I was confused whether to Buy the Philips GoGear or Sony Walkman. But Ultimately what made me buy this product was the attractive looks (same as "colourful" pendrive) and the feature of fast charging. and till date I am 85%happy with this product, the rest 15% I am not giving as the earphone that came with it was defective.The sound cracks at high volume. The thing is that the Sony service centre told me to come over but the earphone acted strange; the voice cracked sometimes while the rest of the time it was great. I mean if I had gone I may not be able to prove that the earphone is defective. For that reason I listen to music using a separate headphone.But the volume loudness reduces considerably when I use the headphone in place of the earphone.
Well lets see what’s the reason behind giving it 85%:-
Music Features:-
Well its Sony..The music should be the best thing about this walkman. And Kudos to Sony, they do live up to the expectation of this product. The Sound from this device is great ( when using earphone, the loudness reduces considerably in headphone, I didn’t try it in in-ear earphones). The Bass Function increases the lower frequencies upto a great level, But UNFORTUNATELY reduces the higher frequencies too.For Deep Bass music lovers it is great, but not so great for everyone.
It comes with four different modes of equalizer, and along with it their is also a customizing option taking the equalizer number to 5.You cant use equalizer and bass at the same time.But still ot sounds great in what ever mode you use it.
FM Player:-
The FM player is also another option that this music player gives. The FM tuning sensitivity is also worth mentioning. The FM recording is crystal clear. The keys are a bit small, and the central LED is also not necessary(can be put off in options).
The player also has Automatic Volume Leveling so as to not put unnecessary pressure on your ears.
Looks and Features:-
The walkman player looks lovely and awesome with its sleek & smooth look of a pen drive. Unfortunately the surface is a fingerprint magnet and picks up the smallest touch. The USB drag and drop feature for copying songs from computer to the device is also useful. There is a slot for hanging thread at the back side, but alas, no separate thread is provided. Hold button is below and the volume buttons are sleek enough for good use. They are bit slimmer than the Mobile phone volume buttons.Just beside the volume button is the BASS button, just push it and you’re ready for that THUMPING experience that Sony is so famous for.
Battery and Backup:-
This device gives a great battery backup of 18 long hours of music playing(not FM playing, the battery reduces greatly when using FM).The super feature of three minutes charge for a 90 minutes music experience is also unique. Though nowadays everyone owns a laptop and this device charges through the USB drive(full charge in approx 60 mins) it self, at times while travelling one may feel the need of a separate charger for charging the device when you’re not carrying your laptop with you. But you can easily overcome this thing by the fact that it gives 18 hrs backup when fully charged. So be prepared before hand.
Usability and others:-
The startup of this device is the fastest among its competitors.Just a press in the middle and its ready for ur listening. For music adding One can also sync using Windows media player apart from usual Drag and Drop.
For a 2 GB device one may want to add more music by use of compression techniques such as aac. Unfortunately this device only supports the mp3 and wma formats, so no way one can compress more songs into the device. Sony should have looked in to this feature more as evryone wants to get the best out of the available. As u use the device u get an imminent lack of a clip at the back side of the device. Just a presence of a clip would have made the usability so cool. The hold key is also greatly placed just below the upper surface of the device.
Overall:-
At a cheap price of 2750/- the device is the best in its category. Go for it. And Do review the product. Till then Happy Listening.