Sony 4 GB Walkman Video MP3 Player Black

Sony 8 GB Walkman MP3 Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is my first MP3 walkman, since I bought my first cassette Walkman years ago….boy was I surprised at how good the sound was…..matter of fact I downloaded some of my songs on it, and went to sleep listening with the earbuds stuck way down in my ears….At 4am I woke up, with my right ear, hurting so bad, I had to pack ice on it….it rubbed it raw, and it actually bled…..the ear buds were too large for my ears….I went to Best Buy and asked the salespeople what should I buy, and they all used a adjustable earbud so I paid an additional 20.00 for another set of earbuds, and used the smallest set, but even they rubbed both ears raw, so a friend that rode a motorcycle, told me to buy a set of Sony over the head vertical headphones and that did the trick…now I can listen as much as I want, without it hurting my ears……sometimes I don’t think a 65 year old man should even buy things like that, but I still love to listen to good music…..by the way, I still have my old Sony Walkman, and it still works listening to cassettes…..however I don’t go to bed and listen anymore…..the last pair of earbuds I bought was from Amazon and only paid 8.00 including shipping……

worth it
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Paid $79.95 for this and was skeptical. Charged it up and the next day I started downloading music. Loads songs fast and the sound quality is very clear and loud(comparing it to my ipod nano 1st generation). It’s user friendly and looks nice. The battery life is like 40 hours and it has a built in fm tuner to boot. My only gripe is totally unrelated to the performance of this product. I just wish they had more skins and cases to choose from. I used the 14 day trial coupon for napster to go and so far no problems. It came in the box along with ear buds. I went and bought sony ear huggers instead. Overall, Great product and I love it!

Great compatibility and superior battery life!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I can’t find very many things wrong with this thing. Great sound, plenty of storage and battery life twice that of the iPod Nano. It’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be! It’s the size of a credit card and 5/16″ (8mm) thick. A little shorter, thicker and wider by a few mm than the Nano. It’s about 13 grams heavier than the Nano according to my digital scale.

Works great, charges and plays through my sony Xplode car stereo with USB port.

Fully compatible with iTunes Plus songs with no DRM and of course all Amazon MP3 downloads and all my personally ripped MP3s from my CD collection.

Negatives: It’s oddly weighted so sometimes it’s cumbersome to use as the weight is on top and the controls on the bottom so it tends to rotate around in your hand. A silicone cover will help. Non-standard data port.

It has volume and hold controls on the right side, audio and proprietary data/charge port on the bottom. Back, option, 4-way control and play/confirm buttons on the bottom front.

Great, inexpensive MP3 player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Yesterday I dropped and broke my 5-year old Creative Zen Micro 4GB which I was relatively happy with except for the purchase price. After extensive reading on 4 and 8GB players, I decided on this wonderful little Sony Walkman. Extremely easy to load music onto, small, lightweight. The only downside is that there aren’t a lot of accessories for it. I guess it’s just an iPod world out there. But since I don’t need WiFi with my MP3 player, or a docking station, or loads of memory for videos, etc., this is just right for me. And the FM tuner is surprisingly good. Highly recommend. Oh, I’m still waiting for my 13-item “accessory” kit which I just ordered from amazon – I got it for the little speakers so that I can use it on my desk at work.

very nice product for music lovers demanding sound quality
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
excellent sound quality, simple intuitive interface. Radio has limited reception. relatively large storage capacity, and very long battery life with quick easy recharge. initially purchased for parents but was quickly acquired by the children of the house–luckily allows large individual playlists. allows playlists to restart where they left off which is convenient for books on tape. size is about that of a large thick credit card. nice color display. used with sennheiser headphone for maximizing sound quality playback.

good enough for me
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I previously owned a iriver clix that broke after I dropped it twice. I was looking for a non-ipod, cheaper, simpler mp3 player. This one does the job. Though it’s small, the metal casing feels hefty and red is a very nice color.

Pros: sound quality, drag-n-drop, sturdy, equalizer

Cons: can’t do wallpaper (though you can store pics), no games, can’t delete or arrange songs on the player

Perfect Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Sony 8GB Walkman Video/MP3 Player / B001F50UIQ

My old dinosaur-era MP3 player died and I needed a new player. I wanted something that could play MP3s, video, and radio and pretty much nothing else – I didn’t want to spend an arm and a leg for fancy extras when all I want is to listen to something pleasant while I work. This player fits the bill perfectly, and I’m only sorry I didn’t buy it sooner.

1. Music: I haven’t had an MP3 yet that this player hasn’t played perfectly. The sound is crisp and clear and clean, and I absolutely love it. A few people have noted that the player isn’t “loud enough”, but I’ve found that this is a consequence of the headphones more than anything else – with my comfy Sennheiser earbuds, I do keep the volume at about 20-25 (out of 30), but with my fiance’s headphones I keep the volume at a measly 10 or less. So, basically, if you buy this player, you might end up wanting a different set of headphones, customized to your comfort level – that’ going to depend on personal taste.

2. Video: This MP3 doesn’t support .FLV formats (i.e. the format used commonly on Youtube and other video sites), but it DOES support MP4 videos, and there are quite a few free MP4 converters out there (or, as many of them are called, ‘iPod converters’ since MP4 is also supported by the iPods). You can choose to view the videos in landscape or portrait mode, and when you view them in landscape (i.e, with the player on its side to have more viewing real-estate), the rewind/fast-forward buttons automatically resign to the up/down buttons instead of the left/right, which is extremely cool and intuitive.

3. Radio: Works beautifully. I haven’t listened to radio in years because I got tired of poor reception and fussy tuners, but this MP3 player has none of those problems. It’s easy to cycle through stations, and even easier to set ‘favorites’ and cycle through them.

4. Menu System: I love simplicity – I hate having to learn new systems, and particularly new, complicated systems. This MP3 player has the most simple menu system – the main screen has 9 icons, all clearly marked. Cycle to the music note and it lights up – press the button and there is your music library list of categories. You can either pick “All Songs”, or drill down further by album, artist, genre, release year, or folder. The ‘Back’ button will always cycle you back to the previous screen; the ‘Option’ button will allow you to customize views, preferences, or drill directly to the current song – in case you backed out to go look at some stored pictures and want to return to the song screen without having to re-navigate there. It’s so intuitive that I was using it straight out of the box, with no need for a manual – that’s simplicity.

5. Compatibility: This MP3 player works perfectly with my Vista laptop and my fiance’s XP desktop. It doesn’t, for some odd reason, work with *my* XP desktop, but that seems to be a fault in my individual computer, and not with the operating system or the MP3 player itself. Plug the USB cord in, and drag-and-drop your music into the removable drive. You can either drop everything in directly, or use folders to organize everything. The transfer is fast and easy, just the way I like it. I understand you can also interface with various programs to move your music onto the device, but I prefer drag-and-drop, so I haven’t tested that aspect.

6. Size and Usage: Perfect. The player is incredibly slim (hence the need for the proprietary USB plug) and fits perfectly in any jeans pocket or jacket. The length of the player is precisely from the bottom of my palm to the top where my fingers start – a perfect hand-held size, allowing for videos to still be easily viewed. The front buttons are simple and easy to use (Back, Option, Up/Down/Left/Right, Play/Pause) and the side volume buttons are easy to press without being accidentally bumped frequently.

7. Battery life: No complaints here. I can get at least nine hours of straight video usage out of this player and probably more – nine hours is the point at which I had home for the day and plug the charger in for the night. Music usage takes even less power than video usage, so I can imagine you could get at least two full days out of this device before needing to charge it again. Charged overnight, the battery is completely full in the morning, and the internal indicator is clear enough to read at a pinch.

8. Complaints: It would be nice to be able to delete songs directly from the device, in case I hear something and think, “Ugh, why did I put that on here?” Just open Option and hit delete – no need to hook up to the computer and dig through folders. Still, that’s a small thing. It would also be nice to be able to build playlists on the device – they have to be loaded from your loading program and since I don’t bother with all that, that means no playlists for me. And since you can’t tell the videos to just play one-after-the-other, you have to keep selecting the next one in the list to listen to, which is kind of annoying when your hands are full. And that’s pretty much it as far as quibbles go.

9. Extras: Definitely get the accessories pack for this device – 13 Items Bundle Accessory for Sony Walkman – as it is worth every penny. The screen protector and rubber sheath will protect your investment, the external speakers are just plain nice to have, and the wall-charger is WONDERFUL to use – not only does it charge more conveniently (for me, anyway) than via the USB-to-computer connection, the player can ALSO play music/video/etc. *while* it’s charging via the wall charger, something you can’t do when it’s hooked up to the computer because then the player is in “data transfer” mode.

In short, I love this player and will use it for as long as I can. When, god forbid, it reaches the end of its natural life, I’ll probably buy another one of the exact same brand. I love it *that* much.

Sony Walkman MP3
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this for my wife a few weeks ago and it is my very first MP3. So I had to learn how to use it from scratch as I didn’t know anything about MP3 technology prior to this. I did some research beforehand and chose this brand because of the Sony name and especially because of the battery life. The price was better than the ipod brand so that was a factor as well. I am pleased overall with its function. It is very easy to load CDs to WMP and then sync with the device. My wife loves it! And I like the ease of use. The draw backs are the small display screen and the non-functioning wall plug that I purchased separately with it. I also loaded pictures on it and would be nice to have a larger screen for this purpose. It does come with its own USB cable to sync and charge it. I am considering a device for myself and would consider a larger storage one as I would have more storage needs.

5 month battery
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Nice product, good sound, easy navigation- all good. 5 months use and the battery won’t hold a charge.

amazing simplicity
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Having owned the Haier “ibiza” as well as an ipod, I found this little walkman just simply amazing. First,it works as advertised! No hang ups using Rhapsody to go.Also using high quality headphones the sound is excellent. The only deduction is a small screen but if you want the convience of a really small player and you don’t need it for video it’s fine.

Sony 8 GB walkman video mp3
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Very nice mp3 player, can play videos. Like the fact it didn’t come with sonic stage program like the last sony walkman i purchased did, it was crap. Some reviews claim it synced all of there songs and albums onto their player, just go to the sync tab and turn off the auto sync option and you won’t have that problem again. It is a nice,sleek, and compact unlike other brands that are twice the size and twice the price.

Simplicity
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I love that you can plug it into your computer and start listening right away – no programs to install, no PITA formats… nothing. If you have Media Player, you already have everything you need. This alone makes it 1000 times better than an iPod. I hate having Apple programs on my PC anyway. It’s about time manufacturers started making their products work with our computers and not the other way around!!

This is not worth the money
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Buy a Zune. This is not good for video. Too small. This is the first Sony product that I wish I would not have purchased.

Great Product
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Owned the original version of the sony mp3 player and I loved it. Love this one as well!

Sony 8 GB Walkman
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is the fourth one I have purchased. I give them away as presents. Can’t beat it for the price!

Great Ipod alternative
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
For a year, I tried to get my Ipod to do what I expected it to do (e.g. function with different computers, file transfer, etc). I found the Ipod very frustrating. Oh, another frustrating thing about the Ipod was finding the files after I had already played them before. It seemed to me that they moved away from where I found them before.

The Ipod frustrates me greatly.

The Sony Walkman is much better.

The Sony Walkman allows me to connect to any computer and transfer files just like with a thumb drive. The files stay where I put them. Both the Ipod and the Sony have one good/common feature – they start again right where they stopped, which is important if you are listening to text audio.

I also bought the Combo Accessory Bundle Kit for the Sony Walkman.

Perhaps I will eventually use the chargers and extra cables, but the sleeve that protects the Sony Walkman has to be cut to gain access to the the buttons and audio plug. The rubber quality of the sleeve seems to be very high. The kit contains an arm band, but I prefer a fanny pack that I can put around my belly or chest.

Not as good as the older version, but still a great product
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this walkman because I needed more space. I previously had the older version of the 4 GB walkman, and I really liked it, but it was always a hassle to put more music on because I had to delete my old songs… So this one definitely has enough space for all of my music …for now.

Likes:

It’s definitely different from the old one. This one has the fm radio, which is about the only thing that I like more about it, besides the fact that it has extra space…

It still has pretty good sound quality.

Dislikes:

The equalizer has changed, removing the option to boost the bass…which was really nice on the old one.

The navigation is different because if you are under the “All songs” menu, you can’t look up music from a certain artist just by scrolling down on the song you are looking at and clicking the artist…it’s kind of hard to explain.

It is laggy. Maybe it’s because I have a lot more music on it now, but the walkman takes a lot more time to load up when you press play, and when you are scrolling through music it takes a few seconds to process…so it makes speedy navigation a bit tough.

Overall, it’s still an excellent product, I just like the older version better. The fm radio was not worth the sacrifices of speed, bass, and navigation that it has changed…

sony 8 gig
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
i am overall VERY HAPPY with this product!!!! there is a lag time switching screens that i didn’t experience with the 4 gig Sony- but it is not a deterrent with a little patience

Great little mp3 player
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The sound is terrific on this mp3 player although I should say I did upgrade the ear buds I use as the ones that came with the player didn’t fit well. It works well with windows media player so downloading music and podcasts is easy. The menu system works well and the battery life is impressive. All in all I’m quite pleased with my purchase.

no speaker or extension slot
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
This seemed like a really great product to me since it’s a sony but I dont like that it doesn’t have a speaker on it or the expansion slot. Especially when cheaper models that are rated good have those options.

Lasted only 6 months
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Don’t purchase this item if you want an operational MP3 for more than a few months. Without any damage to this Sony MP3 player (i.e. dropping it, bumping it, etc), the player just stopped working. It would not power up at all. When we contacted Sony online, they offered an exchange program for $29. We opened an account to start this process, however, at the end of the application Sony was then charging $77 – not $29. We contacted the customer service by phone. They had no explanation for the cost offered at the beginning being different then at the end. Customer service just said that the player was just eligable for parts and that the labor was $77. A person could purchase an new one for that. We will no longer will purchase Sony products.

Great gift to yourself or someone else
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Very timely delivery. Great sounds and functions. This player plays movies and has great clarity. I highly recommend this player. DO NOT PASS THIS UP!

Good but disappointed
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I will preface by saying that as a Sony, of course it sounds good. In my experience so far over the years, my Sony cassette Walkman, CD player, CD/mp3 player, and now finally mp3 player have outperformed all other brands in terms of pure sound. Plus Sony has one quirk of programming I’ve found on no other brand of mp3 player (and I looked!) – you can organize and play your files by folder as well as the more common album, artist, genre, etc. For many people this may not mean much, but since I have a lot of mp3s I recorded from other media which thereby have no or minimal ID tagging, it’s a big deal.

Now the positives vs negatives of this model in particular.

