While waiting for Apple to fire the next salvo in the Digital Audio gadget market, Sony has made a pre-emptive strike with the new NW-A800 Flash Network Walkman.

Now Sony’s previous attempts at a digital Walkman has been pretty lackluster. I can’t even remember what the last one looked like. The design has been made a little more attractive. Outfitted with up to 8GB of memory and a supposed 30 hour battery life, the A800 also has a 2-inch QVGA display to plays back H.264 video. Audio wise, it supports, AAC, WMA and MP3. There are three models in the A800 range and they start with 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities. The 8GB model is reportedly selling for close to US$400 in Europe.