Sony 8 GB Walkman Video MP3 Player (Black)
by Sony
|
List Price: Our Price: $90.99 You Save: $28.96 (24%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $58.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony 8 GB Walkman Video MP3 Player (Black)
Customer Review: Not what I expected...
Summary: 2 Stars
This MP3 player was much smaller than I expected it to be. Also, it did not come with a plug-in charger. The only thing provided to charge the phone was a USB cord. Therefore, I would always need to be around a computer to charge. Because of that, I returned it for a refund.Customer Review: great when it works. . .
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this mp3 on Amazon back in late March '09. I was looking an mp3 with FM radio and since Sony is suppose to be good, I bought this model. It's great. . . FM radio pretty good. My own music pretty good. I even downloaded some podcasts from NPR. Loved it. . . until today.
I called the Sony Customer service and they said it would need to sent in to fix which would be $77.00!!! I just bought this in March. When this mp3 works, it is great. If you are willing to pay $90 for several months of use, I would recommend this mp3.
Customer Review: Best music player u can get
Summary: 5 Stars
just got my sony s544 walkman mp3 player
awesome sound quality and great product
ipods have good design but cant match sonys sound quality
best value for money ...
Sanil
Customer Review: A great player with few, minor flaws
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my first MP3 player, and I absolutely love it! Sadly, however, I am out of memory space and will have to upgrade to a larger capacity :(
The sound quality is phenomenal! If you get some good headphones to use with it, you will never want to listen to music on anything else portable player or otherwise.
The design is excellent, except that the directional pad is a bit small (Sony changed this with their next generation of Walkman).
It comes with a mini-disc from which you can install Windows Media Player 11, with which music and picture transfer is easy enough a two-year old could probably figure out. Actually it's not quite that easy, but still easier than in previous Windows MP versions.
Video transfer is another story. If you want to get a Windows MP-compatible video format, you have to be a genius who can spend a couple hundred dollars on video converting software. Or you can download the infinitely hard-to-use iTunes and buy a movie for ten or fifteen bucks. However, that still gives you no options if you want to share your home videos.
I would get this player primarily for the music quality and ease of transfer, as well as the picture quality. If you want a video player, consider the SanDisk Sansa Fuze. It has good video abilities that will let you transfer home movies.
And be aware that if you get the 4 gigabyte model of Walkman, you will not have enough space for your 800+ song library-like me! :) This player only holds about 950 or so songs- if you only have music ripped (copied) from CD's. If you have 100+ songs that you have downloaded from online stores such as the Amazon MP3 store(like me), you will only be able to store about 850 songs.
Also, this thing is is built like the Rock of Gibraltar! I have dropped it onto a wood floor from a heght of 4 1/2 feet or so and from my pants pocket onto a concrete surface. All it has to show for it is a minor chipping of the brushed steel backing.
Now for the minor flaws. Not much to say here (that's a good thing). The video transfer, which is mainly just the picky Windows MP, and the slightly too small d-pad.
If you are considering buying the way-too-hyped-up Apple iPod nano 8 GB Black (4th Generation) OLD MODEL, forget it and get this. The tech specs are almost identical. The only difference is that the iPod nano comes in a bunch of different colors and the iPod has some extra features -primarily the "grand" iTunes software, downloadable movies, a few games, and universal compatibility with speakers and such- if this is what you want, go for the iPod. If you want a device that is a true media player, not a Mac in your pocket, go for the Sony Walkman.
The Sony Walkman MP3 player is way too good and I would recommend it to anyone.
--Update--
As I mentioned earlier, I need a new PMP. With my searching, I have found that all the hype is about UI's (User Interfaces). The UI of this device is nothing special. You can check out the pics at the top of the page. Basically you have a home menu, whose black fades into blue at the bottom. There are nine icons: Music Library, Photo Library, Video Library, Shuffle All, FM radio, Clock, Settings, Playlists, and Now Playing. When you highlight an icon it pulses yellow-ish orange. When you foray into the Music section you get selection for All Songs, Albums, Artists, Genres, Release Year, and Folder. I mostly use the Artist mode, but different people will prefer it differently. The Album search is really not comparable to the iPod Nano mantioned earlier. The nano absolutely runs away with it with Cover Flow. Under Albums, you basically get the name of the album with a thumbnail to the left of it. The Shuffle feature is a little complicated to use. You can turn it on by using the Option button and going to play modes. There is a dedicated volume rocker on the side, as well as a hold button. The firmware updates are few and far between and the last one wouldn't download correctly. Overall the UI is nothing special, but it gets the job done. It will play your tunes and videos very well, which is what it was meant to do.
--Update--
Well, after nine months of use, my Sony Walkman died on me. I performed a firmware update from the Sony website, disconnected it, and nothing was responding. The screen is blank, no button presses show any sign of life. DO NOT let this discourage you from purchasing this player. I just wouldn't reccommend doing the firmware update, unless you are familiar with the process. Also, I read on the anythingbutipod forum that tha firmware update doesn't really add anything great. Still, this was a great player while I had it. Also, I do not like the Sony limited warranty system. You can only get it replaced if it died in the first 3 months of use. Otherwise, for the next nine months, you can send it in to get defective parts replaced, or the whole unit replaced for $30.00. So I'm waiting for my Walmart extended plan to take effect so I can replace it for free. Basically, I reccommend getting some sort of extended warranty for the player from the seller you buy it from.
