Rock with your favorite music, watch crystal clear full-motion video and enjoy your photos on a beautiful color-rich screen with the NWZ-A818 Walkman Video MP3 player. The... more
(+) Sound quality, price, ease of use the list goes on. (-) Sony Walkman's need to have a wider support of accessories, both Sony branded and also third party
A review by Dave1369 on Sony NWZ-A818 8GB June 7th, 2008
Author's product rating:
Video Quality
Excellent
Sound Quality
Excellent
Range of Features
Diverse
Ease of Use
Very Easy
Value for Money
Good
Advantages:
sound quality, small, sleek, battery life
Disadvantages:
small screen for videos, no mains charger provided
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
I loved the iPODs when they first came out but I had also then read a lot of reviews on Sony products and decided to go for them instead. I'm very glad now that I did.
The player is of an average size for an 8GB player, being small and sleek. The menus are very straight forward as the layout is like the one of a mobile phone. There is no click wheel but the navigation is very easy and practical as the scrolling is based on search through the alphabetical order. This great gadget works straight out the box and I never even bothered with the manual. It's simply so easy to navigate through and work out the buttons that you'll be enjoying your favourite tunes in no time.
This player supports CD cover art and any music can be dragged and dropped in. Do not confuse this model (A818) with earlier models as those models DO NOT have a drag and drop feature. This is the newer model which (unlike an iPOD where you have to install iTunes which I never partucularly liked) supports music, pictures or videos or even normal data files to be dragged and dropped through "My Computer" on Windows.
The player itself has a rather small screen for watching videos as after a while I found myself having to look away because of the strain, however this is a very small point and it may be that I have bad eye sight in the first place.
To the bad points now and notice that they are only very small things which is what makes this player so perfect! First of all, there is no case or screen protector with the player which I found unusual as most come with a case at least. Although having said that, the iPODs don't either. Another thing was the absense of a mains charger, but again this charger can be bought off eBay or Amazon for £4 or less (without P&P).
This player supports Windows Media Player 10 and comes with the installation CD if you haven't already got it. From the very first moment of synchonizing it with WMP, you notice how well the 2 were designed for each other and work beautifully together with no time delays, error messages or random deletion of all your tracks (*cough*iTunes*cough*)!
The sound quality is incredible and from the headphones provided (they are in-ear headphones which are worth a good £20), the sound quality is even better. I honestly cannot take the full volume on this player because it is far too loud, although I have tried it and the sound is crisp and clear without any distortion even at full volume. There is a great feature called the AVLS which limits the volume the player can be turned up to. There is also a great feature which is custom EQ which I always loved about mp3 players.
The player comes with a USB charger and once it's out of the box, it's simply a plug 'n' play job.
To summarise then, the player: is very easy to use, is slim, sleek, has incredible surround sound characteristics, very good quality videos, can be just as easily synchronized with the PS3, has a very good 8GB storage capacity, does not have a built in radio, no built in voice recorder and no expansion for the memory, no case/armband, no mains adapter, but has all the fantastic features of the perfect mp3/4 player! The pros as you can see are far higher and completely outweigh the cons as the cons are only small picky things.
Advantages: excellent features, sound, headphones, interface Disadvantages: price is not that amazing, no screen protection included, no accessable accessories!
i bought this product about one year ago... and its still being used every day!
when i look for a product such as an MP3 player, i take my time researching and looking ta reviews and websites to find the best price/feature unit.
this came out on top :)
the units design is small, sturdy but a major problem is the screen, it gets easily scratched and there are no screen covers or protectors except buying off 2nd hand sellers off ebay or amazon.
... ...want to do (i found it exactly like the interface on the PSP).
the video quality is outstanding for such a small unit, differnt settings such as rotating the video 90 degrees, increasing brigtness e.t.c
the headphones included are probably the best ive ever had with an MP3 player, there not the usually standard run of the mill headphones! sound quality is also the best. ...
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Advantages: Excellent sound quality, great headphones, cheap, impressive battery life. Disadvantages: No podcasts or on-the-go playlists
...I have found missing from the Sony (in comparison with the iPod) are podcasts and on-the-go playlists. However these are in no way essential, it is just annoying that these features are not there. I would definitely recommend the Sony A818. ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: feels nice, can be used as a pen drive, brilliant sound quality Disadvantages: hold button positioned at the back
...As always with the Sony Walkman products, the sound quality is superb and you get some nice headphones with the mp3 player, worth £40 if you want to buy them separately. The headphones come wit 3 different sizes of plugs which you can switch according to what is the most comfortable for you. You can also store images on it and look through them when you feel like or when your on holiday and want to show some pics to your friends and family. The image ... ...new model, unlike the old Sony mp3 players, you can just drag and drop all your files into the right folders or use windows media player if you want to. This allows it to be used as a pen drive aswell, with a huge capacity of 8GB. Another part I liked about this mp3 player is the interface. It's easy to turn on and off, and there is a main menu where you choose if you want to look and pictures, movies, music, playlists or let it play randomly. It ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Nice screen, great sound, nice headphones, nice menu Disadvantages: Funny film format, no playlist creation on device
The Sony NWZA-818 i a brill piece of kit though not perfect. The headphones supplied are noise reducing (great on the bus) and the sound quality is fantastic. Looks good too, very slim and has a nice wieght - feels expensive. However, I felt the screen was a bit exposed and bough a hard plastic case for it . The menu structures are very intuitive and easy to use you get used to it very quickly. Another major good point NO SONICSTAGE! Finally Sony ... ...as pie to sync it using wmp. Although advertised as a media player the video functions are limited, great screen but the random format is plays means it is not worth the hassle. This is a music player which luckily is what I wanted am therefore not really sure how battery life would last up, with music is great. Badish bits, you cannot delete on the device itself, nor make playlists and no most played thingy. Also no mains charger is provided, you ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Playback Modes: Continuous, repeat all, one track repeat
Features: JPEG photo playback
Manufacturer's product description
Rock with your favorite music, watch crystal clear full-motion video and enjoy your photos on a beautiful color-rich screen with the NWZ-A818 Walkman Video MP3 player. The slim-line player lets you see it all on its high-resolution 2" QVGA LCD screen. Small enough to slip into a bag or pocket, the 8GB NWZ-S818 Walkman Video MP3 player can store up to 5,050 songs, 30 hours of video or hundreds of photographs, giving you the delight of multimedia entertainment anytime, anyplace.