In comparison to most other mp3 players, still very good. In comparison to the (very sadly damaged) A816 Sony player it replaced… in one important way it falls well short. Both this player (E438) and the older one held the price of $99.99 at Best Buy. This one has literally twice the memory and admittedly a bit more finger-friendly button placement. And ten hours more time on the battery (45 vs 33 hours at peak energy-saving mode). So far, the E438 sounds like a great bargain indeed. But… the A816’s sound went beyond good to utterly spectacular. You can still get that quality of sound and the sound options that create it from a Sony player, but now they reserve that level of programming for their higher-end models. Without spending over $150, now apparently you can’t get that. And believe me… you have to hear that sound to believe the sharpness, the clear stereo, both bass and all the highs with none of the muddiness that in comparison I do hear on the E438, and the ability to normalize volume in a diverse playlist… I miss my old player.

I will still keep the one I now have, since… well, I have it. But tonight I’ve purchased a like-new used A816 from here on Amazon. Smaller memory and shorter battery life aside, the sound options really are worth that to me.

Excellent Product. Very easy to load songs
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought an ipod before trying this product. Ipod was a nightmare requiring downloading program from itunes website to be able to add songs and blocking. This was incredibly easy to use came with disk to load microsoft media player into windows which picks up my songs automatically and syncs with great ease and precision. It also allows me to add my cds to the program and then to my walkman with amazing ease. I would definately tell people who are impressed by the marketing techniques and packaging of ipod to stay away as Walkman is a better quality product at a fraction of the price and its from Sony which lasts forever.

awesome
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I love my mp3 player, after dealing with an ipod, that was so complicated. the mp3 is so straight forward, aand your site is so easy to download music. thanks

Excellent mp3/video player!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I purchased this device after having lots of problems with Sansa products (Clip and Fuze). Sony Walkman reviews were consistently high, so I gave it a try. I have been very impressed.

Music quality using a $10 pair of SkullCandy Ink’d is outstanding. Very crisp and clean, even at 128 kbps.

Video playback is also very good. Display is sharp; no stuttering during playback. I have been successful using the free SUPER encoder set at VIDEO mp4;H.264/AVC;320:240;384kbps and AUDIO 44.1K;96kbps. For DVDs,use free DVD Decrypter or Smartripper and deselect all audio language streams except English). Smartripper allows you to rip to one big file, instead of ending up with 4 or 5 smaller vob files on your player. One little glitch – after encoding, I have an audio/video sync issue with downloaded zipped mp4 files from one source [...], but I can correct it during playback by forwarding a few frames, then reversing. After that, it’s ok. DVDs encrypted using SUPER do not have that issue. I suspect it’s how SUPER (and Any Video Converter) handles that sort of file, but just a guess.

FM radio reception is good in the area I live in (DFW).

Battery life seems to be strong, but I haven’t put any time into tracking it. Somewhere I read that mp3 playback is 40+ hrs, radio 20+, and video 7+. With audio and video, lower bitrates extend battery life (at the cost of quality). Equalizer will also cost you a little more battery. I can go several days between charges (my kids can only get a few hours from their ipod battery before it needs a charge).

Complaints: computer dependency and earbud quality. You must be connected to a computer to add/delete files, to manage playlists, and to charge the battery (unless you spring for an optional AC charger). You’re SOL if you lose the USB cable. Earbuds are poor quality.

Overall, a very functional and high quality device. I found mine on Amazon for $69 w/free shipping, which made it even sweeter.

A great middle-of-the-road MP3 Player…
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
While not overly luxurious, the 4 gig Sony Walkman is worth the price.

PROs: The sound quality is great, and the equalizer makes it easier to customize multiple settings to match different sounds or preferences. Finding your music once you get it on your Walkman is easy; you can search by artist, song name, album, release year, or you can go through all the songs. You can also upload playlists from Windows Media Player onto it. With the picture or video viewer, you can change the settings so you can view them either horizontally or vertically on the screen. The horizontal setting is perfect for videos. Also, the sound and picture quality is great, and it’s easy on the eyes to watch videos on the high resolution screen. The FM radio works decently. Another handy feature is the clock, which you can set to either standard or military time. While playing music, the Walkman will start a screensaver; either just a blank screen or the clock fading in and out periodically, whichever is your choice. It comes with a small handy program with which you can put videos, pictures and iTunes music onto the MP3 player.

CONs: The biggest drawback is battery efficiency… don’t believe that stuff about “45 hour playback” for a second; although the playing time is better than the last MP3 Player I had, the battery time is REALLY cut down by the Standby Mode, which isn’t adjustable… even when you “power off” your Walkman, it isn’t actually turned off. It stays on and ready for use for hours afterward, which brings me to another drawback: when it actually does turn off after the few hours it’s on Standby Mode it takes FOREVER to turn on. It has to assemble the library, as it says, and this could more than a minute, depending how much data you have on it.

And as with most MP3 players, it only charges with a USB computer connection, so you’ll want to get the Plug-In Charger if you travel much (a $40 cost!!)

TIPS: Definitely get a screen protector and a cover for your Walkman. It smudges easily, and the screen gets scratched almost right off the bat.

Although this MP3 Player is more flexible than some, you’ll want to check on the file formats it accepts for videos and whether or not you’re videos will work on it. It’s screamingly frustrating to look forward to playing videos on a music/video player and then find out it won’t recognize the file. iTunes videos may not work on this player.

Overall, this is a great MP3 Player for both music, video, and pictures. Despite a few drawbacks, the good definitely outweighs the bad.

Sony 8GMP3
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Amazing little product!! Easy to download, easy to navigate, and the battery life is a huge bonus.

Let Zune and Ipod duke it out, Sony’s the real deal.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have owned this unit for a year after having a 2GB unit that I purchased years ago which is almost the exact model- just smaller space.

I’m solely an audio MP3 user, I have no input on the video.

The bottom line no BS reason for owning this unit is that the sound quality is hands down better than Zune/ Ipod. There are MULTIPLE features for tweaking the sound. The bass is strong and clear. my favorite thing is not only does it have multiple EQ settings, it has 2 fully customizable 5 band EQ setings with bass response adjustment band as well.

I have heard Zune, i have heard Ipod… the sound is better on Sony.

Create menus in WMP or Winamp and slide the right over to the device. I prefer WMP as it just seems smoother… I have a boat load of “home made” CD’s and the software detects the CD’s, puts the album art on your player. You can even pull off the album art to your desktop, paste it onto the WMP where your songs are as well. It is simple to move items from your computer to your MP3 player… most likley your computer will recognize your MP3 once you plug it in.

The stock earbuds are not great, but to me paying $30 more for another Sony with the “premium” buds is not worth it. i got a new pair of new Sennheisers on Ebay for $10. Chances are you already have phones that you like.

Ipod is trendy… Zune really wants to let everyone know it’s as good as Ipod.

Sony apparently spends their time putting the money for publicity into the product.

If your priority s to care what your music sounds like and want an interface that’s simple, this is for you.

Very Satisfied with my Sony Video Walkman
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I received this product as an award from my company (not Amazon) but thought I’d post my review here. While my wife and two daughters are in “cool” land with their iPods, I don’t go for popular. The main reason I haven’t gone the way of the majority is that the Apple gang hasn’t figured out how to put a radio in theirs (I like to listen to Car Talk and other things). However as the kings of the world of portable media players, they seem to command the big $$ which I think is outrageous.

So far I’ve been able to fit on the unit 3 full length movies, 4 Twilight Zone episodes (geek) and a ton of music and still have 2.6 GB of space left. I purchased the Wondershare DVD to Walkman Converter which takes care of getting the DVD to a usable fomat and size for the unit and it has lots of editing features for those more geeky than me. The full length movies are less than 1GB once converted.

I travel, so having this unit which is small enough to fit in my pocket or wallet is great. You would think that the small screen would be useless, but it’s quite viewable (granted, I have to use my glasses).

Sound quality is good as I would expect from Sony. Easy to use and loading stuff was pretty easy.

If you’re not interested in “cool” and want a very good media player at a far better price than Apple, this is a good unit.

ended up with a lemon
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I purchased this sony Walkman 8MB after reading the reviews here. I was initially very pleased with the Walkman, especially since my IPod died and I didn’t want to shell out the money for a new one. Two months after I purchased the Walkman, however–after using it only a handful of times at the gym–the unit would no longer upload songs from my laptop; WMP could not recognize my Walkman, or only sporadically. I spent 30 minutes trouble shooting my walkman on the phone with Sony, to no avail. I must send my Walkman back to Sony (it has not even been three months since my purchase date), and at my expense, in which case Sony will be replacing my almost-never-used-and-broken Walkman with a REFURBISHED one. The rep from Sony told me that if it had broken in the first month, I would have had a new replacement. Buyer Beware.

Solid, but with some annoying software flaws.
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
The hardware for this device is great; simple to use and fairly intuitive. It’s got a good construction, and doesn’t require the lightness of touch that Apple products tend to require (and at 6′5″, what I consider “a light touch”, Apple considers “bashing”).

The problem is with the randomization software. When put into random mode, it instead generates a playlist. The first song is usually whatever you were listening to when the device was turned off, which isn’t a bad feature. The second song is ALWAYS the first song in your alphabetical list. After that, it is entirely random. However, if you choose a song to play while on random, instead of continuing with random play afterwards, it restarts its playlist… meaning with the song you were playing when you turned it off, then the first song in your alphabetical order, then in order through its “random” playlist. This necessitates forwarding through a lot of your music if you choose to listen to a song out of the order it has decreed. A very annoying feature, as there’s no way to reset the playlist.

A nice mp3 player
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The appearance, battery life and sound quality are impressive. But the design of menu is not satisfactory.

Great for its intended use
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’ve owned a number of MP3s. This unit is user friendly and the sync speed and software is better than anything I’ve owned. My only regret is that I wished I had moved up to a higher memory unit,as it filled up pretty quickly, but if you’re looking for an inexpensive compact well designed unit to work out with or for commuting and don’t mind editing you library more frequently , you can’t go wrong

The best MP3 player ever!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars

This is a great product!It has many useful features that are easy to get the hang of.It can hold up to 900 songs,and my entire library has only filled it about halfway.The picture quality is unbelievable and videos have a playback rivaled only by an HD television.There are two customizable equalizer settings,allowing for ear-busting bass power or soft,gentle treble control.It is very durable and even comes with a cd that has Windows Media Player 11,but unlike what it says,it doesn’t necessarily need it.I give this product five stars!

Amazon’s listed dimensions for this product are incorrect
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Amazon’s listed dimensions for this product are incorrect.

Listed dimensions: 5 x 7 x 1.4 inches

Actual dimensions: 1.75 x 3.38 x 0.34 inches

It really IS small!

great item
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This was a gift for my wife,who is very technologically challenged. With very little coaching,she had it up and running quickly and is quite happy with the sound,battery life and capacity. I am quite happy that she is happy.All in all a great purchase for me!

I love my walkman!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought an mp3 player mostly to download audiobooks from the library. The first one I bought was tiny, very complicated to use, and constantly “froze up”, went back to the beginning and made me fast-forward hours into the book. The Sony Walkan is so simple, it “keeps my place” when I turn it off and has never “frozen up”.

Close, but not quite.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this as an upgrade from my first-generation ipod nano (so about four years old) with the intent of using it only for music. I’m very picky about my music so this review centers on the unit as compared to other mp3 players out there.

The Good:

The screen is bright and easy to read, the sound quality is excellent, a great memory for the price, very easy to use (you don’t even need to bother with the instruction manual; it’s very intuitive).

You don’t need iTunes or other software to use this player. You can just drag-and-drop files onto it (but you can’t make playlists on the player like ipod on-the-go playlists, you have to use a separate program for that.)

The Bad:

The max volume even after turning of AVLS is still too low for my taste. That said, my taste damages your hearing and so for most people the volume on this unit would be ok. I recommend buying a pair volume-adjustable headphones if you like your music LOUD, as the maximum volume on this is comparable to that of many mp3 players out there.

Another volume complaint is that, while this product offers you the ability to adjust the sound with an equalizer, any setting besides standard dulls the volume. The presets as well as your own settings are noticeably quieter than ‘normal.’ Even if you set the equalizer to exactly what ‘normal’ is and play it in that mode, it is still quieter.

The Ugly:

My final complaint about this unit is that the shuffle algorithm is predictable and not very shuffly at all. If you have used windows media player you might notice when you set it on shuffle it will play the same songs over and over and never play others. The same goes with this unit. When you say ’shuffle all,’ you get a very similar playlist every time. For example, 4 out of 5 times I select shuffle the song “(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth” will be number one on the list (and the fifth time it was number two).

In Conclusion:

While this unit has several minor flaws, the overall value much outweighs them. It will hold 1500-2000 songs, as well as photos and videos, has an FM radio, is lightweight, aesthetically pleasing, easy to use, has a very long battery life… The few flaws are relatively unimportant and wouldn’t even be noticed by most people. I would recommend this product for someone who wants a good value for a low price, and especially to people who are sick of using iTunes and other programs to manage their music.

Great Little Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’m a first time MP3 player user, and, after a lot of research, decided to purchase this player over an iPod. First, the screen on this player is the same resolution as an iPod’s and I heard good things about the sound quality of this player. the sound is even better if you use some Sony MDR-V150 Monitor Series Headphones with Reversible Earcups Also, you can simply use Windows Media Player to put music onto it. Overall, this is a great product by Sony that I would recommend to anyone.

GREAT – and I mean GREAT Sound
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
the sole reason i made the decision to purchase this sony walkman was because a few people made comments that this mp3 player has an equalizer and that the sound quality was incredible. I am here to testify to that fact – the sound quality is really, really goooood, and you can make changes to the sound quality with the equalizer. the equalizer has five options plus two “custom” options – can’t go wrong with setting up your own. I wanted to purchase the 16g unit, but that one does not have an qualizer. i found out though that if i rip a cd in windows media and choose the wma format at a bit rate of 48kbps, i can get so many songs on this little thing – it is truly incredible. i downloaded over 2,000 (2k) songs and i still have room for many more. if you are into sound, this is the unit for you. i am very pleased with my purchase, and i can’t wait to give it to my husband for our anniversary.

The first half hour…
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
So, the first half hour I had this thing, I wasn’t to sure about it. Then once I figured out what I was doing wrong (as far as making playlists) I loved it. I used to have an Ipod (My wife managed to wash and dry it and, as it turns out ipods are not waterproof. Maybe I should sue them for not putting a warning label on it.) and the only feature I miss is the ability to make a playlist on the go. With this thing the only way to make playlists is by using windows media player or an old version of itunes. You can’t make playlists on Itunes version 8 or higher for some reason. This was actually a pain in the butt, as I had to copy all my files from itunes into the windows media player, and then put them on the walkman (otherwise no playlists). As far as quality goes, I got no complaints, I like this thing alot. It came with some cheesy songs and videos and sample pictures on it which I immediately deleted. The only way to charge this thing out of the box is with a usb cable. So a computer or PS3 will do the trick, any other way you will have to buy a seperate cable. I use this thing in my car alot, of course you have to buy a seperate cable for that too. (Luckily I had one from my old ipod laying around.) I have a stereo in my bedroom that I bought specifically for my ipod and unfortunately it will not recognize my walkman even as an auxilary device. Well, I’m just rambling now… I’d reccomend it to anybody though. All in all its a good player. Oh yeah it comes with some pretty crappy ear buds, so be prepared to buy something more comfortable if you don’t already own any.

