Sony is back with two Walkman devices aimed at the entry-level market. The B Series (not in the photo) has a USB stick format and is an ultra-portable. It beats the crap out of an iPod shuffle on the feature side.
The E-Series (shown above) has a more classic MP3 player format and comes with a nice QVGA display. It can play video (mpeg4) and audio files (mp3, wma, wmv). This one will have a difficult time competing with Apple’s product, just from a sheer branding perspective.
Both are said to play nice with iTunes, although we would suspect that this is true only if you manage your media library “by hand”. Sony is providing some utilities to convert files, but really they (and everyone else) need an anti-iTune.