The Walkman With a Camera

Sony’s MZ-DH10P

In late 2004, Apple introduced the iPod photo, a radical evolution of its player that promised to carry not just music but an entire photo library in your pocket.

For Sony, a company built on hardware excellence, it was clear the portable player was evolving beyond music into something that could store and display digital content.

Their answer arrived four months later, in March 2005. It was called the MZ-DH10P, and it was not just a Hi-MD Walkman. It was a Walkman with a digital still camera built in.

The idea was to create a product that lived at the intersection of sound and images, transforming MiniDisc into a more lifestyle-oriented device. Sony even coined a new label for it: Hi-MD PHOTO.

The goal was ambitious, the execution eccentric, and the result became one of the strangest Walkmans ever built.

Inside Sony, the project was known by the codename Truffle, a delicacy, something rare and unusual. The DH10P was meant to be just that, a hybrid unlike anything else on the market. It wa…