Customer Reviews

Sony NW-E105PS Network Walkman 512 MB Digital Music Player (Blue)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I have had this MP3 player for a week now and I am really happy with it. It is feather-weight, sounds excellent, display is great and battery indicator is still at 100%. It can also be used as a USB device to carry data files. My only irritation (and the reason for 4 stars instead of 5) is the requirement to use Sony's Sonic Stage to tranfer files to it.

Got mine from Sonystyle.com just yesterday. After playing with it for a few hrs here are my impressions.

First and foremost the mp3 playback quality is atrocious. 128kbps files sound like 64kbps or lower. Even my no-brand-name cheap mp3/cd player has better mp3 quality.

I suspect the codec/DSP in the Sony are still designed for their propreitary ATRAC3 plus format with a secondary mp3 support. In fact converting a mp3 file to Atrac3plus (with included software) sounded better than just mp3 file. Inspite of this hassle, it was still below mp3 quality from other players.

The battery life seems to be in line with the specs listed by Sony. No complaints on that front. The backlight LCD display is a nice bonus too. The size/volume is significantly more than the iPod Shuffle.

The user interface is more loaded than such a small palyer can withstand. As a result it more cumbersome and confusing than Apple/iRiver players.

In short this awkwardly named "mp3" music player is a step in right direction for Sony but is still below average. Price is right but not the quality.

Sony calls this new line of flash-based, coin-like (but they are thick coins!) MP3/ATRACT players the Psycs, and their new-age styling does psyc you out. Which is not a bad thing, as they are more euro-cool than the rather bland and boring iPod and the downright butt-ugly iRiver. The more I look at the Psyc, the more I like its looks.

The new Psyc MP3 player features 512MB of flash memory, which is great for those of you jogger jocks out there. You can shake this thing violently and it won't skip a beat, unlike those hard drive-based players. Before you insert an AAA battery, the Psyc weighs in at an amazingly light 0.9 oz. -- that's right, folks, it's less than an ounce! With the AAA battery, my guess is it's about 2 oz. It's very small although, relatively speaking, it looks a little thick. (About 0.75 in. at its thickest part.)

What, you ask, it uses an AAA battery? Yes my friend, and this one AAA alkaline battery can power the player up to 70 hours! That's almost three full days of continuous playing. The phrase "up to" here means that in order to get all 70 hours of playing, you must 1) play ATRAC3Plus songs encoded at 48kbps and 2) do not press buttons or do random play (i.e., just leave the player playing sequentially). In the real life we like to skip a song, fast forward, random play (a.k.a. shuffle play), turn it on and off and on and off, and most importantly, we play MP3 songs. All these operations reduce the battery life. Given my experience with previous Sony MP3 players, my estimate is one good AAA battery should last you 40 hours or more. (With my beloved Sony NW-HD3, I routinely get the advertised battery life of 30 hours even when playing MP3 files.)

Of course, the use of AAA means you get an abundant and ready supply of cheap power source, and you can trek in the Amazon for weeks on end without having to worry about finding an AC outlet.

The Psyc, which comes in three colors (green and blue for the 512MB version, and orange for the 256MB version), has a nice backlit LCD screen, so you always know what you are playing as opposed to having to guess as on some other certain MP3 player. It plays MP3 as well as Sony's ATRAC songs. If you are an ATRAC fan you'll like the sound quality of this little player; it's at least as good as Sony's MD players. For MP3's, the sound quality is a bit "muffled" compared to my NW-HD3 20GB player, but still quite good if you pair it with a good pair of headphones (i.e., ditch the stock earphones).

Sony still has a long, long way to go in the user interface department, as this has always been its weakness, whether it's digital music or digital video or anything else. The Psyc is not hard to use; its basic functions are no-brainers. But, for anything beyond play/pause/skip, its interface, whether on the unit itself or on the PC transfer side, is still not polished and was clearly designed for a Japanese audience -- Japanese consumers reportedly love to play with complicated gadgets; no surprise given how elaborate sushi-making and origami are. We American consumers like things that are elegant and simple, and Sony has a lot of room for improvement in this regard.

In short, I don't think you'll be disappointed in the new Psyc flash-based MP3 players. They are stylish and lightweight and lasts forever on cheap AAA batteries. They have good sound quality and are priced right. Just be prepared to spend some time with the manual and experimenting a little. If you are stuck, you are welcome to e-mail me at gadgester @t hotmail with your questions.

