Sony Walkman S540 series announced

First Walkman with built-in stereo speakers

25 August 2009 14:57 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Sony has announced the launch of the S540 series Walkman video MP3 player, its first ever such product with built-in stereo speakers.

In a choice of four colours - black, pink, violet and red - the player is slimline at 10.2mm thin yet offers two "high-quality" stereo speakers for pumping out tunes and audio from video clips with aluminium speaker grilles.

Sound quality is said to be taken care of with technologies such as the Digital Linear Phase Speaker System, a Dynamic Normalizer and the Virtual Bass as well as a 5-band equaliser.

With a 2.4-inch LCD display, the screen rotates to landscape for video and the player is bundled with a stand for desktop playback.

There's drag and drop file transfer for certain file types, or hook up with iTunes 8.1, an FM radio tuner and recorder, on-board voice recorder

The battery boast is 42 hours listening time via headphones from a single charge or 17 hours through the built-in speakers. Battery life with video playback is 6.5 hours or 5 hours through the speakers.

We're waiting to hear on UK pricing and availability.