Great sound.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Pros – great sound, easy to load, screen visible in the sun, so far no problems. After researching, I think it is one of the best cheaper players on the market.

Cons – software a bit of a problem loading, but once it loaded, it is easy to use.

Don’t trust the Sony name here!
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I bought this MP3 player in the end of May of this year (09), and started using it right away. Loved it! I even got one each for my 2 daughters. Great sound, easy to use, etc. Fast forward to August. Three. Short. Months. (And of course, juuuust out of the 90 day warranty.) It was working one minute, and dead the next. Gone. Unable to revive.

I had it hooked up to my laptop and was downloading songs. I disconnected it because I was done, and wanted to listen to it, because that’s what you do. It wouldn’t even turn on. The bottom half of it was extremely hot, like everything in there was melting. This went on for a good hour–hot as heck. I knew it was over.

What can I do? Absolutely nothing. Except never buy another one from Sony.

I’m just hoping my kid’s players last longer than mine. That was about $300 worth of Sony stuff, and now I find out they’re just not worth it.

I’d have given ZERO stars if I could have.

***Coming back two days later to add: Wow, shocking. Yesterday, my daughter’s Sony MP3 player bit the dust.

Pieces of junk, I’m telling you. So we have one more in the house. I wonder how much time it’s got left? A week, maybe?

Its smaller than I thought
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
When I was buying this player at toys r us, I realized how small it was than I thought. The player is not as loud with the music as when I listen to the music in the computer. Thats the only problem I have. Im going to change the headphones. I prefer the silicone headphones that you can fit in your ear because they don’t fall out of your ears. I hate that the headphones that it comes with has the string shorter than the other side of the headphones (its like about a half shorter than the other side). Also I think the sound quality with the player’s headphones is good but I want it to be 3 levels louder but it is loud, not loud, loud,: just loud; like I can hear the bass really good (but theres no treble) and the radio is great. The video quality is excellent. The thing I like the most about this player is that its easy to use and I know how to use all the features and I didn’t have to read the booklet. In fact I never read the booklet. I haven’t found the perfect headphones yet that compares to the headphones that came with the player. Now I have to go on a headphone shopping spree. 5 in a half stars.

Pink is Pretty!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I am very happy with my new Pink MP3 Player. My only complaint is the ear phones are hard plastic and very uncomfortable. I purchased different ones at Radio Shack that work quite nicely.

Pretty Good
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is a nifty little player with a lot of features. The sound is very clear and the picture and video quality is very sharp. Easy to navigate and good battery life. The headphones that come with the player aren’t great, but you can always get better ones yourself.

The player would have been even better if it had a voice recording feature. Otherwise, it’s pretty good.

Better than expected!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
On Christmas, I got this Mp3 player for my wife because she’s been crazy for one for a long time now. Coincidentially, she got me the same one; the only difference was that her’s is red and mine is black.

Ok, this player is tiiiiinyyyy!!! But it feels solid and well built. It looks beautiful and stylish as well. The buttons are responsive, the screen is bright and very sharp and overall, it is easy to handle.

The FM Tuner works great (you just need to now how and where to use it to get the total benefit out of it). And as for sound… UNBELIEVABLE! I’m a sound freak and i’ve always considered the Ipod lacking a certain punch… this Walkman delivers everything you need. It doesn’t include a Bass Enhancement option because it does not need one! It has a nice equalizer with four presets and 2 customizable ones. You don’t need anything other than that . As for volume, it’s excellent! It goes up to 30 but believe me, you won’t go over 20. If you do, get your hearing checked.

And yes… it is true what other owners say about this player, the ear phones are not that good… but they won’t kill you either. Their biggest flaw is that they don’t have rubber or cotton. So if you wear them for awhile, they start hurting your ears. This player deserves topnotch headphones .

The Drag n’ Drop option couldn’t be easier. Managing folders is simple and you get to learn alot about audio and video information with the PDF Instruction Booklet. READ IT if you want to get ahold of every single feature of the Walkman.

My wife and I love this MP3 player! Forget any expensive player out there. Perfect space, no hassle, long battery life, EXCELLENT SOUND! By far the best Christmas present ever. Buy one!!! Or give one to your lover… she/he will love you more… LOL.

It use friendly…
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
We really like it. Each of my kids have one and so far no problem. it easy to use and down load stuff for it.

Perfect MP3 – Sony for Me!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Prior to purchasing this Sony Walkman 8GB, my first MP3 player, I read many reviews. I am 52 and have been using PC’s for the past 20 years, so I was already leaning toward a PC friendly MP3. I ordered this unit and accessories (USB cable, skin, wrist strap) for less than $120 including shipping. In addition, I purchased an 8GB nano for comparison, but ultimately returned.) The nano was a pretty purple – thin and slippery. The only thing I found cooler about the nano than the Walkman, was that the photos rotate. Otherwise, the Sony Walkman has all the features I wanted, plus FM radio, plus headphones that actually stay in my ears. Earbuds are a very personal fit, since everyone’s ears are not the same.

I was concerned about syncing with Windows Media Player (WMP) and iTunes, so I tried it from both, which took a little time. After all that syncing, and reading a few more reviews, I installed the “Content Transfer” program that comes on the CD provided with the Walkman. Why did I wait so long to pop it in?! It is sooooo easy to drag files from either WMP or iTunes and drop them into the Content Transfer program. Now I can download my podcasts in iTunes, and drag them to my Walkman. While listening to my music or podcast, I can also view a photo slideshow – cool!

Another great feature I discovered (would have discovered sooner had I bothered to read the user start guide) is the Hold switch on the side of the player. The Hold switch prevents accidentally pressing buttons while it is in a pocket. Before using the Hold switch, I would pause my recording while leaning against the sink (MP3 in my front pocket) – how annoying.

Lastly, the Sony Walkman is a nicer shape to hold, with more heft than the slippery iPod nano, and I actually like the color black as it doesn’t show dirt, or earwax on the buds – not that I have an ear wax problem. With the iPod nano, it was way too easy to accidentally crank up the volume by spinning the dial – ouch, my eardrums. The Walkman has the volume toggle on the side of the unit. And if you have a lot of songs (A-Z), you don’t have to scroll through the entire alphabet. Instead, arrowing to the right skips ahead faster through the alphabet.

I think I got a bargain. $99 and free shipping for the 8GB Sony Walkman. Buy it!

Excellent MP3 Player!!!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is a great mp3 player. I have had a ipod, Sandisk and now this. This is by far the best out of those and way cheaper.

The good:

1. Sound is excellent, way better than the other players I have used. I would say definitely cd quality sound.

2. Long battery life!

3. Easy to put music on, drag and drop or sync using Windows Media. You don’t need proprietary software!

4. Easy to use controls, not complicated.

I honestly cannot think of anything bad but I will comment on the bad reviews:

1. The volume people are saying it is too low. The highest level of volume on this is probably lower than most players but if you listen to this at full blast, it would be bad on your hearing. I like my tunes fairly loud and I only put the volume not even at 50% full. So really to me, this volume situation is not an issue.

2. The earphones are not great that come with it. By all means, they are not bad and just your standard cheap earphones. You may want to invest in a better pair.

3. Seems to be hard to find accessories. But look on Amazon or Ebay, you can find a nice cheap accessory pack for $7-$20.

So all in all, there is not a lot of bad features on this player. Check it out!!!

Great buy!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Fantastic product! I have about 900 songs on my Sony. It has replaced CDs in my car with its universal audio jack. Well worth the money and just as good, if not better, than the I-pod. Roughly an 8 hr. battery life, which is good, not great, but it charges in only 30 min. with your USB on the computer. Kudos to Sony on this one!

rdgldr
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
My first MP3 player purchase and it is everything I would want to begin with. The Windows Media transfer is so easy and having a FM tuner just makes this a great purchase for the price. So far so good with everything and I am truly enjoying my MP3 player.

Decided to Come Back to Sony – Glad I Did!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
***UPDATE 1-5-09***: After returning the Sansa Clip (felt too cheaply constructed) and the 8GB Creative Zen I bought (clunky SD card integration and concerns about hardware integrity), I came back to this Sony. It’s built well, sounds great, and is everything I want in a player. If I could change it to five stars, I would. I still recommend changing out the earbuds, though. The pre-packaged ones lack punch or comfort for long-term use.

Original Review:

This may be a weird review since I ultimately returned this player for an 8GB Sansa Clip, but it was a tough decision to make. Here’s why:

This Walkman sounds great. I’d read several reviews online about how the Sansa Clip and Fuze sound great for their price points. Well, I loaded the same playlists from my Clip to this Walkman and compared them – they both sounded remarkably similar if not the same! This Sony does sound nice with the clear high notes, and rich lower ones. The included earbuds weren’t very good, but I used a pair of Koss KE29S Noise Isolating Earbuds, and the sound was great.

The video and pics on the screen are bright and crisp. They play well on the bright, 2″ screen.

The GUI is easy and intuitive to use without looking at the instructions. Everything is clear and concise, allowing for fast navigation. There really is no need to consult an instruction manual; You have a 9-icon layout on a 3 by 3 grid. You follow the symbols to access the various media and features available. Simple.

There is a large central play/pause button flanked by an options button (its context sensitive, but allows you to do things like access the equalizer for a song, set radio presets, etc.) and a home/back button that allows you to backtrack back to the home menu. It really can’t be overstated home easy/obvious the controls are for this player.

The player feels sturdy and well built. It has a volume rocker on the side of the player as well as a hold button. I’m a big fan of dedicated volume controls on mp3 players. I just think it adds to the intuitiveness of a player. The unit is also very ergonomically sound – it fits nicely into the palm of your hand. The buttons don’t jiggle and feel very solid (unlike the Clip I ended up keeping). It sounds strange, but the player is solid and ‘heavy’ feeling while still being tiny and light. In a nutshell, it just seems well constructed.

The player also comes with a small program that can allow you to transfer files from iTunes to Windows Media Player, and play on this Walkman – of course the files must be non-DRM protected, but it is still very handy.

So why did I choose the Clip over this great little player? Simply put – the Clip was cheaper. I want an mp3 player for when I exercise and the Clip comes with a clip built in to attach to clothing(meaning no after-market straps to be bought like with this Walkman. Plus, I’ll never watch video on a 2″ screen.

But, just to be totally clear, it was a tough choice to not keep the Sony Walkman. For the price, you get a nice sounding solid player with a stellar battery life. Nothing to sneeze at here. It ultimately wasn’t right for my needs, but it definitely deserves a hard look if your in the market for a great little player.

Limited audio and video formatsThe
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
The Positive: Sleek and stylish design, very good sound quality, controls well designed and easy to use, crisp and clear screen, great battery life, easy to drag and drop MP3 files into folder on PC for loading onto Walkman, nice small size.

The Negative: Supports a very limited range of audio and video formats. If your digital camera produces AVI or WMV video clips, the Sony won’t play them. If you download a MV4 video from iTunes, the Sony won’t play it. And trying to conver these formats to something that the Sony will play is a real hassle.

Bottom Line: If you just want a good MP3 player, this is a great little product. If you were hoping to play a variety of audio and video formats, choose another player.

Very Good Player
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This player worked beautifully right out of the box. I have a subscription music account, and it is wonderful to have a player that I can “borrow” music with until I decide I’d like to buy. I have had an iPod for several years now, and I do love it. But, I don’t have the ability to try songs with it. As others mentioned, the earphones that come with the Sony aren’t what they could be. I would have given the player 5 stars had it come with ear buds that made sense and had it come with a case. Finding a case for this player is not as easy as finding a case for the very popular iPod. It would have been nice for Sony to save customers these two steps. But, otherwise, I can’t complain. Great sound, does what it says it will. I’m happy with it and definitely recommend it.

Old Guy Review
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Being 67 years old and wanting something simple to use I used previous reviews to settle on the Sony 4GB Walkman MP3 Player.

I couldn’t be more satisfied.It comes with a cd that allows dowloading an excellent tutorial along with Windows Media Player 11. Instructions are clear and concise. I had read in one review that you couldn’t delete songs. This was untrue as its simple, but does require being hooked to your computer.

If I can use this anyone can and they will be very satisfied with the quality, ease of use and sound quality.

I bought another Sony for my wife !!

Good
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I was so happy when I get this sony 4 GB Wlakman Video MP3 player…it was all that I was looking for, is slim, small and has good sound.

Very Impressed
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Another “Home-Run” from SONY. You will find this to be a high quality, well designed, simple to use unit.

The sound quality is good and is easily customized via the included equalizer. However, the purchase of a decent pair of high quality headphones is recommended.

The included FM tuner is effective and seems to have a reasonable range.

Battery life is more than acceptable. According to the documentation, the battery can be recharged about 500 times.

This player does exactly what is advertised and does it well.

The biggest mark against this little unit is that it doesn’t come in higher capacity. I’d love to have this with 100Gb or more of storage, that would make it just perfect.

I will say as a large person that the unit is slightly too small for my hands.

I recommend you go to the SONY site and review the product manual prior to purchase, so that you will have a very good idea of exactly what you are getting for your hard earned cash.

Overall, I’m very impressed with this little unit. Bravo!

Easy Operation for the Technologically Impaired
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
It’s really hard to improve on the reviews already here. So I’ll only say that as a 40-something, time-deprived, technologically challenged person, I found this device amazing. I was able to set it up immediately without looking at the instructions (not necessarily something I’d recommend to everyone.

It synched my daughter’s ipod music collection from our pc (Hallelujah!) – something my previous cheapo player couldn’t do. Now we can quit using up all our pc space w/2 sets of music saved in different formats! Now here’s something I may regret — but I didn’t have time to fully charge the unit (4 hours is recommended for a full charge). So I literally took it out the display case, downloaded the music, unplugged it from the pc, and went to work. It has been playing ALL DAY! Do these things come fully charged already?? I’m amazed and LOVE my new toy. Thank YOU, Santa!!

Very Nice Walkman!!!! Heeeeermoso !!!!!!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have purchased this walkman because I like music very much and I have the opportunity to keep my songs and videos in a very small walkman that it is great.

I would like to share something in Spanish: “Este walkman es incríble, su tamaño tan pequeño lo hace fácil de llevar a cualquier lado ocupando el mínimo espacio. La sintonía de las estaciones es perfecta.

Lo que podemos decir en contra es que requiere mucho tiempo para recargarse y no puede ser usado mientras tanto. Pero en general, estoy muy satisfecho con esta compra.”

poor music management
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
If you like to listen to music from your new CDs and cut the songs you don’t like as you go, Forget it. There is no “delete this song ?” option

on this player. If a song is playing and you hit the option button. The options you get are “now playing” pops up right above the title of the song that is now playing. Or, “Detailed Imformation” wich pretty much tells you the length of the song you hate and wish you could erase.

