OK, I'll start off with saying this really is a decent bit of kit; it looks amazing, the battery life is great and it is simple to use.
One of the first hard-drive based players from Sony, it comes equipe with a 20GB hard-drive, which, let me tell you now, IS HUGE. I mean really, really, big. When I was looking to buy, I considered bigger drives but finally settled on this, thinking that if the worst happened I could just delete some of the tracks. One year on and I've used just 6GB with over 4,000 songs all at 128mbps or equivelent. The battery life is great, and outstrips the iPod every time, though one might say that the 30 hour tag given to it by Sony is excessive. In reality it's more in the region of 10 (without doing much activity on it). I personally believe these advantages outweigh the flaws but I will go into them non-the-less.
I must first clear something up: SonicStage (Sony's own and the only software that is compatible with the player) is, in places, one of the worst software packages I have used. In terms of a basic tranfer program it is fine, but when it comes to playlists etc. expect a long night in. True, the updates are making it better, but until an entirly new version comes out it will never be perfect. A few other flaws are the connection cables; you have to use a adapter to the player, and cannot go directly via USB. Also, though the sound quality is great, you will definatly need some decent headphones (I use Sony base-boost ones, which are fantastic), as the supplied ones just can't give you the power you want.
All in all, I do reccommend this product especially for its reduced price though with enough money, a new iPod should be on the cards.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Excellent sound quality, large capacity, good battery life and convenient size Disadvantages: Awkward to use software and low maximum volume
Advantages: Great design, hi-quality sound (Better than iPod), easy to use, smaller than iPod, better software than iTunes. AMAZING battery life. Disadvantages: Menus on Walkman if you have a lot of albums to get through - are a little bit time consuming to navigate.
very helpful by (13%):
helpful by (88%):
