Sony NWZ-A728 8GB

Author's product rating:   

Sound Quality	Excellent
Ease of Use	Very Easy
Look & Design	Excellent
Range of Features	Excellent
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Excellent sound & vision, stylish and substantial .
Disadvantages:	Transferring files can be fiddly using supplied software .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Sony NWZ-A728 8GB MP3/MP4 player

Looking for a sub-£100 MP3 player, a friend recommended this Sony 8GB music and video player - and I can't fault his choice. If you're looking for a slim-line, easily portable player that takes MP3 and MP4 files, and offers great sound quality through the supplied earphones, then look no further.

Let's get the all-important technical specifications listed and out of the way, then I can start explaining how it works in greater detail.

Size: 3.7 inches (length) x 2 inches (width) by 0.4 inches (depth).
Weight: 2 ounces
Supported by USB
Capacity: 8GB, Flash Memory storage
LCD Size and Resolution: 2.4 inches (diagonal width), 240 x 320
Supported Formats: Music - MP3, WMA, AAC, PCM, protected WMA (DRM) Video - MP4 only
Other features: Equaliser, Screen Saver, Clock, Shuffle, Repeat, Photo Playback
Battery Life: up to 36 hours, charge time maximum 3 hours.

(Despite what the previous review says, the NWZ-A728 I have does not have an inbuilt FM radio player. Sony may have updated later examples with a radio - I bought mine from Argos at the beginning of November 2008. Not that bothered about the radio!)

Get the A728 out of the box and it looks like a black credit card on a slight dose of steroids. It's that slim and small. Whilst it's not about to break apart after a few minutes handling - in fact it feels really sturdy and substantial, I'd not want to place it in the back pocket of my jeans and then sit down - chances are the unit would be strained or the screen would be damaged. It is however small enough to pop into a shirt pocket or into a jacket or coat inside pocket, though I'm wary about anything scratching the screen - so may have to invest in a wallet or screen cover. Because it is so small, you can't really help getting finger prints onto the edges of the screen, but they're easily wiped away.

The controls mostly lie below the screen but there are two others located along the right hand edge of the player, one for volume and the other to hold/resume playback. The main controls consist of a home/back button and an option selector/off button, which are located on either side of the main play/pause/directional control interface. The latter is small but easy to use unless you have rather large fingers. It doesn't take too long to master the control system, it's that easy.

Sony include software (Windows Media Player 11) to control transferring music and video from your PC to the player, however I found it really fiddly and very temperamental to use - in fact it simply refused to transfer some MP3 files for reasons unknown. Happily, there is a much easier alternative - once the player is hooked up to your PC using the supplied USB cable (standard interface at one end, slim-line at the other to go into the player), simply select the player through My Computer and then find the Music or Video file, then just drag files across from your desktop, etc. The only drawback is that video files must be converted to MP4 format first as this is the only one recognised - but there are several free converters available on the Internet and some even convert Youtube videos to MP4 format. Recharging the battery couldn't be easier too - simply hook the player up to your PC with the USB cable and that's it. A little 'full' icon appears in the bottom right hand corner of the screen when it's fully recharged.

Once you've got music and/or video files installed on the player, they're easy to find and play. Within the Music file on the player, sub-files can be set up to hold different playlists and you can easily choose between them. On start-up, any button on the player springs it into life. Nine icons appear on the screen, from top to bottom and left to right, Intelligent Shuffle, Initial Search, Clock Display, Photo Library, Music Library, Video Library, Settings, Playlists and Now Playing. All are fairly self-explanatory, and the ones you'll likely use most often are the middle three. Select the Music Library with the Play button and a further menu appears, allowing you to select songs from those stored on the player in terms of All Songs, Album, Artist, Genre, Release Year or Folder. Obviously you can also find a particular song and start with that one. Clearly there is plenty of scope to store and select from your music - and as the 8GB memory allows something like 1,850 songs to be stored, you'll probably want some method of narrowing down your selection a little if you get anywhere near filling it up!

I wasn't sure what to expect with the supplied headphones as I've always hated the little earpieces with the bits of cloth around them, ones that either sound tinny or give up the ghost after a while. Searching around for a good set was both time-consuming and expensive. This problem doesn't occur with the Sony player - the supplied earphones are simply excellent in terms of sound quality and volume, they're also fairly stylish plus they sit neatly (and pain-free) in my ears. In fact, it's almost easy to forget that they're in my ears at times.

Video selection pretty much occurs the same way although you go straight into a list of available files - and you have around 30 hours of playback available. I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of picture quality from a 2.4 inch screen but quite frankly I was blown away by how good it was. After a few minutes, I had forgotten I was watching something on an MP4 player. There are fast-forward/reverse and back to beginning functions using the directional controls too.

Whilst it's not an iPod - so there's no touch screen option - the menus are easily accessible so that's no hardship. In summation, I'm really pleased with my purchase. It gives great sound and vision, plus it looks great yet is really light and portable. I would have liked a clip of some description but I'm not that disappointed. There is a small stand supplied with the player, which attaches to the rear of the unit.

My friend told me "don't buy an iPod, get one of these." I think he was right!