Theres no getting away from the fact that this is an attractive product. The materials used by Sony complement eachother nicely and when it activates the lighting display is spectactuar. The interface is simple to use , much more so than an ipod, and it has unique features such as an artist link and a efficient filing system. However after nearly a years use , there are a couple of things that just bug me! (athough many have been corrected by a recent software update from sony.)
Its unusual shape and tendancy to get scratched led me to try and find a protective case to keep it nice and new looking, but i found this difficult, and ended us using a soft glasses bag to keep it in. Which although it gets the job done, it kinda ruins the chic look the walkman has.
Another issue is the headphones provied by sony. This comes in a 2 part system, a main headphones set and a jack. This jack is to extend the insanely shot headphones cable , which although the perfect length for it to sit in your top pocket, it is far too short for your trouser pocket. This is where the jack comes in, to extend the cable so that this is possible. However recently the connection between the jack and the main headphones began to come loose which, due to the ammount that i use my walkman, was enevitable, however this tiny amount of damage quickly made the headphones disintigrate, on the same day that the plastic cover on the jack came off , they stopped working completely!
Although the sound quality is very high on the walkman , the volume is not. The walkman has a variable rate between 0 and 30 , but the maximum setting is not very loud at all( probably a saftey feature,and a good idea at that , but the execution of the idea is poor) its barely enough to cover background noise such as a bus or the person next to you talking. However this can be solved by using a set of headphones with a variable volume control.
Another annoying aspect of the design is the screen , although very elegant and stylish , its not practical outside! The screen acts like a mirror and all u can see is glare and its impossible to change tracks without either memorising the filing system or covering both your eyes and the walkman to stop the glare. This was particulary irritating on holiday when i had to cover my head and the walkman with a towel to even have a hope of seeing what i was doing!
A problem that has been solved by sony in their recent update was the lack of a clock feature, the clock that i recieved through the update is very good, as was the update in general.
Overall this product is very good ,and i certainly wouldnt change it for an ipod or other mp3, its just those little problems that u wish werent there! But im confident that Sony will iron these out with later models and updates.
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Oct 1st, 2006
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