ceres

It´s the first time I have heard about the lack of these functions and I don´t like it. Things like ratings come in handy when creating smart playlists and such. No ratings, and no on device playlisting. Is it an omission on Sony´s part or a deficiency of wmp? EDIT: kwangomango, so it´s sony again. This time either with a rush job in firmware or an "incentive" for media manager software.

I am in the same position as you. I just called Sony. They said a huge shipment will be dispatched on the 9th of October so we should have our walkman pretty soon.

5.5 G sounds better to me than any current ipod so you will likely enjoy it. It´s definitely a good sounding device. How good depends on personal preference.

As in the past Apple will probably improve the current ipod lineup in may or so. As with the mini a long time ago...

It doesn´t get much attention bc it looks cheap judging by the pictures. IRL it is cute, though. Ceres

As I am still waiting for Sonystyle Europe to ship my NWZ 818 I went out to see if I could pick up a unit in one of the large electronics outlets in town. While in the store I saw the latest daps from samsung, creative and apple. I played around with all of them and each offering is -in its own right- a perfectly viable solution. I picked up the nano first. The new colors look very appealing. The back is a smudge and dirt magnet and will become rusty over time (my 5g did). It still looks very nice. The screen is at default (50%) already very bright (151,49 cd) and can reach a max of 357 cd. Contast is also very good 180:1 (figures from German Macwelt 11/2007). However build quality is only middling. All units on display had crooked screens. Clich Wheels were not perfect either. Navigation on the player (FW 1.01) was slow and imprecise. Coverflow often pixelated and sluggish. Same is true for backtracking. While (useless) animation was loading on the right side of the split screen navigation with the clickwheel stalled for a sec or so. The Clickwheel is unpleasantly small for me (don´t have big hands) The new ui has some nice eye candy touches to it but does not improve usability. Quite to the contrary. Getting around the player is slow. Still no way to easily access functions from now playing screen. The nice 2" qvga screen is wasted as far as usability is concerned. Eyecandy is nevertheless a pleasure to behold. I didn´t try video bc I don´t care about pocket cinema. Now on to sq. I tested the preloaded tracks of which I knew quite a few. QOTSA - A Song for the Deaf, Digitalism - Anything New, Arcade Fire - No Cars Go. Phones used were MDR EX90 and Triple Fi 10s. You don´t need to be an audiophile or connoisseur of high fi to realize that nano3g SQ is TOTALLY off. I am not going into detail and blur the sordid facts with countless attributes usally found in high fi reviews. I knew something was off so I searched for labwork on the 3g so look at the graph below. This graph shows nano 3g frequency response under load (included buds). What you see is a 6-7db rolloff from 1khz to 20hz -> Bass and Mids flawed badly. Depending on phones used it can get even worse. The chart for ipod touch is even worse with a 7-8db rolloff. EQ is shit compared to sony and cowon. The classic sounded better (eq also a tad bit better) to me and dealt really well with the Triple Fis. THD measured is worse than on the 5.5g but 6g deals better with high end iems (don´t know how it´s done). Yet there seemed to be a lack of width and warmth in the soundstage presented by the 6G. I will need to buy one to further test the classic but it is clear that it outperforms nano3g and touch by a WIDE margin. UI on the classic is the same as on nano3g but even a bit slower. Nevertheless it´s a solid device that will do well when hookep up to my receiver. The screen was flawless and the clickwheel is easier to use than the one found on the nano. Max brightness of the classic was even higher than on the nano, contast comparable. At 249 for 80 gig it´s a very good value. If you buy an ipod get the classic. On to Samsung. Nobody cared about the T10 because it was (accidentally) priced at 249 for 8 Gig. I saw it as low as 159 for 8 Gig. The unit on display was black and meticulously crafted. The back and sides are made of anodized Al, the front glossy polycarbonate. I didn´t try to scratch it The device is operated lg chocolate style. You tap the touch field once to activate it and then one more time to issue your command. It´s very precise and quick to get around the player. There were only 2 demo tracks on the device so my listening tests were limited. Nevertheless it sounded great, more hiss than classic (when paused) with the triple fis. thd better than nano and classic ( just how does the classic cope with my iems so well?). Hiss wasn´t detectable with low volume music, however. The T10 can get brutally loud with the MDR-EX90 (no hiss). The screen is really nice and navigation fast. You can turn off the parappa the rapper style cartoon animation if you want to and revert to T9 Menu structure. EQ worked nicely as far as I could tell. FM reception was good. No dedicated volume control on the side of the player. It´s done via the touch control. Unfortunately I couldn´t try bluetooth. I didn´t find an option for on device playlisting. At 159 the T10 is a killer. Samsung Processor, Screen and Memory. Samsung can muster a lot of materials in house and will leverage this advantage in the future. of that I am sure. Production values on this untit can only be rivaled by Sony NWZ A series at this time. Samsung looks flashier but still high class. I will buy this player once I cant get it for 159. I have a frequence response chart for 32 ohm phones but need to find this damn steroplay issue....(check back on Friday) Zen. The new Zen also sports a metal back, plastic front. It´s not nearly as polished as the Samsung Player. I won´t buy it on looks. The Zen came preloaded with some video ads (don´t care about video) and some tasteless mp3 tracks that made my synapsis suffer. Battery gave out after 2 mins so inference is limited to that the zen player sounds very clean and defined. EQ and on the device playlisting work nicely. UI is very intuitive and swift to use. The Zen gets verly loud and fm reception was good. Most things can be done from the now playing menu. The Zen makes good use of the 2.5 in qvga screen in order to improve usability. As the Zen also offers sd expansion and a very competitive price it will understandably appeal to many potential buyers. I would have to take it home to really assess sq but there is no chance of me keeping it. Once labwork on the device becomes available I will post it. I was also interested in the YP2 by Samsung. Unfortunately the unit was not in stock. I will check back next week or so.

