The Walkman A810 series is a portable media player designed by Sony. It was a flagship model in the Walkman digital player family. The model debuted in Asia in 2007, and then became available in North America. This series updates the previous Walkman A800 of the Walkman A Series, with the same hardware but different on-PC music management program.
Sony released 3 models, the NWZ-A815 (2 GB), NWZ-A816 (4 GB) and NWZ-A818 (8 GB). Some of the enhancements made include compatibility with Windows Media Player 11, and the infamous[clarification needed] Drag n' Drop feature, which allowed the user to transfer Music, Photo and Video files quickly, via windows explorer, (using ID-Tags for the song information i.e. album, artist etc.). Sony also removed compatibility with ATRAC which replaced the customers need for SonicStage, with Windows Media Player 11.
In March 2008, Sony launched its successor in United States, the A820, featuring wireless functions and with larger display and memory.[1]
The external design comparison between the Walkman NW-A810 and NW-A1000
This player shares the same hardware and design with Sony NW-A800. The whole body is encased with metal, and has a 2.0" LCD display. The three control buttons below the display are specially arranged to make up the Walkman logo on the front. Additionally, there is a chrome-like strip made of polished metal surrounding the device. Overall, the design is in a similar style with Sony's preceding Walkman A series model, NW-A1000/3000, which did not come to sale in United States. Both of them feature a surrounding metal strip and deliberately arranged control buttons to mimic the Walkman logo. The available colors for the NW-A810/800 model are black, white, purple and pink in Japan.
Operation
Navigation is handled via three circular controls on the front of the player: a power/option key, a back/home button, and a four-way control pad surrounding a central play/pause key.A dedicated volume rocker sits on the right edge of the player.[2]
The user interface is composed of nine icons organized in a 3X3 square. Icons Are highlighted and magnified as the user scrolls through them. The operation system offers a searching function, letting user search for a song based on artist, album, release year and genre.
The back view of NW-A810
Performance
DSEE logo
The NW-A810/800 MP3 players have been critically praised for their audio quality, mostly due to its patented Sony technologies such as DSEE (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) and Clear Stereo. DSEE is claimed to restore higher sound frequency lost when creating compressed MP3 files, to reproduce the CD audio quality.[3] As well, the MDR-EX082 headphones bundled with the NW-A810 have a high bass response for headphones of its size. It's also tested to have higher-than-average battery life, with 36 hours of audio play and 8 hours of video play.
Reception
Walkman NW-A810 received great acclaim from CNET, which gave the gadget the Editor's Choice Award with a score of 8.0 out of 10, and was rated as "excellent".[2]
CNET praised it for its slim design with an ample screen, extraordinary sound quality and fantastic battery life, but criticized its short earphone cable and the placement of the hold button on the back of the player.
Crave, the CNET gadget blog, named the NW-A810 series as one of the MP3 players that shaped year 2007, with another three, the Zune 80, iPod Touch, and the ZEN.[4]
Hardware-wise, NW-A800 and NW-A810 are identical. The main difference laid on the firmware which affect audio format support and music management software. Unless mentioned specifically above, the rest of specification is exactly the same for both devices.
It is a single internal entity overseeing all wholly owned development studios within SIE. It is responsible for the creative and strategic direction of development and production of all computer entertainment software by all SIE–owned studios, all of which is typically produced exclusively for the PlayStation family of consoles.
With the launch of the PlayStation 5 in 2020, Worldwide Studios brands all releases be it internal or externally developed under the "PlayStation Studios" label.[3]
History
SCE Worldwide Studios (SCE Worldwide Studios) was established on September 14, 2005, with Phil Harrison being appointed as president.[4] On May 16, 2008, Shuhei Yoshida became president.[5] In April 2016, Sony's Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Sony Network Entertainment International (SNEI) divisions merged, creating SIE Worldwide Studios.[5] Hermen Hulst succeeded Shuhei Yoshida as president of SIE Worldwide Studios on November 7, 2019, with Yoshida being delegated to lead Sony's indie development.[6]
Naughty Dog is home to the ICE Team, one of Sony's Worldwide Studios central technology groups. The term ICE originally stands for Initiative for a Common Engine which describes the original purpose of the group.[25] The ICE Team focuses on creating core graphics technologies for Sony's worldwide first party published titles, including low-level game engine components, graphics processing pipelines, supporting tools, and graphics profiling and debugging tools. The ICE Team also supports third party developers with a suite of engine components, and a graphics analysis, profiling, and debugging tool for the RSX. Both enable developers to get better performance out of PlayStation hardware.[26][27]
XDev
XDev Europe, established in 2000 and based in Liverpool, England,[7] collaborates with independent development studios across Europe and other PAL territories to publish content to PlayStation platforms all over the world. XDev has helped to create and publish, titles such as the LittleBigPlanet, Buzz!, MotorStorm and Invizimals series, Super Stardust HD, Heavenly Sword, Heavy Rain, Beyond, Tearaway and Resogun. Partners include independent developers such as Quantic Dream, Magenta Software, Climax Studios, Novarama, Supermassive Games and Sumo Digital, as well as SCE subsidiaries such as Media Molecule and Guerrilla Games. In addition to funding projects, XDev offer full production, project management and game design support. Titles are also supported with community management, online production and dedicated outsourcing management facilities. XDev work directly with Marketing and PR teams in all Sony territories to promote and publish games worldwide.[28][29]
