Customer Reviews

Sony NWZB105FBLK 2GB Walkman MP3 Player (Black)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I am a complete novice to MP3 players, and only a little computer savvy. I have resisted the MP3 craze for a long time now because I am an old school audiophile and prefer "albums" to "tunes". But when my FM headphone unit I used for workouts at the gym crapped out on me, I decided to take the plunge, assuming they could be had with FM capability for the option of watching the TVs at the gym.

I have to say I am pleasantly surprised at how easy this Sony is to use, and how good it sounds. I did have to download an updated version of Windows Media Player, but once I did that even a tech dummy like me easily ripped my favorite CDs to my computer, and "sync-ed" the songs to the MP3 player.

And the sound is pretty good for a relatively cheap set of earbuds, with actual bass and good clarity. I'm not going to give up my multi-thousand dollar stereo anytime soon, but for car and gym use, it will do very well.

My only problem is finding an armband for it, seems any elastic armband with a small sleeve would work but I'm haven't found one yet.

[EDIT]I did find a cheap armband that looks promising, a Nextar MA-ASAB01. The Sony fits pretty snugly and is still accessible due to the clear plastic pouch of the Nextar.

I'm not sure why others are having problems, but this item works great for me. I'm using Window$ XP, with Winodow$ Media Player 11. I plug the Walkman into my USB port, and it shows up in Media Player, ready to save music to.

I created a few Playlists, dragged them to the side (as Media Player showed), and clicked "Sync." Then all the songs were loaded onto the Walkman. It even converted my non-MP3 files into MP3s without me having to do anything.

All this *without* having to insert the provided CD (I think it's mostly a Napster free trial and the instructions for the Walkman in PDF).

I also really like the FM receiver. It's a nice feature that I don't think ipods have.

It also has AVLS, which if you turn it on won't let you turn it up past "safe" sound limits--I found the maximum volume lower than I might have thought was safe, so it's a good reminder that these little ear buds can easily cause hearing damage. (This feature is an option, you can blow out your hearing if you desire.)

I haven't had a need to use it, but the Walkman does come with a voice recorder that allows you to record a voice memo. It will also let you record a song off the radio--if you're listening to the radio and your favorite song comes on, just hit the Record button twice and the recording starts--sorry, it can't go back in time and get the start of the song you missed :-)

The last nice feature is the easy to twist "Hold" switch that inactivates all the other buttons. Since the others are so easy to push, the Hold switch is nice if you're jostling your Walkman and might accidenttaly bump one of the buttons.

I find the USB cover clips on quite securely. It has a nice little metal spring inside it, unlike most USB storage devices that just slip on and can easily fall off.

I'm taking a language class, and was able to easily move the practice tracks from the class CD to the Walkman.

The one main "flaw," as others have stated, is that it will not start at the same mid-track place after you restart it--this could be quite annoying if you are listening to electronic books and don't always finish a track before you turn it off. It does remember which track you are on, but will start at the beginning of the track only.

All in all, a great little MP3 / FM player.

I was very positively impressed by the ease of loading content on to this Walkman, charging it, battery life, and audio quality. The earphones that come with the device are light and easy to use. I am happy with the 2 gigabyte capacity. The "hold" wheel lock on the back allows the push-button controls to be temporarily suspended, which is perfect when keeping the Walkman in a pocket while doing some manual activity. I am glad that I bought this product rather than some similar competitor products. I would recommend it, and consider it an excellent value.

This MP3 player is great, u don't have to use cables to sync or charge it. Has FM radio, voice recorder and u can even record your favorite FM program on a MP3 file. The sound quality is amazing (like all Sony's products) and is very portable. I don't know why most of the people prefer the iPod Shuffle instead of this one... and is cheaper too!. The only complain is that the shuffle doesn't work as expected.

I was looking for a small, relatively robust MP3 player with superb sound quality to use while jogging or while traveling overseas. Ideally, I wanted the player to also have a solid FM radio that allows FM recording.

So, I read a lot of reviews and here are my impressions after using Sony for a month:

Sound quality:
The sound coming from this tiny player is very impressive, rich and full of details in mid-tones. Kudos to Sony!

FM Radio:
I expected that the FM radio sound will be substandard based on my previous experience with some other portable FM radios/MP3 players. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised to hear jazz from the local Canadian Jazz.FM radio station (FM 91.1MHz). The sound was noise free and terrific for such a small FM radio. Wow!

FM Recording:
This player records FM radio in MP3 format (up to 192 kbps). Some other MP3 players that I had considered (SanDisk Sansa, and even some high-end Sony models) didn't have this feature. For example, Sandisk players can record FM audio but it is uncompressed WAV format. WAV "audio CD" standard consumes approximately 10MB of disk space for each minute of audio! I didn't think it makes much sense to record FM in CD quality as the FM radio is already not "CD quality", so why waste valuable storage space by storing 10 times bigger audio files?...

USB Storage:
I had no problem using this player on my 3 computer(s). Two of them have Windows XP and one is Windows Vista OS. No problem at all, just plug and play. I have to note that all my computers are up to date with software patches.
True, the device does not show as USB drive but it shows as "WALKMAN" in Windows explorer and it still allows you to copy files back/forth like with any other USB key. You can copy all your MP3 files to/from device using this method or use Windows Media player and do it from there.