--Update--
I thought I'd say something about the stock earbuds, which are trash. It is like putting little rocks in your ears. They come with no foam covers to ease the pain. Not even any rubber like iPod earbuds. And, they are clearly made for active use, because one cable is a lot longer than the other, for routing around the neck when exercising. The sound quality is just OK. I seriously reccommend upgrading to get the most out of your Sony player. Here are some reccommendations: Klipsch IMAGE S2 Comfort-fit Noise-Isolating Earphones, Sennheiser MX75 Twist-To-Fit In-Ear Stereo Sport Headphones,Sennheiser MX70 Sport Stereo Headphone with Magnetic Surfaces, Sennheiser CX300-B Earbuds (Black). I also reccommend getting some over-the-head headphones for overall better sound or if you have an aversion to in-ear models. Sony MDR-V150 Monitor Series Headphones with Reversible Earcups I have these and the player drove them quite well. Sennheiser HD 238 Stereo Open Aire Headphone, Shure SRH240 Professional Quality Headphones (Black), Beats by Dr. Dre Studio High-Definition Headphones from Monster High-end noise cancelling set with superb sound. Beats Solo by Dr. Dre On-Ear Headphones with ControlTalk (Black) The little brother of the Beats Studio, without active noise cancelling. It doesn't matter what your budget is, you'll find something to replace the sewer material that come with this player.
--Update--
I'd like to say just where I think Sony nailed it and where Sony biffed it.
Biffed It: There is no audio recording feature on this player. Newer Walkmans as well as other competing players have this feature. The proprietary USB connection is not really very good. The accesories dock-wise are very sparse from third party producers. Also it can be a pain to replace a sync cable. It would have been better to have a simple USB mini or an iPod connection. The Sansa Fuze has an iPod connection and is therefore compatible with most accesories made for the iPod. Standby is kind of strange because if you turn the player off it just "goes to sleep". After "sleeping" for I'm guessing 8 hours (I didn't time it) it completely powers off and has to reboot when you turn it back on.
Nailed It: The tactile controls are good. It is very easy to navigate when in a pocket ( if you can tear your eyes away from the beatiful screen!). The small amount of buttons with multiple uses makes this player a little less crowded on the front faceplate. Play/pause is a good size and has a raised dot on it to help feel it.
--Update--
I'd like to add something about the Windows Media Player 11 software that you sync the player with. It is very simple, ripping CD's and downloading music was a breeze. Syncing is very simple. All you do is connect the player, open WMP, click on sync in the top bar, and a sidebar comes up. Simply drag all the music your heart desires (or the player will hold) into the sidebar, and click Sync in the bottom of the sidebar. You can drag all the music from one artist, an entire album, or a few songs from an album. One problem I had was sometimes the cover art was not right when I ripped the CD. That problem is easily fixed by going to Amazon and searching for the album. Once you find it, click on the best thumbnail picture, and a big screen will come up. Right click on the picture and click Save Picture As. Do the steps to save it, then go to My Pictures, and drag the cover art to the album. You'll have to wait a second for it to appear. One problem I had with that process is when I synced the album with the updated cover art to the player, sometimes it would have the original cover art (not updated), or it would be black. It was sort of hit-or-miss whether you would get the right cover art. Another thing to be aware of is that the Walkman sorts albums by contributing artist, whereas WMP sorts by album artist. You must change everything under contributing artist on WMP to the album artist before you sync, otherwise it will be sorted wrong on the player. Now some people may not care about this, I did since my primary method of searching was by artist. Also, I'm going to point out where this thing beats its primary competitor, the iPod nano, and where it loses out.
Wins:
Better sound quality. If you get some decent earphones for the nano, it will sound pretty good, but not quite on par with the Walkman.
Simpler controls. The click wheel on the nano will seem better at first, simply because of of the novelty of it, but you will soon grow tired of it.
You're not locked into a special software. You can use pretty much any software with the Walkman, you must use iTunes with the nano.
Acceptance of WMA files. This is a long story, but iPod won't accept WMA because WMA stands for Windows Media Audio. Windows is Microsoft. iPod is Apple. Apple and Microsoft are archrivals. So iPods accepting WMA files would be like Apple saying "Microsoft is better than us". And they sure wouldn't want to do THAT. WMA files are better, in my opinion, because they have the same sound quality in half the space of MP3, which is iPod's primary format.
This player is geared toward those who want a prime music player.
Loses:
The nano's interface and technology are revolutionary. Accelerometer is a tech feat. The interface is pretty slick.
Video camera. The newest generation of nanos are equipped with a small, fairly featureless video camera. Good in situations where you need to take a quick vid, but not much else. Still, a nice feature that may be built upon in later generation of any player.
Colors. The nano comes in a wide array of colors to suit anybody. The Walkman comes in four fairly drab colors.
Accesories. It is amazingly easy to find third-party cases, chargers, cables and just about anything else for a nano, while you can ony get expensive Sony accesories from the Sony website for the Walkman.
The nano is primarily geared toward feature freaks, or those who want easy access to movies and other videos through iTunes. Also can play games.
Overall, your choice will be based on what you want. If you're an audiophile on a budget, get the Walkman. If you want cool technology, the best playback screen in the universe, and a ticket into the "cool crowd" get the nano. Ultimately, I would buy the Walkman again purely because of the price.
Customer Review: GOING RO THE MIDDLE EAST
Summary: 5 Stars
THOUGHT THIS IS A GREAT PRODUCT. EASY TO USE AND NOT HARD TO SETUP. WE TRANSFERED ALL HIS FAVORITE MUSIC FROM CDS THE PROGRAMS MADE IT VERY EASY. AS ALWAY HAVE BEEN HAPPY WITH AMAZON PURCHASE.