REVscene - Vancouver Automotive Forum

gars · 05-27-2009, 02:48 PM

just thought i'd brag a bit. got my walkman in the mail this morning. it was actually released here in the UK on the 12th, but i wasn't back from vancouver till the 24th.

I can't begin to describe just how amazing the screen is. I've only put a little bit of my music onto it - because i've decided i want to really really organize it well before putting it on. (ie proper genre, album name, album artwork)

anybody who's even contemplating getting it shouldn't even hesitate.

JKam · 05-27-2009, 03:17 PM

damn. I'm waiting for it to come to my store so I can buy it!!! Looks like we'll be getting it soon then..

How responsive is it? Is it Ipod responsive or laggier?

gars · 05-29-2009, 01:59 AM

it seems more responsive than the iPod. menus are instantaneous.

there's even the cool feature that the PS3 has - where you can show a shot of each 2 min/min/30sec/etc, so you can easily scroll through videos and find where you're at - and there's this cool reflection underneath each of the frames...

JKam · 05-29-2009, 09:49 AM

cool.... How is the built in noise cancelling on it? any good?

dai3yuen · 05-29-2009, 04:53 PM

Pics? I'd love to see this thing...

Still waiting for the pricing on it over here...

sas · 05-29-2009, 05:38 PM

Congrats! Now, post pics and review.

Price will be a big determining factor for me. On the sonystyle site, it has the 32gb version for $399 USD.

It will be either th Cowon S9 or this for me. I do admit, I am a sucker for sony products due to their stylish finish.

The noise canceling feature only works with the supplied headphones so I this is pretty much useless for me.

I really do wish Sony supported flac files. Take away the wi fi, and other features not related to sound, cut down cost, and give me flac!

JKam · 05-29-2009, 09:50 PM

for Canada the pricing on the 32gb is $499.

I thought the device has noise cancelling built in?

terkan · 05-30-2009, 12:32 PM

isn't noise cancelling built in thru the headphones? i mean the unit itself can't do noise cancelling without the headphones?

JKam · 05-30-2009, 11:59 PM

ah... i was reading the specs and I guess my comprehension skills are lacking... haha

Razor Ramon HG · 05-31-2009, 12:20 AM

I've been stoked about this product since it was announced, but sadly 32GB is far too less a space for my needs, otherwise I would've gotten it.

gars · 05-31-2009, 02:32 AM

i'll post up a proper review tonight. i'm pretty happy with it - and the noise cancelling i'm not too fussed about. i'll definitely take the supplied headphones (which actually are half decent) when i go traveling, but i'll use my own headphones when i don't need the noise cancelling. honestly - it's only really good when you're on a plane/train or whatnot anyways - not as much walking around the city.

Simplex123 · 06-23-2009, 11:23 PM

review pleaseee?

gars · 06-24-2009, 12:04 AM

sorry, i've been so busy... i'll try to put one up in the next few days....

on the flip side, i've been using it everyday for the past few weeks, plus i got to try out the noise cancelling on my flight to munich.

StylinRed · 06-24-2009, 12:05 AM

looks cool but i dunno i cant get over mp3 players not being phones too these days

asian_XL · 06-24-2009, 12:42 AM

^ yeah man...phone mp3 + bluetooth

Walkman looks cool, but I think it's stupid to carry more than one gadget with you.

gars · 06-24-2009, 03:34 PM

to sstart this off, i was originally looking for a new player. I am coming from my 4gb Samsung player. It served me well, had an amazing battery life, and sounded great. but I wanted more - I was looking for a player that could hold all my music (i have about 20gb, and i actually listen to about 80% of my music). honestly, the only player on the market for me was an iPod classic. I didn't really like the touch, i thought it was too big without actually being a phone. Phones that played music, i never really liked - there weren't any that sounded amazing, and they were never really AS good as a dedicated mp3 player.

in comes the Sony X Walkman - I heard about it, then waited, and waited, and waited, then saw it at Sony Training - played around with it, listened to it, then waited, and waited... and finally, i've been using it for the past 4 weeks, almost daily.

anyways, here are some of my points, what i like and dislike.

Interface

The menu system is pretty intuitive. not hard to use at all. for anybody who's ever used an iPod, it's quite similiar - searching by albums, artists, etc. the menu itself responds very quickly. honestly, i don't use the album art cover flow thing that much. it looks nice, and i like not having to rotate it sideways - but it "flows" too slowly for me to find the album i want.

big pluses are the dedicated keys at the top - to pause, and go backwards and forwards. You're able to actually have the hold button on, and still use the external keys if you like, so comparing to the touch (it's hard not to), it's a lot easier to skip to the next song without having to unlock the screen and actually look at it to find out where the 'next' button is. The dedicated home button works well as well.

