Sony is preparing to update its NW-A1000 line of hard drive-based Walkman digital music players with an 8GB model, Reg Hardware has learned. The new version will ship with the SonicStage CP jukebox software the company announced yesterday.

The NW-A1000 players currently contain a 6GB hard drive. The NW-A1200 bumps the storage capacity by more than 33 per cent to 8GB. The new player's specs are likely to match those of the previous version, principally the 20-hour battery life.

While SonicStage CP incorporates support for the AAC audio format, it's not yet clear whether the NW-A1200 will, though it seems likely given Sony's new-found willingness to work with technologies it didn't invent. So the new player will certainly play MP3 files in addition to Sony's own ATRAC 3 and ATRAC 3 Plus formats.

The NW-A1200 will ship mid-June. Pricing is not yet known. ®