you are

Even the oldest Millennials are too young to enjoy early versions of Sony’s Walkman, while older Generation Z feel nostalgic. iPod Shuffle and Nano. And research shows that although Elderly people grasp technologythey use it with a different frequency than younger people.

Of those who truly feel nostalgic for owning a Walkman again, how many are interested in buying a digitized version of a music player they remember using cassettes to listen to?

But that doesn’t mean young people don’t understand the allure of owning a Walkman. Walkmans remain a central piece of classic technology in modern movies and TV shows. Walkman portraits in movies and TV show the excitement and fascination of listening to your favorite song through the Walkman.

The characters are so connected to their Walkman that they will do anything to get them back when they are stolen or use Walkman to save them from an unfortunate death. It is clear that the Walkman is an integral part of young people’s culture, no matter what decade they lived in during adolescence.

The Walkman identifies the characters who listen to them. They can create playlists to convey their personalities, thoughts and feelings to us. So it makes sense for the nostalgic kids of the 70s and 80s to want to revisit their younger years, and for the younger generation to want to feel as cool as their favorite characters.

But Sony would have to pack all of the Walkman’s love into a Walkman-like device that people remember most fondly. A touchscreen and apps can recall cravings as a kid before smartphones arrived. Sony has a big pair of Air Jordans to fill the NW-A306.

The subtle confusion of legacy technology

But there’s another reason people love vintage tech: Aesthetics. Aesthetics is essential for young people, especially Gen Z. By creating your own aesthetic, you let people know how they should see you. And Gen Z especially likes it products and trends from previous eras.

Generation Z elders grew up with smartphones but still miss legacy technologies like disposable cameras, MP3 players, and portable DVD players. Younger Generation Z, whose legacy technology is Iphone 4are feeling overwhelmed by today’s technology — making some people even reject technology like cell phones All together.

And companies are paying attention. Legacy technology is repackaged into updated, more technologically advanced variants every year. The words flip phone-like smartphone arrive Bluetooth keyboard looks like typewriterThe new Walkman simply caught up with a popular trend.

Gen Z is increasingly interested in retro technology that allows them to get away from the all-in-one nature of smartphones while using legacy technology to define their aesthetics. Legacy technology reminds us that technology was once used to improve our real lives, not surpass them.

While listening to the Walkman on the train, you can focus on the music while still enjoying the train and enjoying main character moment, forever associate a particular playlist or song with your morning commute. In contrast, listening to music while mindlessly scrolling Twitter to pass the time is like noise that distracts your brain until you reach your destination.

Point and shoot camera preserve all your memories without making edit suggestions to make them more palatable to your Instagram followers. People still want to use technology but want to feel the human connection.

Technologies like the Walkman transcend generations and understandings of technology and define how we experience the world around us. There isn’t much in common between an 85-year-old and a 21-year-old, but both can appreciate what it feels like to share their favorite song with someone they love.

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