Customer Reviews

Sony NW-E407 Network Walkman 1 GB Digital Music Player

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

 

 

I just received this product today. The product is not bad, but just few things...

1. The Sonicstage software blows for transferring and removing music. You can get around the transfer problem with the VAIO Pocket Player File Transfer Program (http://esupport.sony.com). With it, you can simply drag and drop albums, songs, or artists. You will still need Soniccrap to remove music.

2. The earbuds suck. You will need to go buy a good pair of earbuds for the product.

3. If the product were a true MP3 drag and drop as a USB drive, it would be a great product. The time it takes to transfer music sucks. 15 minutes to transfer about 225 MB of music to the application.

Other than these three items, the product is very good and it deserves 4 stars. Now I hope I feel the same way 3 months to 2 years from now. After 2 years, I assume I am going to be donating it to a good cause and getting something new and better.

Lastly, I think that this product blows Apple's iPod shuffle out of the water.

I just received my NW-E407 yesterday (I opted for the radio-less model, in that I live in NYC, which, though a cultural cornocopia, is, conversely, a cultural wasteland when it comes to radio stations....I mean how many Latin, "classic rock" and hip-hop stations does one city need...if you like rock or alt. music written and produced within the last 5 years, you will not find ANYTHING on NY's FM radio dial....), and am brimming with enthusiasm.

I haven't come close to mastering its various functions and operations, but, I quickly loaded about 75 mp3s on-board (using the MP3 Manager software available at the Sony website, and NOT the truly evil Sonic Stage software that comes bundled with the player). With almost 100 songs on board, I had barely used one-quarter of the 1 gig capacity, but couldn't be bothered to spend any more time loading up songs in my eagerness to listen to how the player performed.

First: the display is a thing to behold (so long as you are nowhere near direct or even indirect sunlight, which renders it simply invisible). Nevertheless, inside, it is crisp, clean and electric in color, plus, with three lines of display, it is informative like no other display I've ever encountered (that is, of course, if your files are well named and organized).

As for navigation: Here, my novice standing shows, and I am not real adept yet at getting around the 1 gig stretch of memory real estate I am now the landlord to. However, it seems relatively intuitive, particularly once you get the feel for the three-position stem that acts as your primary means of moving about.

Next, the "look": about the size of a Bic disposable lighter, it is yet another exercise in style and functionality for which Sony has made its reputation. Sleek, shiny and unlike any other player I've handled, it is a flat-out looker. The included "clip", snugly secures it to the inside pocket of a suit jacket, or the back pocket of your favorite jeans (just try to remember its there before you sit down, or you're likely to have $175 worth of unusable mp3 player parts imbedded in your behind!). It comes with a small velvet-like carrying pouch, that is good for stowing it when not in use, but pretty pointless as a carry case when you are listening to your fave music.

Finally" Performance -- It is near flawless in its audio reproduction (I've used both the earbuds that it came with and a pair of Shure E2's, and the sound was equally great with them both -- a lot of folks have complained about the earbuds that are supplied, and, while there are many better ones available, I didn't find them to be all that bad...though, with in-the-ear headphones, it is all about the fit, first, and if they don't fit well, they must be replaced). My only qualm -- and this has less to do with the quality of the player so much as it does with my failing hearing -- is that it is a tad weak. Then again, that might be a by-product of the rechargable battery that it comes equipped with. And while I do like to idea of a rechargable unit -- no more carrying around a pocketful of triple-A for the inevitable loss of juice -- the fact it is rechargable ONLY through a USB connection (and therefore unrechargeable when away from home unless you have the required cable and a laptop with you, or a kind stranger who will let you piggy-back on to his/hers -- and given a three minute "quick charge will give you another 3 hours of play, is not too far-fetched a notion). I have a Sony discman that has a built-in rechargable battery and they provide a small adapter you can hook up that uses a convention AA battery for those occasions when you are away from home and the rechargable battery runs out of juice. It would have been a nice touch if they had offered something like that for the NW-E4 and 5 series. But, when fully charged, the battery DOES supposedly give you an unmatched 50 hours of playback, which should get you home except in truly unusual circumstances...

