It supports a variety of bit rates, from the watchable Kbps to the stupendous quality Kbps. Unlike audio, video files can simply be dragged and dropped on to the player through Windows.
Photos look amazing. Once you've dragged and dropped image files on to the device, you can create cool-looking slide shows with some nifty transitions between your different shots. If you divide your photos up into folders on your PC, they appear on the NW-A as galleries, with handy thumbnails easily showing the contents.
The music playback screen is informative and tidy. Album art is generally displayed in a small square at the top left of the screen, although you can choose to have floating album art which fills about 80 per cent of the screen during playback. Artist, album, song title and year of release are all displayed in the lower half of the screen, along with a progress bar. The built-in search feature is incredibly useful for finding artists or songs in a large library. The whole alphabet is displayed on-screen, with unused letters greyed out.
To jump to all artists beginning with the letter 'S', for example, just click 'S' and you're immediately taken to the appropriate section of your library. Playlists generally work as you'd expect, but there's also a dynamic playlist option that lists the most listened-to tracks.
You can also have up to five on-the-fly playlists and tracks can be removed just as easily as they can be added, by clicking the 'add to trash' option. Other useful features include the ability to create on-the-fly music playlists, fully searchable music libraries via an alphabetical search filter, various modes of shuffle playback and a dedicated 'options' button for bringing up in-line context menus.
Performance Audio playback is stunning and, miracle of miracles, the bundled headphones are excellent. All ranges in the audible spectrum are reproduced well, but especially bass. We were particularly impressed when listening to Slam by Pendulum -- a bass-driven dance track that pounded clearly through even the stock headphones.
Mid-ranges and highs performed equally well. Audiophiles will still probably want to invest in a superior pair of 'phones, but the supplied set will perform well for the majority of people. We've been waiting for this day to arrive for a long time! But turning on the ClearStereo and ClearBass options did make a dramatic different to sound quality. ClearBass on its highest setting makes bass frequencies feel twice as loud without affecting mid ranges and highs at all.
Full Specifications. What's new in version 4. Release October 8, Date Added October 8, Version 4. Operating Systems. Additional Requirements Internet Explorer 5. Total Downloads 1,, Downloads Last Week Report Software. Related Software. Apple iTunes Free. Spotify Free. Share and listen to music files and playlists of your choice.
Plex Media Server Free. Manage and stream your media to the Media Center and mobile applications. User Reviews. Show Reviews. This will probably come as no surprise as the nano is well known to be inferior to other players out there when it comes to audio quality.
Between the Walkman and the Sansa there was much less discernable difference and my ears would call it a dead heat. Of course if you encode your music in ATRAC on the Sony it will sound even better, but unfortunately most people already have a music library in mp3.
There is a multitude of audio enhancement options available including a customisable EQ which has five frequency settings as well as a Clear Bass option that adds a bit of punch to those kick drums and deep bass lines. Four preset options are available, Heavy, Pop, Jazz, and Unique. Of the four, I found only Heavy benefited any of my music, adding clarity to the searing guitar parts and depth to the chugging rhythm sections of the metal music I listen to.
The included earphones are certainly an interesting design. The premise is that the inner section handles upper frequencies while the larger outer section, which holds a much larger driver, handles the lower frequencies. Though there was certainly oodles of bass, clarity was lacking and the overall result was just a bit muffled.
While audio playback is certainly important, what really sets this player apart from the competition is the superb display that is large, bright, and clear. Viewing photos is a pleasure and though there is some slight colour banding, as evidenced by our photo below, the overall experience is better than any other. Video is also eminently watchable and, though I might hesitate to watch a full movie on a screen this size, I would quite happily watch trailers, TV shows, and podcasts.
You can orientate the video to play in landscape to make maximum use of the screen and can even choose which way round the video is in case you prefer to have the controls on the left or right of the screen. Otherwise a file conversion tool is provided that will prepare your files for you. If you want to use the best mp3 player available, you apparently have to make sacrifices somewhere.
And, in this case it comes in the form of music library hi-jacking software. In fairness to Sony, locking the hardware to your software is no different to Apple and iTunes, I just wish it might have made the bold step into either DRM free downloads — giving a use for SonicStage, or, just used a drag and drop interface.
This is all the more important considering the sizes that this Walkman comes in. As you may expect SonicStage is similar to iTunes and Windows Media Player in providing you with a music management interface library including all the necessary tools for importing music and transferring it to relevant players.
So, the software is a bit of a let down but is it bad enough to affect the overall verdict of the Walkman?
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