An Excellent Bargain…
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This product, all and all, is quite good. It is well built and feels durable, unlike other MP3 players that are flimsy due to being poorly built (such as Creative’s MX). The quality of the sound is excellent and with a built in equalizer allows for fine tuning. The devices user interface is intuitive and easy to operate, even in crowded environments such as in a subway. There is hold button (that prevents settings from being accidently changed once they have been selected) and there are external volume buttons (as opposed to on the LCD screen).

The ear buds that come with this are also fairly good, at least in terms of what is normally provided with most MP3 players. The quality of the music they produce is quite good (but obviously not as good as on pair of ear buds that cost over $50) though they are quite large. Unless you have particularly large ears the fit will be tight. You will probably, in the long term, want to invest in a decent pair of ear buds. Another huge plus is the very long life battery. As claimed by Sony, the battery actually works about 40 hours on one 4 hour recharge (at least when new – I have only had this about 2 weeks).

On the negative side the volume cannot be pushed up as high as nearly all other MP3 players. It can probably be raised enough high enough for 95% of the population, though. This factor probably explains, in part, why the battery can used for 40 hours straight.

Also, the video viewer is of limited value. This is so primarily because videos can only be viewed vertically and not horizontally. Considering that most videos are oriented in the opposite manner, the picture is much smaller than could have been the case if horizontal viewing was supported. This is a particular shame as this device’s video screen is of particularly high quality (very crispy, high resolution, excellent color rendition), much better than nearly all other MP3 players in the same price range. Hopefully Sony can fix this in a patch or in next version of the model.

A third problem, though just initially, is the lack of a decent instruction start-up pamphlet that shows the reader how to first set and get going. The included pamphlet is written quite poorly and, as a result, defeats its purpose of helping the user get up and running quickly. The PDF instruction manual on the CD that comes with the machine needs to be referenced and, as a result, quite a bit of time needs to wasted. However, once the reader gets himself/herself up to speed the computer interface with the MP3 player is easy to use.

In short, the positives (excellent build quality, sound, battery life, video screen) greatly outweigh the negatives (lack of decent start-up pamphlet, volume that cannot be turned up as high as comparable MP3 players, lack of horizontal video playing ability), especially compared to other MP3 models in the same range. Hence the 4 star rating.

just like expected
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
i received the exact item pictured and quicker than the time frame that was given to me. i really like this product and use inside at my gym. havent downloaded anything yet, but my husband has on his and seems pretty easy. i use for indoor radio stations and they come in pretty clear. this product was new in the package and this company had the best price by far.

Downgrade from Sony NWZS616FPNK
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I had a defective BWZS616PINK replaced with this item, Amazon was great about exachanging it since they no longer carry other other sony walkman, but I’m disapointed. Being a big Sony fan, I feel like this is a total downgrade. The sound quality is not 1/2 as good and the video quality is not as good either. It works, it has more storage but not what I expected with a sony. They have downgraded quality.

Entry Level
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
This is a good entry level player before you invest more money into a more advanced DAP. When listening to mp3s or any supported audio format for that matter, max volume is quiet, a little too quiet, even with the volume limiter off. The equalizer seems to make it even more quiet. Speaking of the EQ. It is completely useless. All the presets sound basically the same, adds muddiness and as mentioned before makes the volume too low. The player sounds much better with the “EQ” flat. Highs are crisp and clear, mids are clean and the low end is deep, defined and clean. Make sure you listen with a decent pair of phones.

FM reception is exceptional, the radio actually sounds better than digital music playback. If you have a long headphone cord reception should be fine.

The video player is basic, mpeg4 video playback is smooth. For some odd reason video player volume seems a lot louder than the radio and mp3 player. The display is pretty.

JPEG slideshows are fun. Can listen to music while looking at pics.

This player is Sony’s basic no bells and whistles digital media player. Its cheap, dont expect a mind blowing experience.

Very good sound
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Actually after reading previous reviews, I was not sure about sound quality. I can not compare with older sony mp3 players, I did not use, but the sound quality of this model is good enough for me. The menu and navigation is very easy. The radio works well too.

cons; no slot for memory cards,

support for e-books would be great.

Pretty Fabulous
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
It is a good product. I’ll asmit it is the only MP3 player I’ve owned, but I think it is a really good choice. It is pretty tiny, but solid. Great sound, great screen. It is really easy to put stuff on, just drag and drop, which is great. I think really the only things that have presented problems for me (and in reality, you may be able to do these and I just haven’t figured out how) is that you can’t arrange music on the player itself, you know make playlists, delete songs that you have no idea where they came from and hate. Also one really weird thing is that when you shuffle it always starts with the same random song, so at least I have really started hating that song. And the earplugs suck. They are really different lengths, which is both bizarre and not really helpful. I thought that it was just a defective pair but then I heard that it was standard, I don’t know itf that is true. So, if you are like me and only use one they’ll be fine, otherwise you’ll probably have to buy a new pair. But really overall, the little walkman guys are pretty sweet. I’d recommend to anyone.

pretty good player
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Pros- easy transfer of music, videos ect. and also great beginner player

Cons- well i can only think of one. my headphones shorted out after 9 months other than that its a great player

Have to admit, Sony still = quality
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I was looking for a small, good-sounding MP3 player for the gym and commuting. For a meager price, this Sony did not disappoint at all. With the exception of the traditional disposable earbuds, the sound is extraordinary, even with smaller MP3 files, and the battery life leaves most competitors in the dust. A handsome unit with a very intuitive interface, so far I can’t find a thing wrong with it.

A must for the gym!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I absolutely love this little mp3. I take it to the gym with me every day. It helps make working out seem like a walk in the park! The sound quality is amazing, as well as the diversity it offers.

Love my new MP3 player
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I gave up my Ipod after the battery died, and wanted a less expensive “disposable” device, since after 3 years you can be sure it will no longer hold a charge. The Sony Walkman was easy conversion for me, I had no problem transferring my songs out of my Apple library and now have them in my Microsoft library. My only complaint is that it doesn’t have a protective cover, and the Sony brand cover would cost almost the same as the Walkman.

Audiobook listener
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I searched for a MP3 player that would be easy to use for listening to audiobook downloads from the library. I like the Sony, but still find it lacking in that if I want to go back to relisten to a section or accidently hit the reverse button, I have to go back to the start of the chapter. I purchased the accessory kit from Amazon, and the belt clip that comes with the kit is impossible.

nice player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a nice player for the price. My wife needed a MP3 for the gym and she loves it. I wanted a player that doesn’t require more software on my PC, and I love it. Just drag and drop songs. I’ll be purchasing another one for myself soon.

A little dissapointed!
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
There were such great reviews on this product, I expected a bit more. 1 – I was not pleased with the fact that the minute you connect the mp3 player to your computer it automatically downloads every song onto your player without asking first. I had tons of crap I didnt want on there and had to go back and individually delete it all, which was annoying. 2- Maybe I just haven’t figured it out yet, but adding playlists to this thing is ridiculous. The only way I could do it was by re-adding the songs…so I ended up with two copies of the same song. 3 – Even though I rename the file and put it in correct folders, it doesn’t show up that way on the player. It files it the way it wants to. This product was a huge let down to me. The ONLY thing I will give it is that it has great sound quality.

glad i bought it
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I don’t have much time to read like I used too so now I can download books from the library and make good use of the time spent walking the dog and grocery shopping. I would say the only thing I don’t like is the ear plugs but that is probably just me. I bought one of those little amps you can plug it into so you don’t have to use the ear plugs.

maybe not lucky
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
got this product this morning.

i turned it on. it worked. i transferred songs. then it froze. i talk to 3 different customer service employee from sony. they were nice but did not solve the problem. i lost my day on this product.

Very good MP3 Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Overall, excellent product. Plenty of space, small size, intuitive menus. Easy syncing. Plenty of battery life. Has an FM tuner.

Two small problems, cheap earphones accompany this product but they’re adequate. And each time you turn on device, if you’ve left it on your library, it “creates library” every time, so there’s a slight delay, but it’s not unpalatable.

Bottom line, an excellent alternative to an ipod with a radio and tremendous value for your money.

THE SOONER NATION
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I really like this little player. After a class from my kids, I can work it just fine. Sound is great. It even plays the old songs very good.

Excellent Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve been looking for something to replace my NW-S203F as my everyday and running player. Specifically I wanted something that could be used on runs, was under $100, and was NOT and Ipod. It seemed that Sony’s wireless NWZ-W202BLK Walkman would be perfect for me but the headphones/in-ear component would not stay in my ear as I ran so it was a deal breaker. I sold it and found this guy instead through Sony’s website and ordered it on Amazon. So far my experience with it has been incredible. The sound quality is good (4/5 since I experienced some amazing sound with Meizu’s DA-M4-04-MZ3 Miniplayer), it has enough space for my needs even with a 20+ gig music collection, and I love the drag-and-drop interface and its compatibility with Media Jukebox 12 (I was using Sonicstage to transfer files over to my previous gadget and that was the worst experience ever)! The interface is incredibly easy and intuitive and the player has a lot of nice options and even language settings that change on the fly (I’m learning some French). I love its sleek design and weight which make this device low-profile. I’ve been mostly using the audio and radio features of this device but recently I uploaded several photos and a movie. So far they look great and I like having something to watch on road trips.

There are several cons to this device as well. I’ve had one instance of trying to put a video on the player and it took a bit of work. Know that if you buy this player, just like all other video capable media players, you will have to convert the video file which can take several hours. I got the format wrong at first so no video played but the sound was still good. Then I tried a different compatible format and that didn’t work either, however, after reading the fine print, I noticed that the player only supports a maximum video bitrate which will affect the video’s size (MB) and quality (kbps). Fortunately Xilisoft allowed me to tweak that manually. So far, I’ve been able to watch the movie without interruption. The stock headphones on this device aren’t amazing especially compared to what the S series version gives you. This last mention isn’t a con but it would be nice if the player allowed me to choose a custom wallpaper from the pictures I have uploaded.

All in all, I am completely in love with this device and will be using it for several years to come. It’s intuitive, light and small, and great for running and workouts. I do plan on possibly purchasing an armband but I have no problem just holding the thing since it’s so tiny.

Great sound quality but…
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This Mp3 has incredible sound quality. I would strongly suggest this to anyone who truly enjoys music. I personally have just two gripes with it… firstly there were many videos I wanted to put on this device. I was able to put them all on the memory, however only 1/5 of the videos were available for playback. Why? Because it simply did not support the features necesary to play most of them. However I was able to transfer them from one computer to another, I just couldn’t play them on the player itself. My second problem is that it broke just two months after I got it. I was out playing airsoft with the Walkman in my pocket, it wasn’t bumped, shot, or leaned on, but when I was done playing with my friends the screen had become a bright white light. I was not able to fix it with the troubleshooting guide and customer service coouldn’t help it either. Fortunately the warranty was still active and I should get a new one in 7-10 days. The customer service however was very good and easy to use (though it was quite obviously based in India) and the only problem I had was when my stupid phone ran out of batteries, so then I had to call them back. Oh well.

Cool.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
There are several things you have to consider before buying a personal player. this one will satisfy you in all aspects. For me it’s not so important the capacity, so, 4gbs are enough for my music, this player is sensible to touch, it has buttons to navigate between all the options however you will feel it like a touchscreen device. excellent audio/video quality. long-life internal battery, I use it 8 hrs per day and every 3 days I have to charge it. All good things are not perfect… here we go with my deceptions:

1. it does not have a case.. handle it with care, it’s so easy to strach it… buy a hard crystal case too.

2. You can not creat your playlist directly from the player, after installing the software you have to upload all your playlist like any other file.

Besides this 2 things you won’t regret about the quality this item is made with.

Got it for free and going to buy a replacement instead
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I got this unit as a free employee gift. I was hoping to use it to replace my Creative Zen but it has a number of problems that make it a non-starter for me. It uses a proprietary cable so I can’t multiplex the micro/mini USB cables I already carry. The Creative can hang from my neck which looks goofy but is great for sleeping on a plane–the Sony has nothing like this. I often listen to audio books. The Sony doesn’t support Audible. I listen to podcasts and the Sony support is pretty limited including the fact that you can’t delete files from the device which is how I keep track of the podcasts I’ve listened to.

I think I’ll buy a new Creative instead of using this free Sony.

Everything Great But playlists a problem
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Love everything about this thing. The sound is great the controls are easy, but two things: The location of the headphone jack is bad for jogging and walking around with– not that big a deal.

But the big one is the nearly impossible task of making a playlist. This is a very important function for me and many other people. It has a menu choice for playlists, and I have gone on web forums over and over and have not found a way to use it. Very annoying

Even my 3 year old My Zen V came with a little bit of software that allows this. The Walkman’s software does not even make reference to playlists.

Audio files are not listed in order
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
MP3 audio files are not listed in order. For example, 1, 5, 2, 3, 6, 4….

I called Tech Support but nothing was resolved. If you have any suggestion, I’ll appreciate it.

Great sound, great Headphones. Amazing.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I am amazed at the sound quality. Wav files from Media player are great. The headphones are great.

Hints for using Media player. Make sure the internet is on to search for album information on a CD. Also on Synch set “Rename music files using rip music settings”. I synch after I rip.

I have had an ipod and this Sony is so much better. My only concern is that my daughter will want mine in exchange for the new ipod she received.

The fm radio works outside which really surprised me.

Media player is not as easy as Apple software but this is because there are so many options.

Black Friday Special?
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
It says this is a black friday special at $98.18?

I work at Wal-mart, and the everyday price of this item is $99.88. Save $1.70. What a deal!

sony mp3
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I got this for my 11 year old son. He had no problem figuring out how to work it. It downloads easily from media player.Sounds good too.

45 hours is a Blatant Lie.
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Something is wrong at Sony when they print an outrageous lie about a product. The 4GB MP3 player doesn’t come near 45 hours as they allege. It’s the same old 15-20 hour battery as previous models.

And for some reason, this new model is stripped of all but the most basic features. Intelligent Shuffle is gone, and the new Shuffle All Songs is anything but intelligent. The ability to view albums by artwork alone is gone. All of the features that balanced the volume between loud and soft recordings are gone. Also, the player must rebuild the library every time it is turned off for more than a few hours.

There are a few positive fixes, tho. The time lapse between tracks is all but eliminated. The new buttons are easier to use. And the price is much lower.

Everything You Need; Nothing You Sort-Of Could Use
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
A Perfect little Walkman, with amazing battery life, and the best sound on the market. The 5-band graphic equalizer makes all the difference when it comes to great bass. Memory space isn’t that much of an issue, but I like to keep my songs at 192 kbs wma, so only about 500 songs will fit the 4GB. My favourite feature is the brousing by album because there are little pics of album art next to each name. Keeping your music library on Windows Media Player is also a perq; I was hessitant about it, but the player is definitly more suited for MP3 player use. And remember to update your firmware right out of the box, especially if you want to use videos.