Final analysis: I think my Sony NW-407 and I are going to have a long, happy relationship. I can see no reasonable need for more than 1 gig of memory, and, for the life of me, do not see the appeal of the 40 gig iPods, in which it takes longer to locate a song than it does to listen to it. The Sony can hold well over 300-400 songs, and, frankly, that's plenty. Aside from that, the look, the feel and the performance are all first rate. I strongly recommend it.

I just got my player today, and it took no more than 10-15 mins to set up. I installed the SonicStage software (no issues at all there; I have Windows XP Pro) and started importing my MP3 files from my computer. The player only took 1 hr and 15 mins to completely charge.

I think the toughest thing with this purchase was getting the player out of the blister pack! Be careful when you're struggling with that, the player can slip right out!

The player itself feels solid. The parts are put together well and nothing "gives" or looks like it's liable to come off. The display is nice and bright, even in the daylight. And the earphones fit my ears very nicely. I like the fact that the Right earphone cord is longer, so I can wrap it behind my neck, and not have the cords dangle in front of me. And the sound quality is great!

The controls on the player are very intuitive. It's all a matter of remembering what turns and what's a button. Essentially, you turn the top knob to advance or go back a track, and the side buttons (kinda remind me of the ignition lever on cigarette lighters) are to adjust volume.

I also like that the player doubles as a flash memory stick. When I plugged it to my computer via the supplied USB cord, my computer instantly recognized it as a drive and opened an Explorer Window so I could drag and drop files into it.

I'm a very happy owner of this little gadget!!!

This mp3 player is perfect for working out. Some mp3 players have moveable parts that cannot take the jostling of running or jumping rope. But the flash memory in this player makes it a perfect workout companion. It is very portable and light, and the battery life is amazing. I took it on a three-week trip and listened to it on the airplane and every day while jogging and never had to recharge it once. I didn't have any problems with the Sonic Stage software, and I love the display and the fact that you can arrange your songs into folders by artist, genre or mix. The controls are easy to adjust without having to look at the player, which comes in handy on the treadmill. The only drawback I can think of is that the flimsy plastic clip that comes with the player didn't seem to hold the player very securely to the waistband of my shorts. In fact, I almost dropped it except that the player was still attached to headphones which were still securely on my head. I think Sony should have designed a better clip or perhaps an armband. This particular clip seemed to have been designed more as an afterthought, and that's too bad since the mp3 player itself is so awesome. What I did to solve the problem was sew two elastic bands onto my shorts to hold the clipped player more securely in place. It worked like a charm and now I don't have to worry about dropping my favorite mp3 player.

I've had my E407 for about a month now and am really happy with the actual unit. It is compact, lightweight, and easy to use. I love the sound and it is perfect for what I bought it for--listening to music while I work out.

Having said that, I have a lot of complaints about the SonicStage software you have to use to get music on/off the player. First of all, when I installed the software, I wanted to import all the mp3s I had on my hard drive so I could get them onto the E407. It would not allow me to select the folder I store my music in; instead it searched and imported from the entire hard drive, which literally took hours. Not only that, but I ended up with every beep, chime, and "you've got mail" type noise imported and available for me to put onto the player and work out to. It took another hour+ to delete these items. And, just in case you are wondering, my computer is pretty zippy and has lots of memory, so it's not a problem with the PC.

