So, figured I'd write a review on the player I bought since I did a fair bit of research before I bought it :) I noticed MP3 players were starting to get a lot more affordable and realized it'd be really convenient to get one. Heck, most of the people I know already own one :)


I got the 16GB size from Amazon. It was only about $18 more than the 8GB size so I figured it was worth it for double the storage. The player seems to retail around $100+ at most places which is less than most players of that size to start with but at $89 on Amazon it looked like a great deal and fit my goal of spending less than $100. I looked into iPods and Zune and of those two I'd have gone with Zune if I hadn't been on a very limited budget. It seemed like even the very basic versions of those two players were at least another $50 for a 8GB size. I was really just looking for something straightforward to play music in my car so I didn't need to carry my CDs around anymore, and I wouldn't have to worry about changing out music as much especially during long trips. I didn't really care about the extended music stores connected with them, since I was primarily ripping my CD collection and I could easily get some more MP3s on Amazon (or by torrent download). So I wanted something that didn't try too much to be helpful and thus more complicated than necessary. I figure as technology improves so will the players and the nicer ones will drop in price if I decide I want a better one later on, so a basic one will do until then.

The Sony player is smaller than I expected and pretty lightweight but still sizeable enough to have a decent screen size. It came in red and black and I went with red (though it honestly looks kinda pinky to me.) I did notice Best Buy also has a lovely violet if you're willing to pay more, so maybe there are other colors Amazon doesn't carry.
As with similar devices it seems rather prone to scratches particularly on screen so I plan on investing in a cover soon since it'll probably get bopped around in my car or in my pocket. It includes a USB cord for both charging and data transfer, and it says it takes about 2 hours to fully charge for about 30 hours of play. So far I have found the battery life good, I can play a lot for a couple days before its really low and by then I want to tweak my music anyway. If you want to, there are fairly cheap car or wall chargers you can purchase separately (I may get a car one just in case.)
It also includes earbud headphones which I immediately gave away because I don't like that style of headphones, they hurt my ears. I imagine they're average as far as headphones go.

As far as using the player goes, it only has a couple navigation buttons, but I found it pretty easy to get around in the player's simple interface. Holding back will zip you to the main menu, and holding option powers off. You have arrow keys and a play/pause button which also functions as 'enter'. Though it didn't say it that I saw, I figured out quickly that if you pause a song and then do the right arrow it'll skip the track.

The player includes some basic software which I mostly ignored (its called Content Transfer and is basically just a drag and drop window). The player actually recommends formatting it after you install and backup the software to get the most out of your space, which I did easily. I've found depending how you like to work, you can either simply drag and drop your folders onto the player, since it more or less functions as a flash drive, or use Windows Media Player to manage your music. You'll probably end up using WMP to some degree either way, and the player easily and readily works with it. I'll admit I'm not a fan of WMP and have always used the basic Classic version for any video I wanted to watch, but it works pretty well and the advantage is using it to add songs will also add the additional embedded info better and includes album images if there are any. Its also pretty easy to fill in any missing information or album images, if like me you have some Japanese or other foreign CDs to rip that aren't in the database. WMP also pretty easily rips CDs so I figure while there are probably some better programs out there, there is probably worse and this fills my needs.
However this is also the player's limitation- you cannot create playlists on the player itself, you have to pre-create them on WMP and synch them. So on the player itself you're limited to either selecting an album, song, or artist to play (you can play all of a particular artist so long as the songs are encoded to recognize the artist name). So basically you need some foresight as to what mixes of music you'd like to listen to. Some people will be annoyed by this, but I didn't care that much, after giving it some thought there were only a couple playlist types I wanted to make anyway (ie mellow, anime, favorites, and grouping 2+ disc albums together).

As for transferring music to the player, it goes about as fast as transferring files to any drive. Your first time will probably be a long one if you're immediately filling up most of the 16GB, but subsequently your time will vary depending how much music you're adding. I find it easiest to make a long list and let it synch everything at once while I do something else. You can easily see how much space you have left both in its program and WMP. WMP will also tell you how much space you'll be using before you synch so you can be sure there's enough room.
I use MP3 files with it since its the most common format, I believe it also supports wma, wav, and MP4. I doesn't allow flac but those are excessively large anyway.

For sound quality, the player seems great. I don't notice any difference between listening to my CDs and the player, though primarily I listen in my car and on the computer so I don't have a particularly nice sound system. I figure unless you're really picky it'll be great though. I did read some reviews which said the sound was comparable or better compared with the iPod. Of course your sound may vary depending on the quality of your MP3 files. I generally use 256k, since this seems optimal for both playback quality and file size. From reading I find its recommended not to less than 200k. In the 300s seems to be more if you have a really super sound system and even then its a marginal difference.

This player also supports video though the formats are pretty limited, I haven't really tried it since I havn't cared enough to try to convert my video to one of those formats. It lists supporting MPEG-4, avc, and wmv files. If you ever put on files it doesn't support it will let you know it'll simply be considered data, and stored on the drive in case you want to transport it like a normal flash drive. So if you really wanted to you could throw documents or whatnot on it too.

Additionally there is a FM radio option which I havn't tried at all, I about never listen to the radio and I think this is also used to tune to your car if you don't have a tape player to use to hook it up to (which I do.)

Personally the 16GB player size is great for me, after ripping my CD collection I found I only had about 20GB of music total so I didn't have to bypass having much on my player at once. If you're a real audiophile you probably will already be going for a more expensive player in the first place, which I think is a better choice for managing your music.

Sony does have a couple other players that are fairly cheap, there was a S-series version of this player that was a bit more money but included speakers. (I will admit it was weird my player doesn't have any sound whatsoever alone but it doesn't really matter, since its meant to be hooked up to something.)

As far as closer comparisons to the iPod and Zune go, I can't really say specifically since I've only done some minor hands-on poking with a friend's Zune so I don't know what additional features they offer or if the menus and software are that much better.


Pros: Great price, easy to use, good song organization, good battery life

Cons: Playlist creation limited to Windows Media Player, most interaction best through WMP, so it really depends how you feel about that program- I think with any player you get you'll have to deal with their software

Overall thoughts: I think this is a great player for the money and you're not losing much compared to the market dominant iPod or Zune unless you're looking for something specific those players offer or you're just looking for a high-end player (like with a touch screen or something.) Again I was going cheap and easy, and I think this fit the bill perfectly. This probably isn't big enough for a real music fanatic but for us average folk its great.


So, if you have any questions I can try to answer, I think I covered all the major points :) If you're found my review helpful let me know!