A new A-Series Walkman has appeared on the FCC, the NW-A50 and it is great to see Sony not giving up on the Walkman lineup. But one way Sony saves money is by having the same design for 2 walkman generations and this being the 5th gen, the A50 is likely receive a design change.
The new taller design is evident from the FCC photos, mimicking the design of the ZX300. Rumoured dimensions are a height of 100mm by 55.8 mm wide. This would make the A50 slightly taller than the current A40 but not as wide.
The capacity will once again be determined which region the device is sold, 16, 32 and 64GB will be on offer. If the ZX300 is not discontinued, then I suspect the EU and North America will only receive the 16GB model, while the 32 and 64GB models will probably be sold only in the Asia region. EU would once again receive a 16GB model with headphones and without headphones.
Battery capacity remains at 3.7V, so I would not expect any major jump in battery life, perhaps a few more hours due to newer less power hungry components. Bluetooth is a slight mystery, LE present as previously so if this means the standard v4.2 or Sony upgrading to v5.0.
I am not sure if Sony will add BT 5.0 but I feel Sony will stick to 4.2 LE due to cost reasons. Although, digging through the A40 FCC docs shows the MT6625LN for the bluetooth module and from what I can find, it did not come with BT 4.2 but 4.1 LE. The Amazon Echo uses the same chip and that also had BT 4.1 LE and not 4.2. So I do wonder how the A40 could have BT 4.2 when the chip it uses only supports up to 4.1, unless Mediatek has a version of the MT6625LN with BT 4.2 on board. It is interesting to note that the Mediatek chip does support Wifi, so I wonder if Sony would ever release a new A-Series with Wifi support. If anyone knows anymore please leave a comment.
It is interesting to note that this new A50 has appeared a full 2 months on the FCC versus the A40 (July 7th) so perhaps this is a sign that either more Walkmans will appear later (June/July) on the FCC and/or that the A50 will go on sale much earlier than the A40. As for a second interesting note, the ZX300 appeared at the end of July on the FCC, so perhaps any ZX300 successor can still appear.
More details as I receive them or find anything else but for now so far only one new Walkman for IFA, but I suspect something else could appear in the next few weeks or months on the FCC.
You can contact with any more details using the info on the contact page. Thanks.
Hello! I've been following your blog for some time now and finally got the
ReplyDeletebravery to go ahead and give you a shout out from Kingwood Tx!
Just wanted to mention keep up the fantastic work!
Cheers for the kinds words, much appreciated that there's a select group of walkman fans out there.
DeleteI hope the new walkman can be use just like bluetooth reciver or there is an app can control walkman through my phone
ReplyDelete(Jake Patel)
ReplyDeletehi, NW-A30(bt 4.2) doesn't able to change volume on most of my BT speakers, it's either max or OFF, for that only reason just got next generation NW-A45, hoping the issue should be fixed in next generation(did not update A30 firmware as thought its clearly a hardware problem), so "funny" thing that it's became a $200 joke for me - not support changing volume too, pffff... Guess, what it will be with NW-A50/60/70 ?
was checked with razer leviathan 5.1, jawbone, beoplay p2, the only speakers i have volume changing supported is jbl pulse2. Funny beoplay's volume change is NOT_WORKING with ALL of sony hires players including zx2(top one?). support ignoring any emails. think twice before switch to that zony-aiwa-watever sh1te.
peace.
Have you tried "Use Enhanced Mode" option under Audio Device Connection Settings?
DeleteDo you guys think there will be any chance to have the 4.4 mm balanced connection on this new A series?
ReplyDeleteIt's exciting that Sony keeps pushing the Walkman line. It's truly excellent. I'm still enjoying quite a lot a ZX2 I bought at a great price just when the WM1-A/Z were launched. I wouldn't move to the WM1 line because of its lack of WiFi support. Even if I do most serious listening with my own files, I still find it handy to have streaming capabilities for exploring new music (or music not easily available everywhere). So hopefully we'll see more Walkmans coming out and WiFi might perhaps be back on some of the lines?
ReplyDeletethe new version nw-a55 released yesterday and tbh I'm really disappointed. The bulky walkman port is still there, design remains unchanged except the buttons.
ReplyDeleteEntonces eso quiere decir, que no es un amplificador como indica en su descripción??
Delete