Sony Walkman finally goes touchscreen

Tucked in the back of Sony's mammoth CES booth and sealed under glass, Sony's latest Walkman glittered with its new, three-inch OLED touchscreen. Too bad I didn't get to touch it during Sony's CES press event Wednesday.

Set for release this summer in 32GB and 16GB versions, the boxy-looking, Wi-Fi-enabled X Series Walkman lacks the "wow" factor of the sleek iPod Touch or the new Samsung YP-P3, although the Walkman's three-inch display looked pretty sharp (or at least, as best as I could make out through the protective glass case).

Details on the X Series are still relatively scarce—Sony hasn't even revealed pricing details yet—but here's what we do know: Integrated Wi-Fi for downloading podcasts and streaming YouTube videos (nice), an FM receiver, support for MP3/WMA/AAC audio and MPEG-4/WMV DRM video, and a battery of sound enhancement and noise canceling technologies.

Interesting—and overall, I'm glad to see that the Walkman brand has finally deigned to enter the touchscreen era. That said, I'm curious to see whether the X's touch display is as responsive as on the Apple and Samsung players. And here's a question for Sony: Why not open up the PlayStation video store for use with the Walkman, eh?