Customer Reviews

Sony 8 GB Walkman Video MP3 Player (Black)

5 star:		(137)
4 star:		(78)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Being 67 years old and wanting something simple to use I used previous reviews to settle on the Sony 4GB Walkman MP3 Player.
I couldn't be more satisfied.It comes with a cd that allows dowloading an excellent tutorial along with Windows Media Player 11. Instructions are clear and concise. I had read in one review that you couldn't delete songs. This was untrue as its simple, but does require being hooked to your computer.

If I can use this anyone can and they will be very satisfied with the quality, ease of use and sound quality.
I bought another Sony for my wife !!

The first word that came out of my mouth when I listened to a track on this MP3 / Video player was WOW! The sound quality that this tiny little device generates is just amazing. When it comes to MP3 players, I'm VERY picky. I look for a device that gives me rich, crystal clear, high quality sound... with BASS! And this Walkman delivers it. That's not to say that other brands don't deliver high-quality crystal clear sound, but at the same time, not all brands deliver it with outstanding bass and balance. At least, not for this price range.

The equalizer on this Sony Walkman is just perfect, as far as I'm concerned. When you crank up the bass level, you get exactly that - thick, solid bass, without distorting the earphones or affecting the treble. You can either select the presents that are pre-loaded in this device, or customize the frequency levels until you reach your desired sound.

At 4GB, this Walkman can hold approximately 900 songs if they are at 128 kbps in MP3 format. But personally, I would highly recommend you rip your MP3s from your CDs to 192 kbps, which would pretty much give you CD quality. The downfall is that you won't be able to load 900 songs. Since 192 kbps files are a little larger than 128 kbps, you'll be looking at something like 600 songs or so (assuming they are the standard 3 to 4 minute songs), which is still a lot. As for the video player, I was quite impressed with both the picture and, of course, sound quality. The videos don't freeze up or skip or anything like that, they play just as smoothly as what you see on your television screen at home.

Importing audio, video, and images onto this device is pretty easy. Simply connect one end of the USB cable (which comes included) to your Sony Walkman, and the other end of the cable to your computer. Then, on your computer, go to Start, My Computer, look for the "Sony Walkman" drive, double click on it and then drag / drop your files in the appropriate folders. The other option is to use Windows Media Player 11 (which you can download for free on the Internet) to synchronize your files to your Sony Walkman. This is probably the better option if you want everything neatly organized. It may take a little bit of practice for some, but it's fairly easy to do once you get the hang of it.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This review is written specifically for the NWZ-A815 model, not the NWZ-E436F series (BIG DIFFERENCE!). Sony screwed up royally with the MWZ-E436F series as the sound quality is nowhere near as good. Heck, I had a SanDisk Sansa that actually sounded better than the MWZ-E436F series. The problem is that the MWZ-E436F walkmans come with cheap, very standard earphones and have very limited sound enhancement options. I know this from personal experience as I purchased an E436 series thinking it's the same as the A815 series. I was VERY disappointed. Since the NWZ-A815 looks like it's discontinued, I would recommend you invest in the Sony NWZ-A726 instead to get that superior sound quality.

Summary for the NWZ-A815 Sony Walkman:

Pros:
Amazing sound quality
Excellent Equalizer
Ridiculously long lasting battery
Ultra slim design (less than half an inch thick)
Has FM Radio
Great bass!

Cons:
Memory not expandable
No voice recorder

This is an excellent product. I highly recommend it.

Just a little input... This is the third Sony mp3 I've tried, and it's the best so far. Just when I thought I really liked the previous version, I realized that I was wanting more music to carry. I began with just the 1gig walkman which was perfect for working out and running, but then I hated that I had to use the Atrac format (and the program, sony stage, that came with it sucked) and it wouldn't let me turn my music back into mp3 format.
The previous version was excellent in sound and I liked the display to see the cd art when showing the recordings. The smart random play was also great. Well, now I have all of it, and the fm player still there...yeay. The screen a tiny bit bigger, and the buttons a little crisper when you press them.
The only negative I have found is that the random feature always returns to the first song that was recorded on the mp3 player as long as it first plays the last song that was playing when I last shut it down (weird).
The battery does last a very long time, the only thing is you have to tweak the settings for the screen brightness, time it stays on etc... If you want a little extra memory, you can dig into the settings and delete the videos and demos that come preloaded on the player...now hopefully the 4 gig will be enough for me to listen to.
The sound out of this thing is incredibly good for the price, it goes great with my Sure headsets. Also the size and weight is perfect when going for a run, or a mountain bike trail ride.
By the way, it does have a "hold" button, unlike some silly players out there....hope this helps!!!