You can stop your computer from recognizing your Sony player as a MTP device ("WALKMAN"), and recognize it as USB key (MSC device) if you do the following:

1) Plug in your Sony MP3 player, the computer will detect it as MTP device
2) Go to Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager, find the player (it will be called WALKMAN), right click on it and Uninstall
3) Temporarily rename the file "c:\windows\system32\drivers\wpdusb.sys" (a windows portable device driver that comes with windows media player 10 or above) to something like "wpdusb.sys.bak".
4) After doing so, the Add/Remove Hardware wizard popup should appear when you plug in your Sony player.
5) When it prompts you to look for the install files, choose the option install it yourself rather than let Windows look for it.
6) Again, in the next prompt, choose to look for the install files yourself.
7) You should then be given a choice of installing it as a MTP device or an USB mass storage device, choose the USB option.

Your computer should recognize it as a MSC device now. I strongly advice you to make a backup of all files you see, as you might need them later..
You can also rename back file "wpdusb.sys.bak" to "wpdusb.sys"

NOTE FOR SONY:
As some people already noted, when powered on, player continues playback from the beginning of the last played audio file. You can, of course, fast forward and this is not a huge problem for individual MP3s but can be annoying for audio books or CD mixes where a single MP3 lasts 45min.

This isn't such a big issue issue for me, but I hope Sony releases a firmware upgrade to fix this.

I've chosen this product for two reasons: (i) it can be used as a USB stick without a cable, hassle free. (ii) A 2 GB Sony mp3 player with FM for this price is a very good deal. However my experience is not quite what I expected.

After just 5 days of usage the USB connection failed!!! It was disconnecting then connecting over and over again by itself. Basically the connectivity to a computer was lost. This happened in just one week, without any abuse or mistreatment. After going through a one hour troubleshooting on the phone with Sony customer service, they decided to replace the product. I have received the new one last week, no problem so far.

I have some other 'minor' complains about this player. Start-up is slow considering the complexity of the product. Even though I was using only the %25 percent of the memory it takes 5-10sec. to start up the player. Battery life is 12 hours which is bad but bearable. It does not resume the file when you close and open the player. I hope they can fix this with a firmware upgrade.

And, couple of words about the sound quality. I am not an audiophile but my ears did not like the response of the included headphones. I bought the cheapest Sony headphones, now the sound is superb. I also own an Iriver (390T) and I can not tell the difference. Do not expect much from the equalizer; I think the default setting is the best.

I think the strongest point of the player is Sony's excellent customer service :).

edit: As of Feb. 09 the player is kaput. I had the same problems again, but the warranty expired. I went through the troubleshooting over the phone, no solution there.

This is exactly what I needed. I load the music I want, (drag and drop), then I go run and listen. It's light weight, it's small enough to fit in the pocket of my shorts. Just the basics is all I need, I don't need a video screen or tons of storage. I paid $60 at Sears, well worth it.

This broke a few weeks later....times (2)...

This little mp3 player is well worth the money invested. The SOUND quality is fantastic, probably on the level of Creative players, and much much better than Ipod. That said it is probably little more on the bass side. You can edit it with 5 channel Eq - which is great and makes sound just the wasy you want. DESIGN is one of the best I have seen, it is clad in nice, not cheap platic, you can feel the different options without even looking at the small, albeit incredibly precise and readable display. The hold button is made of metal, and very very easy to operate, and the device has play/pause, forward, reverse, menu, record buttons, on/off, reset (pin) - (each distinct) and it plugs directly into computer USB port. It feels very good in hand and it has the capacity of 1.81GB. BATTERY lasts for 10h even and it even holds for week or two without charging (2-4h). INTERFACE is made to operate on Windows Media Player but I usually drag files and folders manually. The device sorts through folder/file or artist/album way - you can actually switch the way wou want to check it. It has FM & recording, Voice recording (encodes into mono/stereo 92/128/256 mp3s), great sound and fine earbuds which go along. WHY 4 STARS? - It does not resume the file you are listening to after you turn it off, the search with forward/reverse buttons is painful although precise - if you listen to audiobook/podcast it takes forever to go back where you have stopped, there is no deleting on the device. For video of the device and overall look please go to cnet. I would buy it again and these minor things could be possibly changed with an upgraded firmware. I have owned it for 3 months and I have not had any problems...

I very like the fact that I do not need some complex program to download to my computer to just access my music files from the player and I do like that it's so easy to add musics and files in it with few clicks from my computer to the player itself. But there is some missing things like a repeat option for the songs, there is no clipper where I can hang it up when I work out. The screen is not the best quality, I wasn't impress about the screen at all and I would have expected more from sony about on that...

But it's affordable, the sound is great, of course you have to get your own good earphones, since the original ones that comes in the box aren't the best... not to say cheap.

I am using it, it's working fine... but could have been better. I had a ipod shuffle before, it had a clip so it was practicle working out with it. It was smaller too, but of course, less memory space and no screen like the sony one. But I have to admit, the ipod shuffle is way lighter and smaller than the sony.

Ok, so I wanted a MP3 player to use at the gym. What is a guy to do? Well, with so many choices, this Sony MP3 play caught my eye. Why? It is very small in size; about the size of a memory stick.

This MP3 player actually has a 3 line display. No guessing what song is playing. The display shows quite a bit of information all at one time including: song, artist, playlist, battery status, equalizer status, play time, and song number.

It is easy to use! I did not even have to read the directions. I plugged it into my USB and it begin a sync window in Microsoft Media Player in Vist - No drivers to load or configuration required. The battery charges while you are loading your files. Did I mention this thing is easy to use?

The headphones that come with the player are not super quality; just middle of the road. I would have preferred playing less for the product and being able to buy my own headphones. I plan on getting a pair of ear buds that are a bit more comfortable.

In addition, there is an FM tuner and a recorder that you can record from the FM tuner as well as a voice memo recorder so you can remember your, "Milk, Butter, Eggs" on the way home from the gym.