Only a few days before the start of IFA 2009, Japanese company Sony unveiled its first-ever video Walkman player, the S-Series, so, naturally, while visiting the company's booth, we also simply had to take it for a very quick spin, in order to see exactly what's up with it. And while the concept is far from being a new one, the truth of the matter is that the S-Series is a fairly good PMP, by all accounts.

The first surprising thing to mention about the S-Series is the fact that the form factor is very thin (10.2mm) and very light, a lot thinner and lighter than most mobile phones available out there. Plus, it comes equipped with a large, bright, high resolution 2.4-inch LCD for comfortable video viewing, as well as a built-in accelerometer, which changes the display mode from portrait to landscape in a matter of seconds.

Despite being very tiny, Sony's Video Walkman is able to take care of the music and video playback business in a very impressive manner, the quality of the audio playback being a very good one, due to the fact that this thing comes equipped with Sony's newly-developed Digital Linear Phase Speaker System.

According to Sony's reps, the Linear Phase Correction assures smooth, natural frequency responses, while the Virtual Bass enhances harmonic signals to reinforce the sensation of deep low-end frequencies. Furthermore, there’s a 5-band equalizer built-in, as well as a Dynamic Normalizer that balances volume levels between songs.

A range of major music and video formats are supported including rights-managed WMA and WMV. Moreover, listening options are boosted by the on-board FM radio and there's also a built-in voice recorder that’s very good for capturing college lectures and interviews or refining one's own song ideas. Plus, it can also record one's favorite broadcasts from the FM tuner for later listening.

All in all, we can really say that the Video Walkman is quite a sound and attractive product, albeit a little behind of its time, since portable video players are not exactly latest-gen, at least as far as the concept is concerned.


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