Sony’s NWZ-S716F Walkman MP3 player combines your favorite multimedia entertainment with the benefits of built-in noise cancellation technology that reduces up to 75 percent of ambient noise. The slim yet powerful digital music player features a 4GB storage capacity, a bright 1.8” QVGA LCD display, and up to 33 hours of battery life so you can enjoy up to 1,000 of your favorite digital music tracks, hours of high quality video, or hundreds of photographs. The addition of Sony Clear Audio technologies, including the supplied Noise Canceling Sony EX Series headphones, helps ensure you’re treated to a superior audio experience.
this Sony Walkman has noise canceling mechanism built into the player. For what it's worth it does an adequate job. It probably won't do the job those expensive noise-canceling headphones can do, but it is in my opinion sufficient.
My experience in reading reviews were best if I arrange it in points rather than narratives. So I will do that here.
Strength:
1. it has outstanding sound quality. It is not that outstanding right out of the box, however. You have to tweak and toggle some settings. You have to turn on bass features and play with equalizers. I had every single version of iPods and the only iPod that comes close (but not quite) to the sound quality of this is first generation iPod shuffle. It has amazingly clean bass. The earbud that comes with the player is miles better than iPod earbuds. You usually have to spend $40-$50 for this type of earbud.
2. I actually like the size of this player over iPod nano because it is easier on my hand to grab. iPod nano was too thin and it is difficult to navigate since it is too small.
3. interface is really clean and I really like how you can skip fast to the last of the list by clicking right button. This is just one of those subtle feature that makes the experience better.
4. I like how this player has dedicated tactile volume button.
Weakness
1. it does not have gapless playback. This is a problem for me because I listen to a lot of Euro style mix musics.
2. it does not arrange songs by disc numbers. This is a problem since I arranged my albums in a way that it sorts out by disc numbers.
3. the biggest knock on this player probably is limited types of playable formats. It plays mp3, aac and wav. The problem with this is that if you have some odd formats like mp2 or ogg, when you are importing the music via windows explorer you will have problems with system crash. This is mostly windows Vista issue, however.
So most of the weaknesses are either subjective or nitpicky. Overall I love this player's sound quality. Since sound quality is the top 1st, 2nd, and 3rd important thing for me when I choose my mp3 player, this one is a winner.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This is my first MP3 player. It's easy to use and sounds great. I like the noise cancelling feature. That's probably what most influenced me to buy this. I mostly have been using it on the treadmill and when I mow the lawn. The noise cancelling headphones completely block out the sound of the treadmill. Very nice. Also, this is the only music player I've ever been able to hear while mowing the lawn. While the noise cancelling headphones don't completely block out the sound of the lawn mower, they do cut it out enough so that I can hear the music without having to crank the thing up too loud.
I've got three minor beefs: I don't like the design of the headphones. Great functionality, but having the wire that goes to your left ear so much shorter than the wire that goes to your right ear can be irritating. If I've got the player down in my pocket, sometimes turning my head to the right will cause the plug to be pulled out of my left ear. Secondly, I agree with an earlier reviewer that it would be nice to be able to delete songs on the player. If I'm using the thing and decide that there's a song I don't want on there anymore, I need to hold that thought until I'm back at the computer. And with a thousand or more songs on board, it's easy to forget the sucky one you want to delete. Finally, and this might not be a problem with the player, I can't seem to get all of the album covers to transfer from the computer to the player. Many of the tracks just have the Sony logo instead of the album cover corresponding to the track. Pretty minor issues. All in all, I would recommend this player to all. Again, the sound, speed, and ease of use make it well worth it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
this one is a keeper for me. everything is just great in this player. it's my first one and I found it very easy to use, even without reading the manual, file transfer is by drag and drop in windows media 11, very intuitive and super fast. the sound is superb, and you have various enhancing options, starting with an equalizer. functions and menu are easy and the upper right button offers contextualized options. the earphones come with 3 sets of earbuds, i found them very ligth and comfortable, beeing able to use them for three straight hours with no discomfort. and the noise cancelling feat works just great. highly recommendable. keep in mind, though, if you have a very large music colection, that 8 gb may not be enough for you.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews