Pump up the volume wherever you are--whether pounding the urban jungle pavement or power cycling at the gym--with Sony's NW-E105PS Network Walkman. Amazingly small and light, the round NW-E105PS measures just 2.21 inches in diameter and weighs under one ounce. It has a 512 MB internal flash memory and plays MP3, ATRAC, and ATRAC3plus formats. It's also compatible with content purchased and downloaded from Sony's Connect Music Store (available for Windows PC users only). This model comes in white, and is also available in blue.
Originally developed for Sony's MiniDisc players, the ATRAC3 format increases the sound compression rate by approximately one-tenth, thereby reducing the file size and enabling you to store more music. ATRAC3plus goes even further, with compression levels of 1/20 the original sound source, but provides stronger sound quality than other formats and comparable compression levels. The 512 MB memory will store up to 340 songs, or over 22 hours (calculated at 4 minutes per song using ATRAC3plus compression at 48 kbps). Though it doesn't play WMA or WAV, these formats can be converted into either ATRAC3 or ATRAC3plus.
Because music is stored on internal flash memory--with no moving parts, like hard drive-based players--the NW-E105PS won't skip when jostled, making it the perfect workout partner. The NW-E105PS has a blue backlit LCD that provides song information (such as title, artist, album, etc.) and easy toggle navigation. It also includes a bass and treble equalizer.
What's in the Box
Sony NW-E105PS Network Walkman (512 MB, White), headphones, USB cable, CD-ROM with SonicStage software (for managing your digital library, converting tracks from CDs, and transferring tunes to the Network Walkman)
1 Excellent little player with some quirks
How much you like Sony's new flash-memory Network Walkmans is going to depend on what you use them for. I use mine to load seven or eight CDs onto for jogging, walking, and for my car. If you have a large collection of MP3s and other formats you want to load on and off of it, you might find another player that suits your needs.
Ripping CDs to Sony's ATRAC3 format at fairly low bit-rates sounds pretty darn good for such a small player, not to mention that ATRAC is a gapless format, which is excellent for dj-mix CDs, live albums, and so on. MP3s, however, occasionally crop up with some weird digital artifacts that I've noticed. It doesn't ruin them by any means, it's just up to you as to how good you want your MP3s to sound. Like other reviewers have said, though, the sound (regardless of format) is a little muffled. However, Sony was smart enough to allow users to adjust bass and treble levels on the unit (and save two seperate presets!). Cranking the treble to max remedies the muffled sound to a large degree, creating a very bright sound, if not exactly a colorful one.
Besides saving your own sound adjustments, the unit also lets you browse tracks on the player by "groups" (albums, playlists, etc.), which is very handy. Playback features are numerous, and let you shuffle songs by group, or every song, plus a variety of repeat options. The display is even customizable. One minor issue is the tricky hold/group slider and the sunken menu buttons on the back, but for a player this size there's probably not too much they could do. The rocking-faceplate buttons, hoever, are a neat trick. As for Sony's SonicStage software, at least it's semi-intuitive; I've seen a lot worse (ahem, Rio).
My 20GB Karma ruined me for features a lot of other hard drive (let alone flash) players didn't give you. Surprisingly, my little Network Walkman can keep up, with gapless playback, customizable sound, and excellent battery life, not to mention how cool it looks. Any one who is looking for a fun, inexpensive way to carry around some of their favorite tracks would do well to pick one of these guys up.
2 Excellent little player better than Shuffle
I wanted to buy a small, flash-based music player primarily for jogging and taking to the gym, so naturally I compared the 2 premier products out right now, Sony PSYC vs. Ipod Shuffle. The PSYC comes out on top in SO many ways.
1) LCD screen a huge plus for navigating through albums and artists. Shuffle has no screen.
2) Tremendous amount of features for such a little player, such as shuffle, repeat, browse by artist or browse by song, sound equalizer...all intuitive to use. By contrast, the Shuffle practically forces you to play your songs on random. Looking for that favorite album? Good luck finding it with the shuffle.
3) ATRAC3Plus coding allows you to store MANY more songs in 512 MB compared to Apple's AAC. 64 kbs in ATRAC3Plus provides excellent sound quality, even through stock ear phones.
4) 1 AAA battery = 70 hours! That means no need to constantly have to plug the blasted Shuffle into your computer to recharge everyday.
Sony has made an excellent product here, not to mention one that is very asthetically pleasing. You want substance AND style, get the PSYC.
