I bought the Sony player almost solely on the promise of its battery length; 30 hours they claimed. Athough I was sceptical, anything over 15 hours would have been ample; certainly far more than anthing the iPod could offer. I must admit I was put off by many reviews saying how difficult the software was to use, but decided on buying anyway.
Sound Quality. Excellent. To be honest, I don't have much to compare it to, but even with the standard headphones, the quality is pretty much infallible. Perhaps someone with more experience of MP3 players might criticise, but it met my expectations.
Ease of Use (Hardware) Very easy to shuffle songs, move around your collection. Maybe not quite as easy as the iPod's wheel design, but there is no trouble reaching your desired song. One thing that annoys me slightly is the shuffle function chooses random tracks each time, rather than reordering them then playing in that order. This means that you can't go back through your shuffle. Also, when switched on, it automatically plays the song first alphabetically, which means your "favourites" all seem to be songs beginning with A. However, this is a minor quibble which pales into insignificance as it is a great player to use.
Battery Life Of course, not the 35 hours predicted. But still very good; turn the display down low to get more length out of it.
Looks Gorgeous. Beats all the competition hands down. Also not too heavy (to be cumbersome) or too light (to be lost). The screen seems pretty hardy, but if you're worried in the slightest there are various protective cases on offer.
Software A big problem. It took quite a long time to get going - I had to get a keyboard shortcut off the internet to get past the license agreement, as the place to click was off the screen! Very slow, and not for anyone without mountains of patience. However, on my computer (AMD 2ghz, 256mb RAM) it still worked, albeit very slowly. There was an odd crash here and there, again toying with my patience, but I have managed to get 2600 songs onto the player from a variety of sources. However, it would not be practical as a PCmusic player, like iTunes is. It's likely that Sony will sort out the software issues in the near future, so if you're patient (both short term and long term!), it shouldn't put you off buying.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Looks Good, Good Sound, Large Memory, Sony (Reputable), Range of Features Disadvantages: Initially quiet, Can turn on in pocket, Sunlight makes text invisible, Software.
very helpful by (60%):
helpful by (40%):
