Sony Walkman S-series MP3 player
One of the finest sounding MP3 players available
Review Releasing two MP3 players onto the market at the same time doesn't strike us as a wholly smart thing to do. Releasing two that look pretty much identical and have equally silly names could well be the acme of foolishness.
If you put them side by side, the Walkman S series and E series are not actually identical. At 89.5 x 43 x 7.5mm, the S - typified by the 16GB S639F; there's also an 8GB S638F - is a touch taller, narrower and thinner than the E, while at 46g it's a whole 4g lighter, but in design and form you couldn't slip a cigarette paper between them.
Sony's S-series Walkman : 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'
The S639F's controls are identical to the E's, with the now standard Sony circular navigation pad, menu and back buttons sitting below a 2in, 240 x 320 screen with volume adjuster and control-lock slider on the right edge of the device, and the 3.5mm earphones jack and propriety USB port at the bottom.
It's a case of more of the same with the menu structure, which is also common to both players - with the exception that the clock icon on the E, has been replaced by an icon to access to SenseMe function – more about which below.
The upside of this is that the S is every bit as easy a player to use and live with as we found the E to be. It's also every bit as easy to load up with media, showing up reliably as a mass storage - though not an MTP - device on Mac and Linux machines. As well as MTP accessibility, Windows users also get the handy little iTunes-compatible Media Transfer tool.
COMMENTS
the radio is good too...
I have an S series Sony MP3 player, and I can confirm its rather good.
I recieved it as a present, and whether under normal circumstances I would pay extra for the sound quality, and usable interface, and physicaly well engineered feel, I couldnt say.
However the radio is rather good. It apears to use the headphone leads as an antena, so golden eared freaks with shielded wires may be out of luck, however it auto-tunes well, and can pick up a good stable signal where cheaper dedicated radios cant. FM only.
Bargain
Nobody is asking you to pay £90 to enjoy music. In fact I think £86 (Amazon UK) for a 16GB DAP with great screen, great battery life and great SQ is a bargain. The equivalent iPod Nano 16GB costs around £140+ and comes with crap earbuds.
Still people have different requirement than others. In your case may I suggest Sandisk's Sansa Fuze. It has a reasonable display, great SQ and with support for micro SDHC cards. £49 at Play.com for 4GB. Or maybe the Sansa Clip.
Too expensive to just play some music!
Why do we have to pay £90+ to play our music?
Do we really need video playback and things?
Can we just have a music player (perhaps with a simple but effective display) that sounds as good as these reviewed models, that have memory slots (8GB SDHC cards are only a tenner now), but are much cheaper than these models?
Maybe Sony do have such things but you never seem to see reviews on them, as such, I don't know if the sound quality is as good etc.
@sam
You sound as though you are impressed that the Ipod touch can do stuff like maps and apps, something many portable devices were capable of doing years ago...
another tedious apple fan
On behalf of the ipod touch (which of course is a fair bit more expensive), the ability to use the BBC iplayer over my wifi network at home is brilliant. I use this extended functionality more than playing music.
This Sony player may be a better out and out audio player, but my needs have moved on...
I now really do want the web browser, iplayer, Nike+, guitar tuner, bloomberg app, maps etc
This looks like Sony is winning last years battle again.