3 Cool and easy
After looking at Ipod shuffle, I opted for the PSYC at a few bucks less. It holds more songs if you use Sony's ATRAC system and has more navigation options than the Ipod. The sound quality is great even on the supplied earbuds. The software is easy to use, though the translations from Japanese can be strange in the instruction manuals. It runs on a single AAA battery for lots of hours, no worry about recharging. It also looks a lot neater than Ipod and not everyone is carring one, yet. Great LCD display. All in all a good buy.
4 Wonderfully lightweight and amazing battery life
Sony calls this new line of flash-based, coin-like (but they are thick coins!) MP3/ATRACT players the Psycs, and their new-age styling does psyc you out. Which is not a bad thing, as they are more euro-cool than the rather bland and boring iPod and the downright butt-ugly iRiver. The more I look at the Psyc, the more I like its looks.
The new Psyc MP3 player features 512MB of flash memory, which is great for those of you jogger jocks out there. You can shake this thing violently and it won't skip a beat, unlike those hard drive-based players. Before you insert an AAA battery, the Psyc weighs in at an amazingly light 0.9 oz. -- that's right, folks, it's less than an ounce! With the AAA battery, my guess is it's about 2 oz. It's very small although, relatively speaking, it looks a little thick. (About 0.75 in. at its thickest part.)
What, you ask, it uses an AAA battery? Yes my friend, and this one AAA alkaline battery can power the player up to 70 hours! That's almost three full days of continuous playing. The phrase "up to" here means that in order to get all 70 hours of playing, you must 1) play ATRAC3Plus songs encoded at 48kbps and 2) do not press buttons or do random play (i.e., just leave the player playing sequentially). In the real life we like to skip a song, fast forward, random play (a.k.a. shuffle play), turn it on and off and on and off, and most importantly, we play MP3 songs. All these operations reduce the battery life. Given my experience with previous Sony MP3 players, my estimate is one good AAA battery should last you 40 hours or more. (With my beloved Sony NW-HD3, I routinely get the advertised battery life of 30 hours even when playing MP3 files.)
Of course, the use of AAA means you get an abundant and ready supply of cheap power source, and you can trek in the Amazon for weeks on end without having to worry about finding an AC outlet.
The Psyc, which comes in three colors (green and blue for the 512MB version, and orange for the 256MB version), has a nice backlit LCD screen, so you always know what you are playing as opposed to having to guess as on some other certain MP3 player. It plays MP3 as well as Sony's ATRAC songs. If you are an ATRAC fan you'll like the sound quality of this little player; it's at least as good as Sony's MD players. For MP3's, the sound quality is a bit "muffled" compared to my NW-HD3 20GB player, but still quite good if you pair it with a good pair of headphones (i.e., ditch the stock earphones).
Sony still has a long, long way to go in the user interface department, as this has always been its weakness, whether it's digital music or digital video or anything else. The Psyc is not hard to use; its basic functions are no-brainers. But, for anything beyond play/pause/skip, its interface, whether on the unit itself or on the PC transfer side, is still not polished and was clearly designed for a Japanese audience -- Japanese consumers reportedly love to play with complicated gadgets; no surprise given how elaborate sushi-making and origami are. We American consumers like things that are elegant and simple, and Sony has a lot of room for improvement in this regard.
In short, I don't think you'll be disappointed in the new Psyc flash-based MP3 players. They are stylish and lightweight and lasts forever on cheap AAA batteries. They have good sound quality and are priced right. Just be prepared to spend some time with the manual and experimenting a little. If you are stuck, you are welcome to e-mail me at gadgester @t hotmail with your questions.
5 Fake mp3 player!
Got mine (blue version of this) from Sonystyle.com just yesterday. After playing with it for a few hrs here are my impressions.
First and foremost the mp3 playback quality is atrocious. 128kbps files sound like 64kbps or lower. Even my no-brand-name cheap mp3/cd player has better mp3 quality.
I suspect the codec/DSP in the Sony are still designed for their propreitary ATRAC3 plus format with a secondary mp3 support. In fact converting a mp3 file to Atrac3plus (with included software) sounded better than just mp3 file. Inspite of this hassle, it was still below mp3 quality from other players.
The battery life seems to be in line with the specs listed by Sony. No complaints on that front. The backlight LCD display is a nice bonus too. The size/volume is significantly more than the iPod Shuffle.
The user interface is more loaded than such a small palyer can withstand. As a result it more cumbersome and confusing than Apple/iRiver players.
In short this awkwardly named "mp3" music player is a step in right direction for Sony but is still below average. Price is right but not the quality.
