Featuring a new ultra compact, metallic design, the NW-MS9 measures 36mm x 81.4mm x 14.1mm and weighs merely 38.5g. It is portable and compact enough to allow customers to carry... more
This review already contains more than 120 words. As a Ciao member you could earn up to £5 with this review.
A review by roryfranklin on Sony Network Walkman NW-MS9 64 MB October 14th, 2003
Author's product rating:
Sound Quality
Excellent
Ease of Use
Very Easy
Look & Design
Excellent
Range of Features
Average
Value for Money
Poor
Advantages:
Small, Stylish, Very easy to use
Disadvantages:
Expensive, can't hold too many songs
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
After carrying around my ancient CD Walkman, and having the hassle of only being able to take 1 CD with me, I decided to buy a MP3 player. I needed something that was small, lightweight, and easy to use.
The Sony Network Memory Stick Walkman (MS-11 – same as the MS-9 but with 128Mb memory stick supplied) was the MP3 player that stood out from the rest.
First things first, it is a very stylish piece of equipment. Very sleek and looks like it’s worth the price tag that comes along with it. Size-wise it’s tiny, and you’d be amazed at how small this sophisticated piece of equipment really is. The Walkman itself consists of the main unit, a think Sony battery and a Sony Memory Stick. The MS-9 model comes with a 64Mb Memory Stick, which, at 66Kbps can store about 2 hours of music.
The player has a back-lit LCD screen that contains information about the current song, 4-bar battery level and a bass level meter.
The unit has no moving parts, meaning that it is skip-proof, something that even the best CD player can’t claim. Transferring tracks from your computer is fairly simple, but can be time consuming. The software (OpenMG Jukebox) has to convert the music from whatever format it was in to the format that the play recognises. Also, it music compress it into one of 3 levels of quality. 66Kbps, 105Kbps or 132Kbps. The lower the quality the more songs you can store on the memory stick, but you will be sacrificing sound quality. This said though, the difference in sound quality isn’t actually all that much, and in my opinion is worth sacrificing that little bit for almost twice as many songs.
The player is extreme easy to use. It has a simple seesaw button that controls movements between tracks, playing and stopping tracks and also fast forwarding and rewinding tracks. On the underside of the player, there are a few more buttons that control the bass level, a menu button, and also options for changing the visualization on the LCD display.
In the uncomplicated menu, there are power saving options such as turning off the back light, and turning off the ‘beep’ function that plays whenever you press a button (not so much power saving, just personal preference).
I found the size of the player perfect, as it wasn’t too bulky, and it also wasn’t the sort of thing that is easily forgettable either (you’d think that it might be, but at around £300 you’d be amazed at how much you are aware of it!!) All the ports are very accessible, so changing a battery or memory stick is very easy to do. Also, the USB port is extremely accessible, so there is no worries about having problems connecting the USB wire.
The NW MS-9 and 11 supports USB2.0 which means data transfer is quick, which is essential when transferring music. When you ‘Check-In’ and ‘Check-out’ music, it must be to the computer where the music was originally ‘Checked-in’ from. This is to prevent piracy, and is the reason the MagicGate Memory Sticks are used (they are considerably more expensive than regular Sony Memory Sticks). You can check-out any music file from your computer, as long as it is in one of the supported formats(MP3 and WAV only i think). You can import songs from CD's, or just MP3's you may have stored on your computer. Importing music from CD's is incredibly easy, and its jsut a matter of choosing the bitrate, and then letting the program 'rip' the tracks already in the format the the walkman uses.
For an MP3 player, you are definitely playing for size and style rather than storage capacity, as there are other MP3 players out on the market that offer larger storage.
The only problem I have had with this product is the battery life. It is advertised at being 10 hours when fully charged, and for the first few months after buying it, it was. Then I ran into problems with the supplied charger not charging the batteries properly. So I sent it off to Sony, who quickly sent me a new charger and an extra battery. Everything was fine again, and then a few months later I had the same problem. This made me fairly annoyed because it meant that I couldn’t use my expensive walkman, because none of my three batteries would work. Once again, I sent it off to Sony explaining what had happened before, but this time they sent it back saying that it was fine, and they had charged one battery to full. Since then everything has been fine, and I have been using a different plug to charge with just in case it was a fault on behalf of the electrics in my house!