Sony has done it again. They took a really good product and made it mediocre. This is supposed to be the 3rd generation upgrade of their new line of Video Walkman Mp3 players. You would think it would be better than the 600 and 700 series players. Well, in IMHO it is not.

Yes, they added the radio,extended the battery life to an amazing 45 hours,added more and support for a couple of other video formats,and improved the build quality but come on Sony, the most important feature of an mp3 player is the Sound.

This one does not sound nearly as nice or clean as the 600 and 700 series Walkmans. If you have never heard the other Sony players, then you might think this one is great, but it does not compare to the older models in sound quality.

There are several sound enhancements that were included in the earlier versions of this player that are missing here. There is no VPT ( Virtual Surround), No Clear Stereo, No DSE and no Bass Enhancement. And most of all, the volume capability seems to be about 60 % of what you got on the older units. That may be how Sony got the extra 12 hours of battery life.

The tuner in the older units was awesome, this tuner is very weak. I compared the two units side by side, and it is not just a little weak, it is almost unusable.

The video does seem to be about the same as the older players,which was very good, and they did increase the size of the screen, but video was not a very important feature for me.

Shame on Sony..... I bought this to give as a gift to friend and I am now to embarrased by the performance to give it as gift. I am taking this unit back,and I already ordered another 600 and 700 series unit while they are still available on clearance.

All I can say is wow. I bought this Sony as a replacement for a substandard mp3 player that I got for christmas. I made the right choice. When I got the player I looked it over and the over all design of the player looks 200% better in person than in picture. It is shiny and sleek. It is however a fingerprint magnate but that's an easy fix with a PSP cleaning cloth. I found the player so easy to operate right out of the box. I did not need to install any software since I was already running the required Windows Media Player revision. As the description states, drag and drop is a breeze. I had no problems Syncing the player using Windows Media Player either. Album art worked and looked great on the player. The menus were almost too easy to navigate with not even one glance at the included instructions. The LCD screen was bright, vibrant and full of color. The demo videos and pictures were so crisp and clean on the screen. The size of the screen was just right; not to big not to small. Now the sound of the player blew me away. Clean clean clean sound with superb bass response without distorting the highs. The built in equalizer is a nice touch to tailor the sound to your preference. The supplied headphones are OK but nothing to write home about. I would suggest getting some good quality headphones. The date and time function is a nice addition to a well rounded MP3 player. I am 100% satisfied with this player and when I decide to upgrade to a bigger memory size I will again buy a Sony MP3 player. I have heard and used many other MP3 players that cost hundreds of dollars and they pale in comparison to this diamond in the rough. Do not hesitate to pick one up you will not be disappointed.

I love that you can plug it into your computer and start listening right away - no programs to install, no PITA formats... nothing. If you have Media Player, you already have everything you need. This alone makes it 1000 times better than an iPod. I hate having Apple programs on my PC anyway. It's about time manufacturers started making their products work with our computers and not the other way around!!

Having bought a lot of Sansa products in the past I decided to try a Sony instead. Unfortunately my experience with this player has not been good. After using it occasionally for the first 3 months I finally decided to load it up and listen to it while working in the garage. I put about 4Gb of music onboard and I listened for a few hours. I then brought the unit inside to charge and it never worked again. It gets stuck at the "every moment has its music" splash screen and does nothing else. I tried hard resetting the unit, and reflashing the firmware but no good. I contacted Sony's online support and they said it needed to be repaired and pointed me to the Sony warranty site. Well little did I know that the warranty on this unit only covers the parts and not labor. The warranty call is $29, and they will provide an exchange unit (it's not actually repaired). Sorry SONY but that isn't good enough. I expect to have in-warranty repairs done for free, as it appears to be down to bad flash or faulty firmware.