The drag and drop function makes a HUGE difference. I used windows media player to transfer my music across at first, because i found that if i founnd album art for the albums on iTunes, or Winamp, it might or might not show up properly on my player, but if you do it on WMP, it would. but after i transfered over the bulk of my music, i just use drag and drop - especially with videos. Videos - i can get off Youtube - with an add-on with firefox. i just save the videos as an MP4 and i just drag and drop onto my player - no itunes or fussing about, easy as pie. I was at work, and we needed some music to play on our system, and I just connected it with the USB, and just transfered it over. if iPods didn't have that stupid restriction, i might not have bought this player.... who am i kidding, i hate iPods :P

Screen/Videos

at first glance, the screen looks amazing. the colours are brilliant, and the blacks are blackblackblack.... if i'm lying in my bed listening to music in a dark room, it looks even more fantastic - the screen just jumps out at you. i don't really watch too many videos on it - the player was first and foremost a music player, the video function is an added bonus. Of course, you just become used to the screen - but every once in a while, you find a video that just looks amazing on it. i put Radiohead - Paranoid Android on it, and the colours are just fantastic.

there's a sorta useless, sorta not, function on it - for anyone who has a ps3 - there's a function which allows you to show screen shots at certain intervals - 5 sec, 10 sec, 30 sec, 1 min, 5 min, and you can scroll through them to find where you are in a video. this has that as well - and it even has the reflection on the ground underneath from the actual screen shots. it's hard to explain, i'll just a show a picture later...

Build/Size

When you first pick up the player, you'll probably say, this is heavier than it looks. it feels solid - the weight of it just make it feel like it won't break in your hands. The granite finish on the sides, looked kinda weird in the pictures - but it makes for a nice grip to hold. The buttons don't feel cheap either, a good amount of resistance. the back is shiny, but it seems relatively scratch resistance. I've had it about a month now, but it hasn't scratched or anything yet. i was a little scared about not having a case, but i'm getting kinda lazy to spend the £5 on the case on amazon... we'll see.

I wanted a player that i could comfortably fit in my pocket and this size is perfect. good enough screen to see what's playing, but small enough that i can wrap my headphones around it and pop it into my pocket without it being intrusive. It makes for a smaller screen for the videos, but i don't use the videos that often.

Sound

There have been reviews about this mp3 player being one of the best sounding on the market. and lo and behold - it really is. I don't have $500 headphones. I started a few years ago with the entry level Sony EX headphones for $30 and moved up everytime they break or i lose them. I've had the standard Sennheiser CX300's, I've had the Denon C700's (the cord is ruined on it, but i love them to death....). I got the Head Direct RE1 (i think that's what they were, i found out about them on headfi.org) but now i Use the headphones that come with the player.

They have a good balanced sound to it. it seems clearer that playing it on another player. the digital amplifier inside is supposed to make the digital music sound better even if it's compressed - and i've never had any problems. I leave the eq on normal, no extra bass or anything, and they just sound good - no comments about this and that as i'm not a big expert. i won't go on to tell you about how wide the soundstage is or how the high tops sparkle... just listen to it and you'll be impressed.

what i think is that if you're the typical iPod person - who sticks with their crappy white earbuds, you won't appreciate this. but if you have an iPod, but you're willing to purchase $200 headphones, you will understand what good sound is and will want to get this....

Wifi

i'll admit, the browser isn't that great. tryin to surf the net on the tiny screen, it's kinda crappy. i like the youtube function tho - cuz it looks so nice on the screen. there's a nice function where you can automatically search the song you're listening to on youtube - i guess for videos or whatnot.

there isn't the same multi-touch function like the iPod Touch, but you still use the touch screen to scroll and whatnot.

Noise Cancelling

this is the first time i've used noise cancelling. before, i never understood the technology and how/how-well it works. basically - i went home, turned on my bathroom fan, and tested it in there. it was bloody amazing. the loud rumbling turned into a very quiet hum.

what i didn't understand before, is that it only really takes out repetitive noises. it doesn't take out the voices (tho it sounds a little muted), so it's actually not bad to walk around the city with it on. on the tube here, it'll take out the hum of the engines and the fans, but it won't take out the clanking over the crappy tracks, or the stupid girl yapping away with her friends - which is fine, i think it would probably be too dangerous to cut out everything.

i flew to munich a few days ago, and on a flight, it was wonderful. i always found that even when i put ear plugs in, i'd still hear the rumbling of the engine, but the noise cancelling worked amazing and i slept so well... the digital noise cancelling allows you to select between bus/train, airplane, and office. not quite sure what the differences were - airplane always seemed to work best in any situtation, but sometimes i just choose one or the other because it cut out certain frequencies...

it IS annoying that the noise cancelling only works with the supplied headphones. i asked sony spares - but apparently they don't sell them by themselves. they'll repair/replace them - but i wanted to order a spare while i still work at sony.

anyways, this is my review. sorry about my bad english - if you have any questions, just let me know. i really like it - and i'd recommend it for sure if music is very important to you. it doesn't have any funky aps or anything, but it does sound amazing.