Sone Mp3 player review
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
for mp3 player its not bad. only weak on the Volume out put. that I hated it. the otehjr problem is video. the resultuins dose not look good. also got problems running my video files I do have. Dose not work. I am nog going to waste my time trying to research it. I am taking it back to the dealer where I got it from. I did not like the preformace. its easy to put my mp3 tiles in. Do not need specail software to do that. that is the only thing.

No speaker its a low generic preformance rating. of a D- grade.

it dose have graphic EQ that I cam make persional settings on. however the volume will drop heck of a lot. I do not like that one bit. I am disapointed on Sony’s product. well its got one thing over the PSP. it turns on while ny PSP did not work from the box.

Sony Walkman 8G
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
For the price the Sony Walkman is a very good value. I have only one problem with the Walkman consisting of listening to audo books. If you leave the book to listen to music, it is difficult to determine where you left off with the book.

Fantastic!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This was the best gift that we could have given our daughter for Christmas! She has a learning disability beside having a motor disability. She can use this without any problems now after we showed her where and what each icon was used for. I would recommend this especially for someone with disabilities.

Great Player, Great Battery
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I got this unit as a Christmas gift and have used it almost daily since then. I use it at work, while walking my dog, etc. I didn’t want an iPod since I feel they are overpriced and don’t like how proprietary they are. I don’t much care about the video playing abilities so I can’t really speak to those but something to just play music on though I’m very happy with this. The sound quality is great. (I’m using Bose in-ear headphones as the included ones are fairly weak but I think that’s the case with headphones included with any player.) I replaced a Creative Zen and prefer the buttons on this Sony. Especially when I’ve got it in my pocket, I appreciate the “click” feel of an actual button rather than a touch pad. The size is great, it’s easy to carry with you almost anytime. I use Windows Media Player to synch my music and it works flawlessly. My biggest praise for this unit though is the battery life which is outstanding! I’m averaging one charge per week with several hours of use every day (though on low volume levels.) If you just want a simple, high-quality mp3 player that’s easy to use and live with then you should strongly consider this Sony.

Great product – Super fast service
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I was torn between this “S” model Sony and a similarly priced Creative. While you cannot add extra memory to the Sony, like you can with the Creative, the Sony won out, in my eyes, due to the extra long battery life. Plan only to use for music and felt that 900-1000 songs was more than enough. Great product, great sound and excellent response by the supplier.

5 Stars – Top Notch MP3 Player From SONY!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
All I can say is wow. I bought this Sony as a replacement for a substandard mp3 player that I got for christmas. I made the right choice. When I got the player I looked it over and the over all design of the player looks 200% better in person than in picture. It is shiny and sleek. It is however a fingerprint magnate but that’s an easy fix with a PSP cleaning cloth. I found the player so easy to operate right out of the box. I did not need to install any software since I was already running the required Windows Media Player revision. As the description states, drag and drop is a breeze. I had no problems Syncing the player using Windows Media Player either. Album art worked and looked great on the player. The menus were almost too easy to navigate with not even one glance at the included instructions. The LCD screen was bright, vibrant and full of color. The demo videos and pictures were so crisp and clean on the screen. The size of the screen was just right; not to big not to small. Now the sound of the player blew me away. Clean clean clean sound with superb bass response without distorting the highs. The built in equalizer is a nice touch to tailor the sound to your preference. The supplied headphones are OK but nothing to write home about. I would suggest getting some good quality headphones. The date and time function is a nice addition to a well rounded MP3 player. I am 100% satisfied with this player and when I decide to upgrade to a bigger memory size I will again buy a Sony MP3 player. I have heard and used many other MP3 players that cost hundreds of dollars and they pale in comparison to this diamond in the rough. Do not hesitate to pick one up you will not be disappointed.

Superb Sound Quality
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Let’s get real – what matters most for any MP3 Player is not the shiny color, spiffy curves or gimmicks like this shaker-thing. What matters most is purely and simply its sound quality. Period. Anything else is sugar-coating.

Granted, it helps to have a good display, easy set-up, logical operation and small dimensions. Nobody wants to carry around a brick with cryptic menu structure around anymore these days.

So what gives with the Sony Walkman? It has all the standard bells and whistles all the others have too. It is fairly thin and overall not very big. And it has a killer sound quality. And that’s all that really matters. Enough said.

very nice!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought 2 of these as Christmas gifts for my kids ages 17 and 18. They loved them! I listened to the sound and was quite impressed with them. I have an ipod and there truly is no difference in the sound, PLUS you get an FM tuner with it. I am going to get myself one. Thanks Sony!

fast shipping
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This product was shipped to my door 5 days earlier than expected! Product is great only 4 stars because the headphones that came with were not functional.

Good product
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This MP3 is awesome. I had it playing for over 6 hours non-stop and i had two bars left. I rather get this than pay a fortune for an ipod. I am thinking about buying another one.

A lot of Bang for the Buck
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I wanted to avoid the nightmare of an IPOD and hassle of downloading onto a portable device using Itunes. This is a sweet little unit that has great features and is easy to use. I use 128k bit rate and have about 50 albums on the unit. I use it mainly in my 3 cars that all have aux inputs and it sounds great. Battery life is as advertised. I also use it to easily download music to my office computer which is on a highly restricted network. Make sure to get the low-cost accessory kit for this unit. You won’t be disappointed.

Good idea
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Purchased this Walkman to download digital books and it works great. Even tho I messed up and lost my place in the book it was fairly easy to find where I left off. Thoroughtly enjoy my Walkman!

software not compatible with 64-bit windows vista
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
although this product was highly touted by reviewers all over the net for its superb sound quality amongst MP3 players – which is really what i was lookin for in a music player, i could care less about it being able to play games, movies, have wi-fi, etc.. its operating software is NOT compatible with 64-bit Windows Vista ((((64-BIT)))). if you go to the sony support site and or talk to someone there they may say yes the player is compatible with vista-64, but may also forget to say that the loading software is NOT. some work arounds are offered on the sony website, but if you use I-Tunes like i do – you have got to make sure you get the ITUNEs PLUS labeled media.

Magtms
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
It is everything I expected since it is a Sony except the ear buds. Sony has some high quality ear buds, they should upgrade the ones that come with this product. Other than that super MP3 player and decent FM radio.

Good sound but keeps freezing
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I bought this player mainly because it had a dedicated volume button and the user interface does not use an iPod-like scroll wheel. So I like the Sony’s user interface for those reasons. And the sound quality was also very good. However, after only a couple of months, the player froze on me. I contacted Sony tech support and they wanted me to reformat the player. But since the unit would not even boot up to the main menu, that was impossible. So they told me that the unit needed to be serviced. Since I had purchased the extended warranty at Best Buy for $10, I just took it back and got another brand new one (same model). But after less than 2 months, this new one froze also. There was no way I was going to replace it with another one of these lemons.

As a replacement, I finally ended up with the Sansa Clip instead and so far I really love it. The sound quality of the Clip is every bit as good as the Sony and the user interface is also very simple. It even does some rudimentary bookmarking for podcasts and audiobooks. The Clip’s screen is quite small and does not display pictures or videos, but that is not an issue for me at all. I would definitely look into the Sansa Clip.

There are a couple of other things that I do NOT like about the Sony:

(1) The fast-forward function of the Sony is very slow. With most other MP3 players, when you hold down then fast-forward button, the fast-forward gradually speeds up so that you can navigate easily to a specific spot in a 30-60 minute podcast. Not so with the Sony. No matter how long you hold the FF button, it plods along at the same slow pace.

(2) The Sony has no bookmarking feature. For me, this is a big detractor since I listen to a lot of podcasts.

Tiny Little Wonder
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is my second purchase of a Sony Walkman. My first was a 2 GB version. As was the first, this player is outstanding. It is easy to use, I bought it for my husband who is just beginning to be computer literate. With Windows Media Player software, you only need to download a song, then plug in the player and drag the song across the screen to the player. The player itself is user friendly. No instruction needed. Just plug and play. I love it and highly recommend it for those who want a good player for less money. My husband loves it too. He uses it so much, I suggested we learn sign language to communicate with each other!

A downgrade from the previous generation
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I’ve been purchasing Sony mp3 players for years based on their stellar sound quality and battery life…This was the first one I had to return.

After two years – and honestly, not the best care on my part – my player (NWZ-S618FBLK) finally gave out on me. I purchased this one and found that not only was it missing sound options and playback features found on my previous model, but the audio level was noticeably lower, as well. There were no clear audio technologies present (like a normalizer, sound enhancer, etc.), bass boost was missing and I couldn’t find a way for all my songs to play in order by artist. These were all functions that were present in my older model and it was really surprising to find them all missing in a newer model.

To be fair, it’s still a good player and anyone looking for a basic player with okay/good sound will find this acceptable. However, if you take the time to check out a few of Sony’s other players then you’ll realize what else the company is capable of making.

In the end I traded this in and got the NWZ-S716F which has all the features which they deleted from this player and even comes with noise canceling headphones. I had to sacrifice a few hours from the battery but since that’s never been a problem with these players it’s nothing I’m going to miss.

JUNK
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Item easy to use, nice and compact. I purchased this because I thought it was compatible with my Sony Stereo system with MP3 docking station…Nope not even an accessory item. SONY made everything compatible with IPOD so scrap that idea. Earphones very uncomfortable so I bought a new pair of ear buds that were better and a new skin with screen shield to protect unit. Also along with this purchase I had bought a traveling charger kit. Guess I won’t need any of this stuff because after using this SONY WALKMAN for a month it no longer works. It is a complete waste of money, maybe it is where I purchased it from, I don’t know? I am a committed customer to Sony products and this just leaves me pretty sour! I will now buy an IPOD. Live and learn and spend money on JUNK!!!

Excellent Product
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Got mine a few weeks ago. The Ipod is a bit overrated, I have always loved Sony quality, so for the price, Sony was the best deal for the quality. It’s a very thin MP3 player. Perfect for working out. I got the 4GB, and I have uploaded a lot of pics and videos to it as well a great deal of my MP3 collection. Sound quality is phenomenal.. as other reviewers have stated, the bass is great, and it gets loud. Battery life is great – I leave it in my truck to grab it whenever I go to the gym every day, and I go a couple weeks without having to charge it at all. I am a bit picky, and cant find anything to complain about with this. Would highly recommend.

this is better then you think
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Don’t dismiss this Sony if you are looking for a great mp3. It might be a 8GB, but it has more then enough memory for plenty of songs, pic’s and books. I have 1500 songs and I use it at the gym 4x a week and so far their are NO problems. It is easy to use and small, with great sound. My ear buds are Sennheiser CX400 and I think these are the best ear buds for the price I have ever owned, also with this Sony you get great sound so you don’t need to crank it up so it saves on the battery. I would recommend this over Zen or Zune any day of the week. It will do whatever you need. Do some research and you will come to the same conclusion.

A—MAZING sound!!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is my first Sony mp3 player and I have to say that it is the best one I have ever had the chance to use. It is very simple to use, you just need the USP cable (provided) and a computer with the recent version of Windows Media Player to synchronize your songs to the player. The sound is astonishing. The quality of this walkman is overall absolutely worth the price. 4G is almost too much and I personnally haven’t managed to use all the space avalable. The only dark spot I found was that when you use the shuffle mode, it automatically starts with the last song you played of course, but then for some bizzare reason it plays always the same song in 2nd position, after which is shuffles randomly. So basically every time you turn the player on the next day, you know which song is going to be second, and it gets a little annoying after a while, but you can avoid the problem by re-shuffling everything after a while or simply skip the song. Overall a very good quality gadget!

A piece of crap.
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I ordered this item off Amazon through J&R Music and Computer World. So the item I bought might be different than what amazon is selling here. J&R might have gotten my unit from a different, less reputable source.

It was a piece of crap. The “hold” didn’t work and following the troubleshooting directions, recharging, pressing reset with a pin, didn’t make it work. But, worst of all, when I turn it off and then turn it back on later it doesn’t restart in the same place. I have to dig through the files and fast forward through them to try to find my place. This makes listening to audio books or podcasts almost impossible.

It’s a piece of crap. If it worked it would be fine. But how do you know you will happen to get a unit that works. I’m so disappointed in Sony. They used to be good. Maybe my unit was made in China.

Mine is not returnable to the reseller. Go talk to Sony they say.

So be careful and think before you order. Cause this is a piece of crap.

Great sound and so easy to use…
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is the easiest one to use that I have had so far. You do have to use Windows Media Player to upload and manage your files on though. If you use the disc that comes with player, it will load the latest version of Windows Media player for you.

It was so simple that I was able to do all this by myself without my husband’s help for once.

The sound quality is great and the pictures show up much better than I would have believed possible. You can put a lot of pictures on it without taking a lot of space up also.

Also you can tune in to your favorite fm radio stations too.

I couldn’t find a way to delete pictures off the unit itself and downloaded 1500 by mistake! You have to delete them off from the Windows Media Player to get them off your unit. You also have to delete songs off the same way…unless I am missing something here.

The player also has a clock on it.

It doesn’t have a camera but I have a digital and didn’t care about that anyway.

It fits right in your pocket, it is very thin and lightweight. The directions say it will start playing funny if it gets damp so if you are doing a job that will be sweaty you need to put it in your pocket (versus in your bra! like I did while I was mowing). When my songs all sounded like they were being sung by Alvin the Chipmunk, I figured out the problem.

You can record videos on it too and the built in battery will last for 45 hours before you need to stick it in your computer to recharge.

I love it!

Easy to use – not compatible
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this for my husband for his birthday. He really likes the way it sounds and it is easy to use (he didn’t like the controls on the I-pod). The only complaint he has is that he has “Sync” in his vehicle and the Sony is not compatible.

Pump up the volume… or at least, I wish I could.
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I tried out this Sony E-series player for a few days, and ended up returning mine. The reason was, simply, that the volume level is way too low.

I tried checking the volume limiter feature, but it was already off. Basically the deal is this: First, if you use headphones (such as my Sony clip-ons) rather than the included ear buds, it takes out a little bit of the volume. And second, if you use the equalizer, it cuts the volume even further, no matter how you adjust it. (What kind of equalizer does that, anyway?)

So bottom line, if your MP3 file is a bit quiet, or there’s background noise where you are, and you’d like to crank it up a bit to compensate, well you’re just out of luck. The Walkman just won’t do it.

It’s too bad, because otherwise, the Walkman has a pretty nice design. It’s very easy to use, and the battery life is among the best. But what would make Sony limit the volume so much is beyond me. I’ve since traded this in for a Sansa Fuze, which has every feature that this does, is super easy to use, and blasts the tunes as loudly and with as much clarity as you could ever want. Sony would do well to address this issue in future designs, or maybe even in this one if they could fix it through a firmware update.

Great Product!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is a great product. It was easy to set up and great to use. The ear buds could be improved.

