Now Sony takes on the iPod mini

After having a fairly successful whack at the Apple iPod with the NW-HD1 digital audio player Sony has now set it sights on the iPod mini with the launch in Japan next week of the NW-HD2.

To be fair the only real similarities with the mini is that the HD2 is around the same size – though it boasts a 20 Gig as opposed to a 4 Gig hard disk – and that is available in three different colours.

There’s pink for the girls, blue for the boys and silver for those not entirely convinced by sexual stereotyping.

Other than the colour the HD2 is identical to the HD1 and so features a very impressive 24 hours-ish battery life, and excellent sound quality. There’s no word about whether it will play MP3s in their native format, the HD1 changes them to Sony’s Atrac format, but after its announcement last week we’d probably stick a few quid on it.

The price of the player is probably going to be around the same as the HD1, which in the UK is currently around the £269 mark. We reckon it'll land in Europe in early 2005.

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