The other thing that I don't like is the downloading of songs off the internet. I got a coupon for 5 free songs which I picked out the first night and tried to download. While I do have a zippy computer, I admit I am still in the dark ages for an internet connection since I still have dialup. I have yet to download those songs; it fails every time even if I try to download them individually. So, thinking to outsmart the evil dialup problems, I took the software to work and installed it on a computer on our LAN. Magically, the songs downloaded like the wind! However, I could not get the software to acknowledge my E407 as authorized to accept the downloads. It advised me that I would have to wipe out everything on it to download these 5 songs. Since I wasn't sure whether it would then allow me to upload them back to my home PC, I left them there and did not reformat the unit. All in all, to get my music imported, moved to the player, and to attempt to download me supposedly free songs (which have cost me lots and lots of time and frustration) that I still don't have, I've probably spent a total of 20+ hours fighting with the software. It is slow, clunky, incredibly user-unfriendly, and I hate it. But I love my tiny, almost weightless E407, so....so far I continue to suffer in the name of good hardware...

Sony, if you're reading this, I'm begging you...come up with a software solution that is worthy of this nifty player!

Having upgraded from a Philips key mp3 player I had last year because it only had 256K at that time, I found the Sony unnecessarily complicated. With the Philips I was able to simply drag and drop mp3s onto the mp3 player (which appeared as a removable disk when connected) using standard windows operations. You can't do this with the Sony and have to either use the horrible Sonicstage software you get with it or the primitive mp3 file manager which you can download off their site. I found the sound inferior too, and the controls way too fiddly and complicated.

Good things are that its stylish (it looks great with flashy leds) and has a long battery life, and of course 1GB of memory, but otherwise I preferrred my old Philips (Philips motto funnily enough is sense and simplicity - maybe Sony should listen)

It's a reasonable machine but given hindsight I'd either go for one of the later Sony Walkmans (which now support mp3) or a newer Philips.

I just got this last week and it has been awesome. The battery life is simply long lasting, which I have not yet recharged. The setup was very simple and quick. Yes, you must go through SonicStage in order to put music in your device, but that was to be expected (most major electronic companies tie their device to its unique proprietary systems anyway). The earphone that came with the is so-so and I recommend buying one of your choice depending on how you want to use your player.

This player is great. Small form-factor, sexy looks, logical user interface, and good sound quality (through Shure E2c's). However, what everyone should know, and why I submitted this review, is this: the Sony E407's OLED display is completely useless in direct sunlight. I can barely tell it is on, and I have had this confirmed by others. To some this could be a major flaw.

At first the idea of 50 hours of battery life and 48 kbps files without quality loss looks like a great idea...but soon I, like many other buyers of Sony products, was sucked into the swirling vortex of frustration, confusion, and anger that one often experiences when dealing with a large, money-grubbing corporation.

For only a year I enjoyed these features. Then, for no apparent reason, the complicated Sony software known as SonicStage (you pretty much need this program for your player) stopped working correctly and would not transfer files. Upon the advise of their tech "support" division, I downloaded the latest version of it only to have it do the same thing. Tech support had no clue (no surprise there) and simply told me that I can not import copy protected files (which I wasn't even attempting in the first place, but as they were totally clueless on the problem it was the only piece of advise they were programmed to give me).

Then the battery started to die. Oh man, you'll probably have better luck trying to order a pound of heroin and a case of hand grenades on the black market than you will scoring one of these babies. On the Sony website the price listed is $3.15 (US dollars). I thought, "Cool, I can deal with that." I called Sony to order the part and they quoted me the same price. 8 days later I received my package from Sony...EMPTY...nothing but a bar code and an empty zip-loc baggie inside. I called them and asked them about this and the operator assured me that he would remedy the problem. 5 days after that I received another package from Sony...EMPTY...same as the first one. Again I called Sony to find out what was up only to find that (after two hours of explaining my problem to them) the battery I needed would actually cost upward of $112 (US dollars)!

I had them credit my account the $3.15 (plus $5 S&H, which I plan on double checking very soon to make sure they've done this correctly) and that I would take my losses over the past year (I paid close to $200 for this thing new in 2006), would soon be buying an iPod.

Other than that it was a great product...while it lasted.

I am extremely happy with all aspects of this order, product and delivery