No Problems whatsoever.

It´s possible via an expensive dongle (70usd, eur) but samsung offers it as an integrated feature. As the T10 is already 40 euro less expensive than NWZ-A81x it´s obviously a very good deal. The T10 is not available yet to the general public (only reviewers) but once it becomes available I´ll review it along with the YP T2

No I don´t know but given the fact that they still sell a lot in Asia and their products come with a price premium I´d think they are profitable.

The latest version of mediamonkey handles aac and yes WMP 11 is crippled in that regard. It is a particularly stupid move of MS to block AAC and promote WMA. Quality aside, AAC has been on the constant rise ever since it´s been implemented in virtually every mobile phone on the planet. I think we still have to wait for media manager to fully unlock the potential of the latest gen walman players. The same holds true for the entire competition of the ipod. The latest samsung players as well as zens also have the same problem. MS can be very stubborn so I don´t count on an update of wmp too soon. WMP 11 is a considerable upgrade over Sonic but not the end of the road.

Damn it, availability changed to 2-3 weeks. Until then I´ll have to turn knobs on my 706. Luckily for Sony the new Samsung T10 Player is not available yet. It comes with bluetooth, fm, same capacity and great sq for about 50 Euros less. It appears that the US is being given preference by Sony for the time being.

I am still waiting for my NWZ 818 to be shipped. Have any of you guys in Europe received your orders from sonystyle?

Apple has kind of lost it lately with products shipping in beta status. If feel they are putting themselves in a position the cell phone industry has been in for a few years. As far as iPod is concerned I don´t get it. They had almost 2yrs for the classic and yet it is very buggy. I reckon Apple didn´t touch the cpu and it´s just lacking power to deal with the "new and improved" ui. Itunes has been shot on windows for a while now. I have seen so many interim bug fixes since version 7 it´s not funny any longer. 7.4 is a smack in the face essentially locking out 64bit os versions. Itunes has flattened my library several times the last few months. It´s a well documented behavior by now and yet there is no official word on it. I sttill want to use itunes bc it has the best layout imo -just look at winamp in comparison- but the bugs are killing me. Similarly I would argue that the white imac 24" was the best desktop pc at that pricepoint. The new imac 24" is a bad joke. Screen uniformity is seriously off and there are other quirks nobody seems to mention. Anyway, the fact that Apple is not godlike should encourage all competitors to try harder and roll out high quality products that shine on the merits.

Does NWZ A818 Sq differ from A 808 SQ? What´s your take on zune vs. 818 sq? thanks!

That´s a major bummer. I can´t believe they killed that feature. Isn´t there any other way of on the fly playlisting on the device? Please....

Hi, the A81* should be capable of on the go playlisting. When you are on the now playing screen bring up the options menu. There you should see the bookmark options. It´s called bookmark on Sony Walman players and it works really nice imo.

Thanks for your much valued input lamewing. I am wondering how did you assess hiss levels? Did you crank up volume w/o any music playing? Which earphones did you use? As for nano 3g, I think that Apple pushed to hard with a mere 6.5mm shell and the larger screen / clickwheel position. I can barely hold the thing w/o cramping. As far as the Sony S6 is concerned I would think that the A8 has superior sq. SNR on Nano 3 and the "older" A80x are almost identical.

I will start a new thread, sure. Mr. Ikeda has a very good point. Perceived sq is a concern but not the prime concern for many. Let´s face it. Sony´s offerings have been dysfunctional in the past yrs. I couldn´t get my A3000 to work a few yrs. ago and had to return it to the store. The A1000 went for cheap (100 Euros on sale!!!) but Nano1 totally redefined the market and ultimately led to the demise of the mini hdd market. Why should I keep the A1000 and put up with Sonic 3.2? Today people ask the same question. While Sony hardware has been very competitive in the flash market the past few months all efforts were hampered by Sonic. You can´t really stress enough how important the current open Walkman step is.

Hi, I have orderd an ipod touch for my mother as she wanted video and music on the road and as her vision is not the best small button were a no no. I will be posting a review once I receive the device. Apple has recently delivered the classic, a device that is purported to use the 1st gen shuffles output stage so bass should be a lot tighter than on the 5g. Conversely some people posted labwork stating that there are problems with the player that result in compromised soundstage and spatiality. Whatever the case may be once more apple is not unambiguously going in one direction. Neither is cowon for that matter. Labwork on the i7 is considerably worse than on the i6. Yet they get away with this bc reviewers are biased towards cowon as far as sq is concerned. What I am getting at is this: As tech advances I expect sq to advance with every generation. However, nasty surprises are lurking everywhere.

Do you have the latest firmware installed?

come on man, I just sold my a808 and have some spare change in my pockets. What are you talking about?

itoch goes up to 16gig but the "new" a series sony max out at 8gig. Sony had about 5 months to work on a8 hardware so maybe that is exactly what they did and the nwz a8x does indeed offer enhanced hardware.

sure it´s like that in the dap business. in other sectors, however, it makes sense to give the regional subdivisions more leeway.

I got a negative answer today.

By default some app data folders are hidden in xp and vista. Check folder options to make sure that all folders are shown. Other than that, sorry no idea.