Customer Reviews

Sony NW-E405 Network Walkman 512 MB Digital Music Player

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My experience after using iPod Nano (1 month), Creative Zen Micro Photo (3 months), and Sony E405 (5 months).

Pros
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- Awesome sound. Killer bass and high frequency responses. (I'm pairing it with Sony's MDR-EX71 ear buds.) The Zen has a buzz when the screen is on. The Nano's sound is rather flat.

- Very easy to learn user controls, even better than the iPod.

- Eye-catching looks and won't wear out on ya. Scores higher fashion points than the Nano (from the stares and queries from other commuters and friends).

- 3 mins charging for 3 hrs of use, for a max of 50 hrs. One charge is enough to last me MORE THAN TWO WEEKS (!), with about 2+ hrs of use everyday.

- Beautiful display. Love that champagne bubble screensaver! (This device was supposed to resemble a perfume bottle, according to the Japanese designers..)

- Sturdy, scratch-resistant build (slightly better than the Zen, much better than the plastic Nano).

CONS
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- Just like the Nano, cannot load songs from Windows Explorer, require vendor's proprietary management software (SonicStage).

- SonicStage software does not display multiple languages.

- Does not support Music Subscription, unlike the Zen.

- A LITTLE BIT heavier than the Nano, maybe a quarter ounce more. Much lighter than the Zen.

Hey all,

I purchased this item this morning and i have fully explored its functionality. I'm simply very impressed.

Firstly it looks really attractive, looks being the first thing i notice about any walkman hardware. Every button is perfectly positioned on the player, most being at the right hand end on a control stick. The control stick is used for locking the player and also controlling the track navigation. Finally, the end of the control stick is where the headphone jack plugs in.

The LCD display is very compactly designed and is very smoothe in animation and navigation. Through this menu and the control stick you can navigate your library of songs by groups, namely artist and album. There is a display button which controls what is being displayed. The options are the track listing as default, a clock style track information display and a bubbles screensaver/animation. Note that the screen turns off after a short while to save battery.

The sound quality is very good and it has a couple of simple settings and two preset options. You can listen to the music in the default setting, which in my opinion is lacking in bass, but you can also adjust the bass and treble in the two presets. Then these presets can be chosen.

In the past i have found that the SonicStage software which is supplied has been slow and buggy. This is an irritation when importing large amounts of songs into the application. This is not the case with this latest version. Again Sony appear to have made it necessary for you to convert WMA files to the atrac format before transferring them to the device, although this is all done for you and quite hastely.

I have tried this device with Windows Media Player 10 and you can successfully transfer the music, but since WMP can't do the conversion it is unplayable on the device.

Lastly, i have discovered that this device can be used as a simple pen drive. Through windows explorer you can transfer any media to it you like. It won't be registered with the player, but just stored on its flash chip. I would also like to say that i recommend you buying some good headphones to add to and take advantage the good sound quality the device provides.

Hope this helps.

Dave

I am a hardcore sony fan. couple of months back i purchased the vaio media player 40gb and wasnt very happy with that and i disposed it. but the NWE405 is amazing. i got it in the mail yesterday. let me tell u the features of this product

1) SOUND is simply superb. They have 3 sound settings u can configure and choose for ur songs. Volume is great too. u can adjust bass and treble.

2) LOOKS AND DESIGN is amazing. the display is superb. they have a calendar mode , 3 line display ( folder , song and artist and time) , a bubble screen saver and a folder info mode. the best display when compared to all the mp3 players today

3) the controls are perfectly positioned. u have to scroll up for next song and down for previous. can be used in complete darkness too.

4) the attached belt clip is sleek and simple. u can simply hook it to ur shirt

5) SOFTWARE is the only con. sonic stage is a very irritating software. i found another alternative. go to the sony website and check out the softwares for the sony vaio media player 40gb. download the vaio music transfer. that can be used for the NWE405 too. just simply drag and drop into the box.

SONY has grab the mp3 market if it promotes this player well.
overall the best player ive ever purchased. the IPOD shuffle is not even worth comparing to this player.

I've only had this mp3 player for 2 days.. so I haven't really caught on to everything I'm sure. First impression.. really really cool design - very much like a lighter. It's really light and the screen is really awesome - a lot easier to see at almost every angle. The only thing is that the display and search buttons are kind of difficult to push - but I guess that's a good thing if you don't want to accidently change anything when you dont have the hold activated. The play/stop button is really hard.. but yet again that could be good. Controls are really easy to figure out.. I'm sure I will get the hang of the menus.. sometimes I can find them.. sometimes not.. my bad I'm sure. The sound is really clear - the headphones aren't comfortable at all though. The bubble screensaver is pretty awesome.. unique-ish I guess. I'm going to assume that everyone knows how lacking the SonicStage software is. WMA files take about 2-3 minutes to convert.. and then transfer. Almost everything that I want on the player is in mp3 format and that transfers pretty fast. So far this player is really really good. The 3 minute charge thing is useful - but what about when I'm traveling and don't have a computer? Maybe there's a way around that. I'm mainly using this very small mp3 player (compared to 4GB) to get rid of some of my mix cds - and it will certainly work for that!

The sound is great and the display is awesome. Usability is fine. As for the software... Unless you register with sony and have an online account with them you can only use one computer to put music on the player. So much for work (my business - my computers), my laptop and my home office computer. I am sending it back. If this does not bother you I would give it five stars.