Great value
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I actually returned the 4G and got the 8G version (NWZ-E438F). I love this MP3 player. Admittedly, I’m new to MP3. However, from feedback from my 3 kids, Sony has Ipod beat with the value this MP3 player brings with it. Again, being new to this, I didn’t know photos couldn’t be shown back from player to say, TV via RCA jacks. In other words, you can certainly play your music back through your audio system by using 3.5mm to L/R RCA audio jacks….but you cannot use jacks available that have the video RCA jack leg too. Sony verified that this cannot be done. No big deal, but I thought it would.

The supplied ear buds have surprisingly good sound. I bought this player primarily to use for running, and it is perfect for my needs.

Lastly, I have 3,378 songs on my 8G player right now, which is well over the estimated amount it will hold, and I still have 250MB left. I love it.

It’s got everything except for full resolution video playback
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
When I first started shopping around for a video player like this one, my only requirement was that I should be able to plug it into a Linux machine and just drop files into a folder without having to use fancy software. All content into a Zune and iPod must go through such software, which is not available on Linux. So I bought this one. As soon as you plug in to the computer, it shows up as a USB drive labeled WALKMAN. Songs go into the MUSIC folder and videos go into the VIDEO folder. It’s that simple. The second great thing is that it has got FM radio.

There are two things keeping me from giving it a five star rating. One is that the mp4 videos have to be under 320×240 resolution. Zune plays mp4 videos at 720×576 resolution and iPod plays videos at 640×480 resolution. Second reason (a minor one) is that I can’t delete content from the player (not sure if other players allow deletion from the device). If I don’t like a song or a video, I have to remember what it was and delete it later when I plug it in to the computer. It could have also been great if I could fast forward, but I suspect that is too much to expect from a device such as this one.

That said, the audio and video quality is great. Any one who wants a hassle free, no-need-to-read-the-manual mp3 video player should buy this.

Excellent for the price
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
An outstanding purchase. Great sound and video. Would like to have had more info on how to load videos into it, but otherwise great.

IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I ordered this Walkman after a lot of research and price comparison. I had another brand and took it back. This is the best one I have ever had and my son has the same one. The replay time is phenominal. The quality of sound and the ease of use make this a #1 choice.

Sony MP3/wma 8GB
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought this in May of 09. This is a GREAT unit.

easy to use . It loads fast and shows all the album covers.I found that using Windows Media player to organize and load was the best and i converted all my file MP3 to 96mps WMA’s using window file convert LE, which allows you to save the original format also.

I got a boat load of music on it.

I highly Recommend this unit. After buying a Latte 4gb that was hard to use an real slow to load and a cheap sandisk this unit really shines…

Sony MP3 Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Grandma is having fun with the new toy. The old songs sound great on it.

This is a totally new learning experience for an older person and a wonderful way to enjoy my music without disturbing others. No wonder the kids all have one.

Why doesn’t it play audiobooks?
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
Cute, but only if you only want to play music and radio. I bought it thinking that the 4 MB could be used to play audiobooks. But you can’t download adiobooks to it because SONY choose to not allow it to read the audiobook file format! What a waste. Why have so much memory if all you can do is play music on it?

FIRST TIME MP3 PLAYER OWNER
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Okay so I wanted an MP3 player and I look at reviews for RCA, SYLVANIA, SANDISK and a lot of cheaper brands but I decided to go with the namebrand Sony. I just purchased the 8 GB today and all I can say is wooooooooooooooow!! I am NOT technology savvy and burning songs to the MP3 player from windows media was a breeze!! The sound quality is great!!! It has BASS…REAL bass!!! AND it has an FM Tuner that works perfect!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE it and I’m glad I spend a little more money on a quality product!! Ipod who??

Intuitive Screen, Easy to Use Software, Versatile
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’m an expert on MP3 players, if only because I’ve owned so many. All my reviews have been in comparison to iPods which I do not like because the battery life (I mean real life) has been six to nine months, the cost of replacement is worse than Sony, and Apple is so proprietary that I don’t want to convert files and use iTunes. I actually like Windows Media Player (11), and find it extremely easy to sync with this player.

So, having bought the 8 GB Walkman, I had it up and running in about two hours, but that included initial battery charge, and loading 1,700 songs/albums, a couple of photos, a couple of Quicktime movies which had to be converted to .wmv first (and have now been deleted), and finding and presetting five or six FM stations and diddling with the little settings like the graphic equalizer etc.

The sound is fantastic! Toss out the cheap earphones, something I’ve come to expect with all players, and try Sony earbuds (see review). I have set the Media Player to “equalize” the sound of each selection so that, when played in the MP3 player, all are at the same level. The volume rocker bar is a really nice feature as well.

The FM radio is also fantastic! Living in the SF Bay Area, and realizing that winter is the best time for FM anyway, I can pick up FM stations out of San Fran and that across what we call “hills” but folk back east think are mountains.

Any minuses? Yes, several, but not enough to dissuade me from buying a second one a week after I wrote this review: 1. I don’t know why the earphones attach on the bottom which means that when you put it in your pocket, it’s upside down. On the other hand, when it’s in your pocket, you’re not looking at the screen. 2. There’s no clip or armband or holder of some sort. However, I have an old iRiver clip that actually works, so no points off. The price for a sleeve with a 1¢ clip was $25 with shipping. As with most Sony after-market and even market stuff — like batteries — ridiculous. 3. Shuffle often plays the same second song no matter when I start up the player. There’s a four-page complaint page about shuffle problems with iPods and other MP3s, but my solution was to get a selection that is only 1.30 long, retitle it with an apostrophe at the beginning so it goes to the head of the songs list, and then I don’t have wait long to find out the next surprise selection of the 1700 “songs” on the player.

And yet, after all that, I’ll still give it 5 stars. Comparatively speaking, the iPod, Zune, Sansa, and iRovers aren’t in the same league. Mind you, I don’t watch videos, and only have 6 pictures of grandkids and Yosemite on the player. No one else wants to see those anyway.

I find it funny that on one site, the red Sony 8 GB gets 5 stars and the black gets 4. I don’t understand that, but I’m inclined to throw out both reviews. Oh, btw, this player was on sale for $98 at Best Buy. That’s a sure sign that there’ll be a replacement model soon. I don’t care. Not all new devices are as good as previous versions. (See my reviews of cameras.)

Great sound, not so great usability
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
There seems to be a trend among gadget manufacturers to create more and more dumbed down versions of their early hits. I looked for player giving most bang for buck and based on reviews this was one.

The good stuff: most important thing – sound is great. Navigation is easy (I really like folder navigations).

The bad stuff: earphones are useless. Their sound is clear with good bass when inside ear, but pure plastic won’t stick to it and they always get loosened, sounding like tin can. I always tried to press them more and more which ended in massive ear pain and finally ordered Koss KSC75. All sound enhancements from previous versions are gone. When playing music title, you can’t click genre and display all similar titles from library, which is again nice feature removed. Radio, which was somehow important to me, depends 100% on player orientation, so no fm listening when cycling.

And why, oh why they removed pin for neckband, so forget about hanging it around your neck while exercising unless you invest in 20$ carrying case.

Would I buy it again? If there are no older 6/7xx versions on sale, yes.

If you can get these goldies, get them! Because right now there is some bitter taste when trying to figure out where to wear it without pockets.

A pink mp3 player that has everything.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The sound is awsome, very simple to navigate, very simple drop & drag music, video & photos, love the fm stereo!

Good for the price
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This works great, easy to use! It doesn’t have any “extra” features, it just plays music/video/view pictures. But it’s the cheapest 8GB that I could find that was Pink! I like it.

great piece with minor imperfections
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
beauty piece, great battery life, nice display, but- if the mp3 is off more than aprox 4 hr it takes about 20 sec to create library when turned on but will still resume where last stopped. (maybe it’s part of the secret to it’s long battery life, cause it completley shuts down after 4 hr!) 2. i experienced a few mixups with cover art, e.g. a few albums showed the wrong cover art. (maybe cause i pasted cover art & didn’t get it off the web.) 3. this mp3 is very user friendly but when it comes to features it seems sony was a little lazy… otherwise it’s a GREAT BUY!

product arrived promptly and in perfect condition
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The product arrived very quickly, within a few days and was exactly as desrcibed. Its very easy to use and works great.

Sony 8GB Walkman Video MP3 Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
FANTASTIC. This was a gift for my husband who wanted a music and video player but did not have to deal with the whole proprietary thing of iTunes. We are THRILLED with this device. Solidly built, compact, multi-functional – it is hands down the best MP3 player out there. And the price is good too. Now I wish that I did not have an iPod so that I could have an excuse to get one of these. And you CAN change your music from iTunes MP4 format (on iTunes) to MP3 very easily (in iTunes for free) to be compatible with this device.

If you are comparing MP3 players, even iPods, consider this WAY above the rest.

Sony 8 GB Walkman video MP3 player
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This little player has great sound and easy to use. Purchased online and it came in a week later. Opened the box, loaded software on the computer and started to download music without reading the manual. totally agree with CNET review of this item. Great buy.

nice sound/lousy earphones
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This unit has good functionality ; but , quirky to set up. The earphone plugs would’nt

stay in my ears so I had to order a set of earphones. Overall, the sound is terrific. PeterC.

Great replacement for my Ipod shuffle!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought this Mp3 player because my Ipod shuffle broke and I needed a new one. I went to the store with the idea purchasing a new one I compared the price of this item and with the shuffle and went with the Mp3 player. For a few dollars more I can see pictures watch videos and listen to the radio. The I pod equelivent to this item is like 150 bucks in this economy you got to go cheaper plus sony is a brand I trusted in the past when cd walkmans where the norm. I like how you can upload music from windows media player wich is realy easy and most people already have it on threre computers. I higly recomend this Item.

Love my Sony 8 GB Walkman Video MP3 Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I love the walkman & MP3 player figures, plus having it in red makes it easy to find in your purse or gym bag.

Love it!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The sound quality is outstanding and the battery life is great! My last sony player was a minidisc I bought 8 years ago and it’s still going strong. You won’t regret buying this player. I recommend a hard plastic case such as:

[...]

Enjoy!

Great device but you have to buy a charger for $40 more
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Great little device — good sound, compact, great interface. However: comes with only USB cable for charging. When my computer goes to sleep, it stops charging. So consider that when you calculate the price — you WILL want an A/C adapter for an outrageous $40. Sony AC-NWUM50 AC Adapter for NWZ-A800 and NWZ-S600 Series Sony Walkman Video MP3 Player The armband/case is also overpriced at $25. Sony CSE005ARM Contoured Sports Armband for the A720 & A820 series Walkman.It’s the Gillette model: overprice the accessories.

Amazing Sound Quality!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars

The first word that came out of my mouth when I listened to a track on this MP3 / Video player was WOW! The sound quality that this tiny little device generates is just amazing. When it comes to MP3 players, I’m VERY picky. I look for a device that gives me rich, crystal clear, high quality sound… with BASS! And this Walkman delivers it. That’s not to say that other brands don’t deliver high-quality crystal clear sound, but at the same time, not all brands deliver it with outstanding bass and balance. At least, not for this price range.

The equalizer on this Sony Walkman is just perfect, as far as I’m concerned. When you crank up the bass level, you get exactly that – thick, solid bass, without distorting the earphones or affecting the treble. You can either select the presents that are pre-loaded in this device, or customize the frequency levels until you reach your desired sound.

At 4GB, this Walkman can hold approximately 900 songs if they are at 128 kbps in MP3 format. But personally, I would highly recommend you rip your MP3s from your CDs to 192 kbps, which would pretty much give you CD quality. The downfall is that you won’t be able to load 900 songs. Since 192 kbps files are a little larger than 128 kbps, you’ll be looking at something like 600 songs or so (assuming they are the standard 3 to 4 minute songs), which is still a lot. As for the video player, I was quite impressed with both the picture and, of course, sound quality. The videos don’t freeze up or skip or anything like that, they play just as smoothly as what you see on your television screen at home.

Importing audio, video, and images onto this device is pretty easy. Simply connect one end of the USB cable (which comes included) to your Sony Walkman, and the other end of the cable to your computer. Then, on your computer, go to Start, My Computer, look for the “Sony Walkman” drive, double click on it and then drag / drop your files in the appropriate folders. The other option is to use Windows Media Player 11 (which you can download for free on the Internet) to synchronize your files to your Sony Walkman. This is probably the better option if you want everything neatly organized. It may take a little bit of practice for some, but it’s fairly easy to do once you get the hang of it.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This review is written specifically for the NWZ-A815 model, not the NWZ-E436F series (BIG DIFFERENCE!). Sony screwed up royally with the MWZ-E436F series as the sound quality is nowhere near as good. Heck, I had a SanDisk Sansa that actually sounded better than the MWZ-E436F series. The problem is that the MWZ-E436F walkmans come with cheap, very standard earphones and have very limited sound enhancement options. I know this from personal experience as I purchased an E436 series thinking it’s the same as the A815 series. I was VERY disappointed. Since the NWZ-A815 looks like it’s discontinued, I would recommend you invest in the Sony NWZ-A726 instead to get that superior sound quality.

Summary for the NWZ-A815 Sony Walkman:

Pros:

Amazing sound quality

Excellent Equalizer

Ridiculously long lasting battery

Ultra slim design (less than half an inch thick)

Has FM Radio

Great bass!

Cons:

Memory not expandable

No voice recorder

This is an excellent product. I highly recommend it.

Not bad, not great…
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This seems to be a good MP3 player for the money, though I’m no fan of the uncomfortable earbuds and USB-only charging.

Superb sound
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This small device deliver great sound quality, if you are locking for good sound quality this it, i don’t care about the other capabilities but they are really nice to, i bought a Sony Erickson 580i and expand its memory to 4g, but it doesn’t deliver the quality of sound of this device. great bass an treble.

A very well made product by SONY
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Good build quality and very small and light with a nice screen.

Upgrading the system version through the official site is recommended though to fix the mp4 files sound being out of sync, as mp4 files provide the best visual quality with a relatively small file size than other formats.

If only …
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The SONY WALKMAN 8GB MP3 player is a very good MP3,EZ to use w/ great sound.The battery play time is long and recharges fast. Now IF ONLY it was water proof….and make it possable to create a play list fron the internal libary….THEN IT WOULD BE THE BEST MP3 PLAYER IN THE WORLD!!!

Awesome product…..
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This one I have already used since 10days and its really a cool product…

The music and video quality is really cool…..

I like it and it’s no less than my iPod nano….

you can go for it….

Sony rocks….

Great MP3 player
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this walkman in January after receiving a 2gb Ipod shuffle for Christmas. I wanted something with a screen and was able to get the walkman 4gb for only about $10 more than the ipod. The only thing I wish it had is a turn dial instead of buttons to access everything. It is a great player for the price.

