Sony Walkman NW-E105

The NW-E105 arrived in 2005 as Sony's most distinctively shaped entry in the Network Walkman range — a perfect circle, 56mm across and 19mm deep, running 70 hours on a single AAA battery. It sat at the opposite end of the market from the iPod mini: no scrollwheel, no screen to speak of, no pretension. Just an unusually designed flash player built for endurance and portability above everything else.

THE LOOKS

The blue finish on the NW-E105 is vivid and glossy, making the circular shell look more like a piece of jewelry than consumer electronics. At 26g it's essentially weightless, the one-line LCD sits centered in the front face, and the chunky control ring around it gives it a toy-like confidence that the rectangular competition simply couldn't match. Also available in white, pink, orange, and red.

THE SPECS

512MB internal flash. MP3, ATRAC3, ATRAC3plus, WMA, WAV. ATRAC3plus stores up to 22 CDs in 512MB. 1-line backlit LCD. 70-hour playback on 1× AAA battery. USB 2.0 via SonicStage 3.0. No FM radio, no voice recording. 56.2 × 19.2 × 56.2mm, 26g.

DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS

• Circular body at 56mm diameter and 19mm depth: a deliberate break from the rectangular norm that made the NW-E105 immediately recognizable on a table full of stick players.
• 70 hours on one AAA battery: not a typo — Sony's ATRAC compression and efficient hardware combined to make this one of the most enduring portable players ever made.
• ATRAC3plus fits 22 CDs in 512MB: Sony's proprietary compression at its most efficient, trading software convenience for storage density that MP3 at the time couldn't match.

THE VERDICT

The NW-E105 is a time capsule from the mid-2000s MP3 wars — the moment when Sony stopped trying to out-iPod the iPod and made something genuinely strange instead. The circular body, AAA battery, and 70-hour runtime made it a cult object even when new. It still earns that reputation: nothing about it feels like a compromise, just a completely different set of priorities.