Sony MP3 Players - Are they are still playing catch up?

Summary: From the company that introduced portable audio to the world (remember the Walkman?) comes a modern offering of portable entertainment in the form of MP3 players. Related Articles     Apple Ipod Shuffle    Sandisk Mp3 players    Ipod Nano

Sony has revamped the Walkman name and is cashing in on the popularity of MP3 players. It has several flash based models and even a few hard disk based players.

The Walkman Bean is a flash memory MP3 player available in either 512 MB or 1 GB sizes. Its ergonomic shape fits comfortably in the hand and it can handle several different audio formats including MP3, WMA, WAV and Sony's own ATRAC. This last format is found almost exclusively on Sony devices. Sony claims it offers similar sound quality to MP3 at half the file sizes, but independent testing has not verified these claims. For those interested in sharing files, a more commonly used format such as MP3 would be a better choice.

The Walkman Bean (aka NW-E305 and NW-E307) has a FM radio with digital tuner, a one line display and a clock. The lithium-ion battery can be quick-charged – 3 minutes of charging time gives 3 hours of power and the fully charged battery will last for up to 50 hours.

The Walkman Core (NW-E505) is a stick-shaped device about the size and shape of a pack of gum. It has 512 MB of memory – enough to hold 345 songs in ATRAC format or about 250 MP3 songs. This unit has a 3-line display and features the same quick-charge battery as the Bean. Both the Bean and the Core have USB 2.0 connections for transferring songs from a computer.

Another model is the Circ (NW-E103PS) – a round device available with either 256 MB or 512 MB of flash memory. Unlike the Bean or the Core, the Circ only has a USB 1.1 interface. This means that song transfer from computer to player will be much slower, but with the smaller memory size of the Circ, this may not be a problem. The Circ operates on a single AAA battery which lasts up to 70 hours.

Hard drive MP3 players include the NW-HD5, the NW-HD1 and the NW-A3000. All three of these models have a 20 GB hard drive which holds about 5,000 songs in MP3 format. If you use Sony's ATRAC format this number goes up to 13,000.

All of Sony's MP3 players are functional and sound great, but they just don't seem to have what it takes to be a winner. The controls on some models are awkward to use, the software for transferring music from computer to player needs a major re-haul and the FM tuner, although a nice extra touch, only brings in the strongest signals.

The ATRAC format for sound files seems like a dead horse – almost no other manufacturer supports it and it has questionable value when compared with other formats such as WMA. To be fair, many (but not all) Sony MP3 players support WMA, but it would be nice if Sony would ditch the ATRAC in favor of another format such as OGG or FLAC.

Where Sony players shine is in the battery life – 50 to 100 hours for most models. Sony has a lot to learn about function, but they have a lot to teach about power use.