Listen to Gadgetphile's review - I got this player today as a birthday gift, and I get the CANNOT PLAY message for every MP3 that I own (yes, OWN; I've never downloaded an illegal MP3). Evidently, the people who love this player use Sony's music service and ATRAC format. Thank goodness the giver kept the receipt; this player is going back to the store tomorrow. As usual, Sony is so obsessed with proprietary formats that they've ruined their chances in another lucrative market. This is the Betamax of MP3 players.

The unit is small, light, and easy to use. The faceplate/button combo has a firm feel to it with no sloppiness. The only thing I am a little disappoined in is that I can only fit 133 songs on the unit, but for the price, I can live with it. I can live with it just fine. One more point; The AAA battery gives all the time promised and then some. Overall, I love it!

This MP3 player is so cool. It's tiny and it has awsome sound quality. It is also very durable. I've dropped it so many times, but there are still no scratches and it function properly. I would ditch the headphones that came with it though. They have bad sound quality and they are very uncomfertable. This devise can store over 300 songs when it is at its lowest quality, but even that sounds great. Why get an Ipod mini? It costs over twice as much, and you will probably never use all of the space that is provided. Not to mention that the sony looks cooler and is much smaller.

I currently own this product and in a few mins I am ordering another one!! We had 2 "other" brands prior to the Sony...this is my far the best!! Its lightweight...small (like an oreo cookie) only uses one battery that lasts forever!! And its easy to use! It most certainly downloads music off the internet, you don't have to download only from the disk!!! I uses Ares for my music...no problems! Perhaps those who cannot read the manual should ask a kid to do it for them. Not to be mean, it's just that my kid was the one who figured out how to do it! LOL. For the price its perfect!! Its user friendly! Highly recommend for the kids......its a tuff little bugger!!! Be careful because a lot of mp3's out there do not take music off the internet...but this one does! Who needs an iPod??? Besides people think iPods are so wonderful (huh) that people get beat up for them....ugh..duh! Play it safe and get a Sony Psyc!!!!

All of my past MP3 players had a nice, easy, drag-and-drop interface for loading files, but this one insists upon using the Sonic Stage program to load files. Since Sonic Stage crashes my computer every time I try to run it (there's a conflict with some other software I currently have loaded, and I gave up trying to find out which software it was) I'm stuck having to load Sonic Stage on my work computer. This means every time I want to change music I have to burn my music to a disk and drag the dang thing to work, load the music onto my hard-drive, re-start my computer, THEN add music to the MP3 player.

Mostly it just sits in a drawer at home because putting music on it is just too much hassle. I think I've actually used it about five times since I "treated" myself to it for Christmas. Great value for my money, huh?

Once again, Sony has designed a great product with incredible functionality only to severely cripple it with over the top digital rights management. I bought this unit to transfer legally purchased mp3 files (that do play on my iPod) only to find out that they "cannot play". Sony tech support indicates that the hardware will not allow mp3's to play if the drm cannot be ascertained - I sent them one of the files and they couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work either. It does do some things exceptionally well, such as play music, has fairly simple controls, great battery life and takes disposable batteries as well as a rudimentary but functional display that lights up to make it easier to see at night. It also holds a lot of songs as Sony indicates in their literature. Unfortunately, it does require that you use the Sony supplied software to transfer songs into it - and the Sonic Stage software is nowhere as user friendly as the Apple iTunes software.

First I must say that I am a fan of Sony products. I have always liked their performance and their price. I own several items including a Home Stereo, two digital cameras, a video camera and my home computer is Sony.

So naturally I looked at Sony when I decided to buy an MP3 player. I read the reviews and shopped around. I decided on this one because the 1GB ones were on backorder. I was very concerned over the reviews that said the Sony Proprietary software was difficult and a real hassle to mess with. Now maybe I am biased because I like Sony, but the software was no more difficult than anything else. I downloaded the software, rebooted the system, and within minutes I was downloading music and listening. No problems, no hassle. Maybe it is because it is a Sony computer, but it was easy.

Now I am not going to say that it is the greatest MP3 player out there. But if you are looking for a good quality sound with a fair price. I highly recommend this one. I would assume the 1GB would be just as good, only it holds more music. As far as that goes, The 512MB is pretty good as far as storage. I don't have quite the 345 songs that it claims(around 200), but most of the songs I have are over the 3.5min. average that they suggest and I still have 100MB of storage left. The battery seems to last quite a while like they claim too. I didn't get out the stopwatch and time it exactly, but it is a long time on one battery.

If you would force me into finding something negative about this item, I would have to say that the button that switches it from file to folder to hold is a little hard to move to the correct position by touch alone, but that to me is minor. So, overall I am pleased with the purchase and well worth the money. If I had to do it over again, I might get the 1GB just because it could hold more, but I'm not sure that I need all that anyways. Enjoy!