That is the only warning about this otherwise excellent product. If you want a player that is extremely stylish, and of excellent quality, then this is definitely it, however, in terms of value for money, like many Sony products, this isn’t so good. But you are paying for a very good and tiny product. (Also, Sony support was excellent – both times I sent my walkman off, it was back within two weeks).
Advantages: Small, lightweight and oh so stylish!! Disadvantages: Quite pricey
...you when you see the Sony NW-MS9 is just how small and compact something so stylish can be. With its matt finished silver casing and blue LCD screen, after just a few minutes with this beauty, you'll be dying to take it home.
Of course, as with most Sony products, the only thing stopping you will be its price. At a retail price of close to 260 pounds, you'll think more than twice at jumping to buy the NW-MS9. Oh yes, and the fact that it requires ... ...uses the same battery as Sony MD players... so... simply whip out the battery from your MD player and lo and behold... ready to use, or at least experiment with, straight from the box. What exactly does the box contain... The player itself in a black pouch that will hold both the player and the included earphones. A 64 MB MagicGate Memory Stick. A CD containing the drivers required to use the player as well as the OpenMG™ Jukebox V2.0 Music ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Extremely light, portable and convenient Disadvantages: OpenMG and poor battery life
...call. But having purchased the Sony NW-MS11 (same as the MS9 but with 128Mb of memory) I was pleasently surprised. The quality of the audio is superb, although at low volumes it is possible to hear a beep during playback. As for easy of use of the actual device - it couldn't be simpler! But the main problem is OpenMG. This is the piece of software which Sony supplied and they have in all fairness had a difficult position trying to promote the technology ... ...slow and would prefer you to convert everything into the OpenMG native format. But this means it can no longer be shared so easily (what they want but not what the average user wants) so no more things like writing to CD! And track information while using MP3's is limited and without hacking into the database (as I did) you can't put track numebers against the tracks even though this is containted the ID3 tag. The alternative I found is to use RealPlayer ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Small, Light, Very Sexy Disadvantages: OpenMG Software, Expensive
...immediately tell this is a Sony MP3 player when you look at it, the tiny silver case has a blue LCD display that is a beauty to look at and use.
However along with the looks comes the other tell tale Sony trademark, it is very expensive especially compared to the hard drive based mp3 players which can hold hundreds of times more songs than this.
The NW-MS9 is based around Magicgate Memory Stick, now this is not the same as regular Memory Stick ... ...use the bundled OpenMG software to "check-out" songs from your pc to the device via USB. However this is where it becomes less than user friendly, first you can't transfer MP3 files "as-is" they must be in Sony’s proprietary ATRAC3 format. Now this isn’t a simple on the fly conversion and upload, you have to compose a library of the converted files and since they are not MP3 files this means either having two copies of each song which is not ideal ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
...up to 3 months after that , charging it is not worth it at all now, and the device wont even turn on
I have a thing about sony appliances, however i have never been so dissapointed. i have searched everywhere and even at sony stores , NO HELP!!! ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Featuring a new ultra compact, metallic design, the NW-MS9 measures 36mm x 81.4mm x 14.1mm and weighs merely 38.5g. It is portable and compact enough to allow customers to carry along easily and enjoy high quality digital music anytime and anywhere. The NW-MS9 is SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) compliant and supports ATRAC3, MP3, WMA and WAV. formats. In addition, it can be upgradeable to support additional formats. Customers can create their own digital music collections by downloading songs from the Internet and ripping CD tracks to their hard disk via USB connection at a high speed. The digital audio player comes with a 64 MB MagicGate Memory Stick removable media that can store up to 120 minutes of skip-free digital music. The NW-MS9 is compatible with the Microsoft Window 98, 98SE, 2000 and Window Me operating systems, the OpenMG v2.0 software has a fast CD ripping speed and built-in support for ATRAC3, MP3, WMA and WAV. Formats. It has a rechargeable, removable "gum stick" style nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery that offers up to 10 hours of continuous playback. It is also bundled with a USB cable, headphones and battery charger.
System requirements
OS Required: Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
Min Processor Type: Pentium MMX
Min Processor Speed: 233 MHz
Min RAM Size: 64 MB
Min Hard Drive Space: 60 MB
Peripheral / Interface Devices: Sound card, CD-ROM, USB port