Not for Itune users
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I thought I was getting a deal when i read some of the descriptions and the drop and drag menu seemed wonderful. Until you try to use it that is. Most of my music from i tunes is not compatible with the mp3 player. So are many pic.s and movies. i don’t feel i will ever buy one again. I would like to return it but the only thing that does work half way decent is the fm radio. Even though there is static noise and no antenna. I will never buy another one of these again.

Have 4 of them
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I like this product so much that we have 4 of them amoung the family. Price is great & you are not limited to using iTunes. I use Windows Media player to load songs or even Window Explorer. I even have two full length Disney movies on this device!

A perfect option for purely music.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have had this player for more than a month and I am completely satisfied with it. The menu is very intuitive. The dimension is pocket friendly, and the build is firm, stable. The battery has been superior so far, but I doubt it lasts 40 hours, let alone 45 hrs as advertised. Nonetheless, it lasts quite long. And for the sound, it is rare to find any better mp3 players than this.

Keep in mind, however, I purchase this item because I want to have a device that can play music well only. I don’t use it to watch video or view picture. Although the image is crisp and clear, I find the screen too small for these purposes. So you might want to look for other options if you want to do more than just listening to your music library, like me.

Sony vs. iAudio7
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I agree with all the other reviews praising this unit’s sound quality, intuitive style, etc. I also own an iAudio7 (Cowon) and I mainly listen to audiobooks (ie., NetLibrary and Overdrive). Having said that, I’d like to point out a few features that I wish the Sony possessed:

1. ability to bookmark;

2. a timer, or “sleep” function;

3. a way to scan (FF or Rew) in variable intervals; for example, if I’m listening to a 12-hour audiobook from NetLibrary and I lose my place, or want to listen to another book, or music for awhile, the first book restarts at the beginning. Holding down the FF button, the scanning takes place at one speed only, and can take several minutes to get back to where I left off. Longer if I didn’t notice the elapsed time beforehand.

4. when the temporary rights to listen to the audiobook expire, the Sony simply refuses to play it anymore!

The iAudio7 has all of these features, and will play the book until I delete it (however, I can’t transfer it after the expiration date).

Overall, a great little mp3 player, and I’m very pleased I bought it. I haven’t had an opportunity to use the video function, but for audio, I would highly recommend the Sony.

Sony Customer Service – 1 star
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Having done a fair bit of research I bought this Sony MP3 player. It certainly looks good and feels solid, but following interaction with Sony’s customer service department will be returning the MP3 player unused.

The driver disc that comes with the unit is a mini-CD, I have the old style PC where the CD is not held from the centre, when I asked Sony’s customer service department where to download the driver from the web (link as specified in the manual was no longer functional) they told me to contact my PC maker and buy an adapater – unbelievable!

I am at a complete loss as to why Sony would not continue to make this driver available for download, as with the indifference of their customer service department – I would have been perfectly happy with an electronic version of the driver.

And now on to the iPod store.

Sony 8GB walkman
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This an excellent product that is economical and practical. Excellent sound and quality, easy to navigate, and long battery life. No problems connecting to Windows Media player and transferring music. I previously owned a SANSA 4GB, and this product malfunctioned within a week of owning it and careful use; there was also not a graded volume control on the device which made it frustrating to listen to with headphones. I have had absolutely no problems with this product, so I would definitely recommend it for someone who wants a simple, durable MP3 player.

I LOVE IT!!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
LOVE IT!! LOVE IT!! LOVE IT!!!! LOOOOVE IIIIT!!! its soooo easy to use, its very slim and confortable, image is amazing, sound quality is AWESOME!! I’ve had many mp3’s i don’t remember them having such clear sound!!…. I just LOVE IT!! the day i got it, i started using it immediatly, and later on, when i wasn’t using it, i couldn’t stop staring at it! =P (ok i realize that’s a little too much) but its SOOO cute!! the red color is a very very nice color, i mean, cause its not bright ugly red, its just a great color this little guy has… battery lasts so much… its the BEST! in every single way!, you would NEVER regreat getting it!

Great sound, easy to use reliable
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
My wife has an iPod nano, and while the sound is good, the iPod has had a reputation for breaking and I found the iTunes store a nightmare to navigate.

For me, it came down to the Sony or the SanDisk. While the SanDisk is less expensive and has the microSD slot, it is almost as fragile as glass. When I looked at them at the local BestBuy, the SanDisk on display was broken after 2 DAYS on display.

The Sony has been reliable (so far), the sound rivals anything that I’ve owned and it was easy to use and to download onto. I have been using My Computer to copy over files, but it comes with software that makes it a matter of drag and drop to download. And in my opinion, it’s a better deal than the iPod, especially with 99-cent downloads from Amazon, compared to $1.29 for new tunes from the iTunes stores.

wrong ear pieces sent
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I selected this item based on the ear pieces. I was surprised to find that they did not send what they advertised. Rather they sent the cheaper version ear pieces with no explanation.

Works good but could be better.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I set the Sony Walkman up on a Apple computer running OS X Leopard.

Pros>

1. Battery lasts a LONG TIME.

2. Fits in your pocket nice.

3. Videos look very good. Screen size is small but good quality.

4. Sets up on the Mac just fine. It sees the player just like any other external device. Just drag and drop your files into the appropriate folders on the walkman.

5. Sound is pretty good. Better than the flat sound an iPod shuffle.

6. Plays mp3’s fine.

Cons>

1. Had to convert all my iMovies to MP4 using iSquint. Not that big of a deal.

2. It seems happiest with straight up JPG’s for photos. What I mean is if you edit your photos with an editor like Adobe Photoshop and save as jpg the player won’t read the Adobe jpg because of the embedded profile. Not an issue if you just drag and drop straight from iPhoto into the player.

3. The player does not want to “Eject” or “Unmount”. I thought this was only on my Mac but I fired up my old Win XP pc and it didn’t want to eject the player either. Kind of odd. It “unmounts” but reconnects again. This is very ANNOYING!

4. I’m not sure if it plays .acc protected files or whatever format iTunes songs typically are in.

Overall a very nice player for the money I just wish it would unmount correctly.

The best!!!!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve had this product for about a week now, and I am so happy I chose it! The quality is amazing, it feels solid and very well built. The headset is good, and I love the sound quality!! iPods are no comparison when it comes to sound quality. This also has an FM tuner, and the drag and drop option of adding music and building playlists makes this a breeze to use. Definitely recommend.

It just WONT work on any 64 bit plataform, but sounds very good when working – buy a good phone
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
In short,

Sound is VERY good (with a good phone)

Nice shape and look

Turns on easy on pocket… use the hold and hope it dont break on hold off

Headphone provided is ridiculously cheap!

Proprietary cable makes me unconfortable… if it breaks i dont know.

AND the most IMPORTANT: It wont work at all

if you have a xp or vista 64… i wish i could read it anywhere

before buy it. What era is Sony living in? 32 bits compatible only???

Other: Now that i have used my notebook as a proxy to be able to load it

with desktop content, i must say the sound is realy good, it almost

makes me forget the headache that is to transfer files on my

“XP64 condition”. I cant find the timer to switch it off after

some minutes of choice… if youre going to sleep listening music

i guess it must play all your sleeping thru, i may be true,

after all, for me it’s unthinkable not to work as mass storage on

XP64 and it happened. I’ll correct my review if i find how to

program it to play for as long as i wish and not till it drains

itself. And again i say – GET a good phone and youll have GREAT

sound… better than i expected for mere 128k mp3’s, but even

more incredible playing uncompressed WAV.

An Excellent MP3 Player for the $$$
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I owned a lesser name brand MP3 player with a 2GB capacity but I had more music that I wanted to enjoy on an MP3 player. That is what prompted me to buy my Sony Walkman MP3 player with 8GB capacity. I have ownwd a few Sony products before and always had great experiences with them. I find the ease of volume control a plus on this unit, to me some songs seem to be louder than others. Another plus is the battery life on this unit I can go a week or more on one charge and it doesn’t lose power during times when not in use (like the MP3 player I had before).

A fine player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
As a musician, I am pleased with the sound reproduction from this mp3 player. My prior experience with the Sansa Fuze was a total disappointment. Given the fact that the Fuze would play off speed and off pitch, I was unable to use that player for practice sessions. I can’t see how any mp3 player would be off speed or off pitch. We aren’t talking about a cassette tape player here that might be subject to motor speed or tape stretch. An mp3 player should reproduce digitally with precision.

The Sony NWZ-E438F is convenient with a clean and friendly interface. Tagged files are managed well, and the sound quality is top notch.

I’d highly recommend this player to anyone interested in a higher quality mp3 player. My only gripe about the case is the slippery (non-rubberized) back. For some users, it may actually slip into a pants pocket more easily, but mine sits out on a table. Perhaps when the humidity of summer arrives, it will stick to surfaces a bit better. Display quality and brightness are very good with little noticable pixelization present. The included ear buds are usable, unlike those of the less expensive players. Fortunately, the transfer software is uncluttered as it is absolutely necessary. Without it, all of my file tagging info wasn’t readily transferred. No hiccups with the software, though.

Nice job, Sony. I’ll buy another if I see it on sale.

Very Nice Music & Video Player
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’ve been using this player for about a month now. I watch videos on it as well as listen to music.

Pros:

Plays music very clear and sounds great. There is an equalizer with 4 or 5 presets plus 2 customizable presets so you can adjust sound to taste or requirement. I found for instance that a setting that sounds good through headphones may sound awful through a car stereo, so I would have to change the setting and then everything would sound great.

Plays videos very clear. The screen has very good resolution. I download youtube videos to the player and it plays them very nicely with perfect sound.

Small size – less than 1/2 the size of many cell phones, maybe slightly smaller than a Ipod nano, or whatever they call the smallest ipod with a screen.

Minor Cons:

Difficulty in finding accessories. Lots of stores carry Sony walkman accessories, such as cases, but it’s hard to find them for this particular model. Hopefully this will change in time.

I can’t transfer songs that I purchased on I-tunes, even when I use the included software that is supposed to allow it. Apparently, my itunes songs have some kind of protection or whatever. Kind of frustrating, but I guess that’s more Apple’s fault than Sony’s.

Update 01/20/09 – I’ve found that “podcasts” from Itunes work on this player – both video and audio. Just drag them from Itunes to the content transfer app. Very nice!

Sony 8 GB
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Great player – much easier to set up and use than either of my two previous players! Battery goes on forever between charges.

Walkman
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I bought this as a Christmas gift. Ten minutes after it was opened, the screen started flashing white. After about 7 or 8 calls to customer service, I was able to send it in to get repaired.

You’d have to spend at least $40 more for headphones
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
Bought this product for $90+tax in Best Buy 5th Ave NY. Opened the sealed packaging to discover the worst type of headphones ever. Not worth a dollar. Didn’t even include the little piece of foam to cover the earphone so it won’t hurt your ears. The right earphone was damaged. The only help Sony offered was to send them the earphone back and they would “consider replacing” it, for the same “not worth a dollar” headphones.

Thanks. It’s not even worth the postage costs.

Would be Great with .AA Audible.com support
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I’ve owned a few MP3 players and this one is very well designed and made. I love how you can browse MP3’s by folder.

The one thing that ruins it is no Audible.com, .AA support. I listen to a lot of Audio Books on my MP3 player and the lack of this support makes it impossible for me to download from the largest online library, Audible.com.

I spoke to Audible, they say you can download, burn to CD, then rip to MP3 but I dont have that kind of time. I cant imagine anyone does. Sony, please add .AA support to this otherwise great device.

It rocks!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Decided to scrap my iPod Nano after the latest software change rendered the Nano useless. The Sony Walkman requires no special software. I am using Windows Media Player 10 to load the Walkman with my playlists. The only glitch has been that in shuffle mode, the Walkman always plays the first playlist song second no matter which song I start playing. I worked around this by creating a blank mp3 file that is one second in duration and using that as the first song in each of my playlists. I contacted Sony Tech Support about this and they could not understand the problem, so I tried the blank file solution and it worked. The Walkman is far superior to the iPod Nano. I highly recommend it.

Good things come in small sizes…
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The product is definitely worth the price and lives up to the Sony name; very user friendly. I love the compact size; perfect for workouts.

AMAZING
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The good:

The Sony E-Series Walkman is very competitively priced and features a compact design with a nice, bright screen. It’s easy to use and offers a variety of desirable extras, such as an FM tuner, a user-customizable EQ, and support for Rhapsody To Go and Amazon Video On Demand. Rated battery life is superb and sound quality is great.

The bad:

The Sony E-Series Walkman tops out at 8GB and doesn’t offer memory expansion. There’s no integrated podcast support, and subscription-content syncing is slow.

The bottom line:

The Sony E-Series Walkman is a great value. It’s an excellent option for anyone looking for an easy-to-use MP3 player with a pocketable design, a long battery life, handy features, and solid sound quality.this is what you need,when im on the train the peoplw with ipods stare at me and ask where did i get it because the look is sexy.

Most Amazing mp3 Player Ever!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This mp3 player is the best on the market for the price. The equalizer is a nice feature and the overall design of it looks great. The battery life on this is phenomenal. I didn’t have to charge it for two weeks! I also love the drop and drag feature and not having to mess around with itunes. One con though is that the headphones aren’t all that great. They were way too large for my ears and doubt they would fit a kids any better. Overall though a great little mp3!

Sony 8 GB Walkman
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Better than expected!! Fast shipping and the Walkman works great. Highly recommend this product to anyone who likes MP3s.

great for working out, and the sound….awesome
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Just a little input… This is the third Sony mp3 I’ve tried, and it’s the best so far. Just when I thought I really liked the previous version, I realized that I was wanting more music to carry. I began with just the 1gig walkman which was perfect for working out and running, but then I hated that I had to use the Atrac format (and the program, sony stage, that came with it sucked) and it wouldn’t let me turn my music back into mp3 format.

The previous version was excellent in sound and I liked the display to see the cd art when showing the recordings. The smart random play was also great. Well, now I have all of it, and the fm player still there…yeay. The screen a tiny bit bigger, and the buttons a little crisper when you press them.

The only negative I have found is that the random feature always returns to the first song that was recorded on the mp3 player as long as it first plays the last song that was playing when I last shut it down (weird).

The battery does last a very long time, the only thing is you have to tweak the settings for the screen brightness, time it stays on etc… If you want a little extra memory, you can dig into the settings and delete the videos and demos that come preloaded on the player…now hopefully the 4 gig will be enough for me to listen to.

The sound out of this thing is incredibly good for the price, it goes great with my Sure headsets. Also the size and weight is perfect when going for a run, or a mountain bike trail ride.

By the way, it does have a “hold” button, unlike some silly players out there….hope this helps!!!

Pretty good
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I finally got with the times and bought a non-cd portable device and this is it. Overall, I like it. I just wish it were Mac compatible. i thought I’d plug it into my Mac just for charging purposes and it completely froze. Besides that, it’s been very good. Not sure about the headphones though. Either I have oddly shaped ear canals or the headphones are not a good shape because they don’t quite stay in.