Folks use your favorite search engine and look up freezing issues with these units before you buy. There's a surprising amount out there and no solutions. Vote with your dollars and buy something different.

I decided to buy this unit for my 10-year-old son as his first MP3 player because I didn't want to dish out the big bucks for the IPOD not knowing how careful he would be with it. I love my IPOD Classic but they are pricey. Additionally, I've always been a fan of Sony electronics. No more...at least not with their Walkmans. Loading music was easy - drop and drag to the folder using my PC, which recognized the Walkman as soon as it was plugged in. That's where the ease of use ended. One of the selling points of these units is the ability to upload and watch videos. I'm an experienced computer user but I spent half a day trying to get videos downloaded from YouTube to this Walkman device without success. I used the Sony Walkman Media Manager (program that comes on the CD that comes packaged with the unit) and that didn't work. It wouldn't upload any MP4 or AVC format videos despite these being the only formats Sony says it will accept for videos. I downloaded the content transfer program from Sony's Web site and that program immediately stopped working on my computer (On screen message: "This program has stopped working and needs to shut down"). Several reinstalls of the program and same thing result. Ugh. I finally just dropped and dragged the videos from my PC desktop directly into the Walkman video folder and they copied over fine. However, when I tried to play them on the Walkman I got the "incompatible format" error message on every video. To boot, Sony's Web site provides no troubleshooting assistance for the issue. I found many others online with the same issue I was experiencing. Lesson learned - spend a few extra bucks and buy the IPOD for trouble free operation. Good luck!

I've been looking for something to replace my NW-S203F as my everyday and running player. Specifically I wanted something that could be used on runs, was under $100, and was NOT and Ipod. It seemed that Sony's wireless NWZ-W202BLK Walkman would be perfect for me but the headphones/in-ear component would not stay in my ear as I ran so it was a deal breaker. I sold it and found this guy instead through Sony's website and ordered it on Amazon. So far my experience with it has been incredible. The sound quality is good (4/5 since I experienced some amazing sound with Meizu's DA-M4-04-MZ3 Miniplayer), it has enough space for my needs even with a 20+ gig music collection, and I love the drag-and-drop interface and its compatibility with Media Jukebox 12 (I was using Sonicstage to transfer files over to my previous gadget and that was the worst experience ever)! The interface is incredibly easy and intuitive and the player has a lot of nice options and even language settings that change on the fly (I'm learning some French). I love its sleek design and weight which make this device low-profile. I've been mostly using the audio and radio features of this device but recently I uploaded several photos and a movie. So far they look great and I like having something to watch on road trips.
There are several cons to this device as well. I've had one instance of trying to put a video on the player and it took a bit of work. Know that if you buy this player, just like all other video capable media players, you will have to convert the video file which can take several hours. I got the format wrong at first so no video played but the sound was still good. Then I tried a different compatible format and that didn't work either, however, after reading the fine print, I noticed that the player only supports a maximum video bitrate which will affect the video's size (MB) and quality (kbps). Fortunately Xilisoft allowed me to tweak that manually. So far, I've been able to watch the movie without interruption. The stock headphones on this device aren't amazing especially compared to what the S series version gives you. This last mention isn't a con but it would be nice if the player allowed me to choose a custom wallpaper from the pictures I have uploaded.
All in all, I am completely in love with this device and will be using it for several years to come. It's intuitive, light and small, and great for running and workouts. I do plan on possibly purchasing an armband but I have no problem just holding the thing since it's so tiny.

My wife has an iPod nano, and while the sound is good, the iPod has had a reputation for breaking and I found the iTunes store a nightmare to navigate.

For me, it came down to the Sony or the SanDisk. While the SanDisk is less expensive and has the microSD slot, it is almost as fragile as glass. When I looked at them at the local BestBuy, the SanDisk on display was broken after 2 DAYS on display.

The Sony has been reliable (so far), the sound rivals anything that I've owned and it was easy to use and to download onto. I have been using My Computer to copy over files, but it comes with software that makes it a matter of drag and drop to download. And in my opinion, it's a better deal than the iPod, especially with 99-cent downloads from Amazon, compared to $1.29 for new tunes from the iTunes stores.