I’d buy it ASAp if you’re thinking about it though, as i paid $10 less when i bought it two weeks ago and a friend of mine bought it for $10 less than me when he bought it. Seems like the price is creeping up.

Good player – but not for Itunes!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have had this player for about 6 months now. Yes, it is a great player with solid features – just read the other reviews. However, I have two things to say about this player that I wish someone had told me before purchasing it:

1.) If you are looking for a player that you want to use with your Itunes library, spend the extra $50 and buy an ipod.

The headache of trying to copy and paste files in a folder as if the mp3 player was a flash drive is terrible. I spent hours and hours trying different methods of making the transfer of my Itunes music to the Walkman player simpler, but cannot find anything.

I tried to save money by not buying the Ipod, but if I could buy a player over again, I would definitely buy the Ipod and save myself the trouble from trying to get my files to download smoothly onto this player.

Yes, you can get Itunes music to play correctly, but it takes an awfully long time and it is not set up well if you want to resync your music often.

2.) One of the nice features about an Ipod is that while you are listening to a song, you can search through your music and pull up another song that you want to hear afterwards. It will keep that song “locked into position” so that when you are done listening to the first song, you can just hit play to listen to the next song.

With the Walkman, however, there is no such feature. If you set up a second song to listen to while listening to the first song, it will not remember the actions you took to pull up that song, and it will lose your place. You then have to go back in and refind the artist or song name to play the song. Another nice feature about the Ipod that the Walkman doesn’t have.

Good luck searching and happy listening!

Player is great, software is garbage
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I had an iPod 2GB Nano and wanted to get something with larger capacity. I did some research and finally bought the Walkman. I was around for the very first Sony Walkman casette tape player, so the idea of getting a Sony MP3 player was appealing.

After using it for over a month, I find it a great little device. The battery life is amazing. I charged it over two weeks ago and have used it on multiple three hour car rides. I also had it hooked up to a speaker in my office and left it on for several hours and it stil has battery life.

It took me some time to get used to the navigation, but now I am fine with the difference between the Walkman and the iPod. The sound quality is good and although the volume could be better, it is acceptable for my use.

The major problem I have with the unit is the software. Sony included one of those mini disc’s which loaded a couple of software programs on my computer. The main program is one which allows you to drag and drop files from your computer to the player; however, it doesn’t work. I dragged a few tunes to see how it worked and then started dragging all the music. The software kept accepting the tunes, but after it “loaded” for about 2 hours, I discovered it had only loaded the first set of tunes. The rest, and the two hour wait, was for nothing. The software also has a “delete” function, which also doesn’t work. It tells you that it delets items from the player, but they are still there.

So, I junked that software and decided to use the Windows Media Player. This is ok, except that the Media Player has a very odd way to create playlists. There are some round about ways to create the play list and I have finaly learned how to do it, but it took way too long compared to iTunes. The other odd thing is that when you create a play list it has to be from tunes on your computer, not on the device. Then when you sync the device to load the playlist, it may or may not put duplicate versions of the music on the device. Sometimes it finds the songs on the device and sometimes it does not. So, I ended up with multiple copies of some songs. The device software is also pathetic. It doesn’t allow you to create playlists on the device, and as others have noted, there is no way to delete items from the device without using the software.

I finally just had the computer recognize the device as an external drive and was able to load songs and delete them with no probme.

Despite the isues, I still like the device better than my Nano. For one thing it has an FM receiver, which works great. Now that I have come to terms with the crappy software, it works great. So, if you are looking for an alternative to the iPod, this is a good option. Just stay away from the software provided by Sony and you will be fine.

Lives up to the Sony name!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I knew I would have a good product the minute I saw “Sony”. I gave it to my son for Christmas, he loves it. Great product for the fraction of the I-Pod costs and better looking.

A Great MP3 Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought the Sony Walkman NWZ-E436F in February, and several months later I am very happy with my purchase.

The sound quality of the player is fantastic. Several EQ presets along with 2 customizable EQ settings help you dial in the sound to your own preference. The inherent sound quality of the unit is clean, crisp, and punchy.

The battery life is nothing less than spectacular. I get 4 days of 6 hour use out of it every week – and it still has at least an hour of life left when I recharge the unit.

The ease of use with the unit is another nice thing. The enclosed software makes it easy to delete songs or whole artist files, and the unit sync’s up very well with the Windows Media Player to add music or video files.

Another thing that doesn’t often get commented on is just how solid this player is. It’s heavier than most MP3 players that are larger than this one – because it’s made out of metal! This is a sturdy, solid unit that is much more durable than many other makes.

The video screen has a decent size, and is very clear. The only downside to this unit is the poor FM Radio reception. (But I’m not using it for the FM radio, so that’s not an issue for me. If it might be for you then that would be something to consider.)

All in all this is a great MP3 player and comes highly recommended.

Don’t buy Sony MP3 Player Video Slim Noise-Canceling
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
Sony MP3 Player Video Slim Noise-Canceling is expensive. I just bought it, and I don’t like it. The noise canceling is not that good. My ears hurt when I used it. I had a mp3 Samsung and I liked it a lot better. Unfortunately, I decided to buy Sony, and I really regret it.

I am a big fun of Sony products, but I am not that impress with the MP3 Player.

A Downgraded Model
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I second that this is a downgraded model of previous series. The main cons with this player are: The quality of the sound is not that good. Someone who used to listen to CD quality audio would notice it immediately. Also, the highest available volume still seems low and finally video doesn’t play horizontally.

If you are looking for a player that’s far better than any iPod, infact far better than any portable mp3 player out there in the market and also has “folder drag & drop” wonderful option, then I’d recommend: “Sony NWZ-S639FB”. Specifically this model is truly a masterpiece, a top brand of Sony. It has 16GB of capacity, and lots of great features such as senseME, etc, for further details you may want to check reviews in amazon.co.uk as well. Not just me, many people testify that this model is shoulders above any iPod. You can find it at Best Buy. If only Sony had focused on NWZ-S639FB alone, iPod would have been considered a waste.

I Love My Sony Mp3 Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I love this Sony four GB mp3 player that holds around 500 songs. I like the different colors you can choose from. This Sony mp3 player is way better than the Ipod and alot easier to use. If you have windows all you need is windows media player. I like that you can charge your mp3 player on your computer. it’s a lot easier to put songs on the Sony mp3 player compared to the Ipod Nano. I use my mp3 player everyday at least 6 hours. I say you should get this Sony mp3 player over the Ipod Nano, because it’s cheaper and way easier to use. I enjoy my mp3 player everyday, and wouldn’t live without it, because for me music is life without music there is none.

Nice, reasonably priced mp3 player with loads of features
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I just bought this player and I should say I am impressed. Well…had iriver clix2 before this (got stolen), which was awesome and I know how these should sound. Won’t compare it to that but it still a player worth praising. I did not try the standard headphones provide inside the box but my Audio Technica earphones which give stellar performance. I am not including battery life in this review. Will update the review when I have done an in-depth review.

PROS:

1. Form, shape and size: This is a nice simple looking player, nothing flashy. It’s perfect sized, light-weight and has a solid feel to it. Yeah, all made of plastic but not flimsy at all, it feels solid in the hand. The front of the player is black glossy, the side is dark gray glossy and the back is black matte. It’s good that the back is matte so that it won’t get scratched easily.

2. Buttons: It’s got the right buttons in the right places. Home/Back, Power/Option, 5-way ‘joystick’ (not a joystick really as you can see 4-way buttons with a select key in the center), Volume +/- and Hold buttons. These are pretty standard buttons and are at the right places.

3. Connecting to computer (Windows Vista): This is really important and a big plus for this player. When I first connected the player with the supplied cable, the player started up and started connecting to the comp. The comp installed the drivers easily and it was all set. It showed up as ‘Walkman’ on My Computer and I could drill into the folders and see the files. I dragged and dropped some music files into the ‘Music’ folder and it zipped through the transfer. It was really fast. The mp3 files went straight into the folder and it did not create folders or anything, which is fine as I tend to browse the songs by their names not by albums. The drag and drop feature is really awesome as it is so easy. Windows Media Player 11 recognized it easily and synced songs with ease. So, the bottom line is you really do not need the supplied disc if you use Windows Vista (don’t know about XP, it should recognize and install the drivers right away though, else just use the supplied disc). It even works with iTunes (at least a flyer in the box says so…not with 8.0 though).

4. Player Interface: The software interface is simple intuitive and very easy to use. I did not have to look at the user manual at all to figure out where to go for what. For browsing the music files, it organizes files by their first alphabets and you can easily search through a huge list of songs easily. I really like this feature, its quite handy.

5. Features: It plays a lot of sound, photo and video file formats. The biggest plus over an ipod is that it has FM tuner. It’s got equalizer with two custom settings which you can edit as you wish. It has a clock display which shows both digital and analog time (this is just two dots but does the work).

6. Sound: Now, we come to the real part. I wouldn’t say sound quality is stellar but it is very good. It is better than other players I have listened to (except iriver clix2 of course). You can set your own equalizer settings or use the in-built ones.

7. Video: The video is crisp clear and the colors are vibrant. I was viewing the video at brightness level 3 (5 being the highest) and it was great. I didn’t have to bump up the brightness or change any settings. It even saves the time where you stop and starts playing where yu left off, but it refreshes if you play another video.

8. Picture: The picture quality is superb (as is with video). You can watch a slide-show or browse through photos easily. The pictures can be viewed in portrait or landscape mode (both left and right orientation).

9. FM Features: FM is quite nice on this. It scans automatically or you can scan yourself too. Nothing much to say here, its ok.

Languages: There are several languages you can set the player to, this might becritical for some people.

10. UPDATE (8/31/2009) The included earbuds are great…won’t provide noise cancellation or stellar sound but for the class of earbuds included with an mp3 player they are awesome.

CONS:

1. Design: The design might be boring for some, it’s not eye catching.

2. Screen: I don’t say the screen is not good, it is very nice crisp and clear, but it could be better with an OLED which would be just awesome.

3. Expansion: There is no expansion slot for microSD or even memory stick media. This might be an issue for some.

4. Storage: It maxes out at 8 gigs. There is no 16 gig model.

5. Color Options: Well, this is a subjective issue. Some people like the gazillion colors of ipod nanos which I think is lame. Yellow, green, purple…I mean seriously. Black, Red and Pink are just fine.

6. Ear buds: To be honest, I haven’t tried these but they look cheap…just like other out-of-the-box ear buds. UPDATE (08/31/2009): Ear-buds are great…removing them from ‘CONS’ category.

7. Noice cancellation: Sony has noise cancellation built in to its other mp3 players but I think for the price, this is fine.

Bottom Line: This is a nice mp3 player with lots of features and very good sound quality. This could be very handy for people who are buying their first mp3 player and do not want to have anything complicated. The price is very reasonable too.

UPDATE (8/31/2009): The battery life is awesome…it gives over 24 hours of music with no equalizer, 27/30 volume setting (which is quite high)…which is great.

Sony GR8
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have purchased several Sony items over the years and they never disappoint. I expect, and always get, outstanding quality. Sony knows what quality means.

Battery Life Less than Claimed
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
First the good news. This product has excellent sound quality when playing songs or when using the FM radio. In fact, on the FM, it has much better quality than the Sony radio I was previously using.

The bad news is that the 30+ hour rated battery falls woefully short. I get from 15 to 20 hours and that’s using the FM radio (which should require less juice than playing songs from the hard drive). Very disappointing.

Also bad news is the female contact on the unit. It is unique to Sony. And to add insult to injury, it will only charge up using my computer and the USB cord that was provided. It will not charge on the AC or DC chargers that I purchased separately.

Great product! Very Cool!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Purchased the Sony Walkman for my wife. Has all kinds of bells and whistles. She loves it. Has 8gb of memory, probably too much. Typical person could easily get by with only 4. Guess the kids will be occupied with movies during our long road trips.

Son loves it
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Bought this for my son when he broke his old MP3 player. His last one was a $250 player and he says this one is just as good.

Sony 4 GB Walkman
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
It is very easy to operate, download & sounds great! I use it everyday. I have downloaded 715 files & still have memory for about 100 more tunes. It is compatible with every site I have downloaded from. When I purchased, the price was less than the now quoted price. Only drawback, the headphones that came with it were uncomfortable but I purchased a set that are. I wish I could find a clear skin with clip for it.

Sony Walkman
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
For the price, the walkman is a great buy, it does everything I want and more!

A Downgrade from Previous Models
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Sony has done it again. They took a really good product and made it mediocre. This is supposed to be the 3rd generation upgrade of their new line of Video Walkman Mp3 players. You would think it would be better than the 600 and 700 series players. Well, in IMHO it is not.

Yes, they added the radio,extended the battery life to an amazing 45 hours,added more and support for a couple of other video formats,and improved the build quality but come on Sony, the most important feature of an mp3 player is the Sound.

This one does not sound nearly as nice or clean as the 600 and 700 series Walkmans. If you have never heard the other Sony players, then you might think this one is great, but it does not compare to the older models in sound quality.

There are several sound enhancements that were included in the earlier versions of this player that are missing here. There is no VPT ( Virtual Surround), No Clear Stereo, No DSE and no Bass Enhancement. And most of all, the volume capability seems to be about 60 % of what you got on the older units. That may be how Sony got the extra 12 hours of battery life.

The tuner in the older units was awesome, this tuner is very weak. I compared the two units side by side, and it is not just a little weak, it is almost unusable.

The video does seem to be about the same as the older players,which was very good, and they did increase the size of the screen, but video was not a very important feature for me.

Shame on Sony….. I bought this to give as a gift to friend and I am now to embarrased by the performance to give it as gift. I am taking this unit back,and I already ordered another 600 and 700 series unit while they are still available on clearance.

what an underwhelming device
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
sorry, but i can’t recommend any SONY products.

i got this for a friend. and after trying

it out, it’s just a clunker.(but i’m

still giving it to them)…

why do all sony products have terrible software?

the limited conversion/transfer program is terrible.

most of the video files i converted never worked properly,

and yes, i have plenty of experience in working with them.

the playlist management is non-existant, i had to get a

freeware program of the internet to make them properly.

i hate how it has to rebuild its library every time you start

it. can’t you turn that option off?

yes, the video looks fine once you get it on there, and the

sound quality of everything else is ok. but that’s a small

consolation. i don’t like apple products either, so i’ll look

at other players like sansa, and zune next time.

save your money for a better player, and make sure the software

for it is good, otherwise, its going to be a huge struggle to

make it useable.

Perfect MP3 and Video Player
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The Walkman E438 does music, FM radio, pictures, and video well. The sound is excellent, the controls are intuitive, and the 2 inch display is dazzling. Plays Amazon unbox-mobile video movies, also has pictures with slide show. Works flawlessly with Windows Media Player and Amazon’s MP3 store. For those Apple die hards, it also plays unprotected AAC.

FM radio is a plus when at the gym (tune into what’s playing on the tv).

Small, pocketable. As with any MP3, invest in some good headphones.