yoshimail

Sorry to hear that, you know I think you should try to reinitialize (reformat) the hard drive to factory settings and make sure that you have the latest firmware. I have had my VAIO Pocket crash only twice since last summer. My friend's iPod photo every time I use it, so it may be an isolated case.

Hehe, yeah I want to know too. I am a loyal Pocket Vaio user and I love it so far. The thing that really gets on my nerves is SonicStage. I am hoping that this new Connect Player is better faster, more intuitive and best of all, I hope it works. SS is just a piece of waste in my PC, it does not even run at all and I cannot uninstall and do a clean install. Sony should hire more competent software engineers. The new player does look nice though, it will be a tough match to compare this new one with the new iPod nanos.

Well, I received the PDAir case and I must say that this is a very high quality product and I am very satisfied with it. They ship it from Hong Kong and the case comes in a really, really nice case (not that it really matters because I'll probably throw it away, hehe) I actually liked the screw mechanism of the belt clip simply because it makes the case more versatile. I will mostly use it in my belt and it feels better than having the bulge in your pocket. Or you can simply unscrew it when you are going to throw it in your laptop/camera bag. I really recommend this case to protect your case. Use the PDair website to get it for $28, the gadgetino website lists it for about 5 dollars more. In a side note I'll get the lot I won on ebay (a pair of Shure e2c's and 7 Ex-71's). I had been using the stock earbuds and I'm quite satisfied the more i play music through them (maybe they benefit from burn-in). But I'm ready to give it a try to the Shure monitors and the sony earphones. Is anybody interested in buying my other 6 EX-71's? hehe. Laters! Yoshi

Yes, you can flash the firmware to the Japanese version and go back to the English version. I have done it and everything works, so no risk of killing the Vaio Pocket, hehe just give it a try, I can read the katakana, but I have a hard time reading the kanji, the plus is that since everything is in Japanese your friends will not understand the interface and therefore return you the VP back to you when they want to listen to it.

If I recall correctly (and we might have to corroborate with Ishiyoshi) is that I was able to access different folders but I don't remember watching pictures on it since I have not tried it other than just with my digital cameras but I assume you alrewady have the pics arranged but it migth be entirely possible since I remember that I was able to even acces the VAIO_skins folder from the japanese firmware, in the japanese firmware you cannot see the user interface in English (only in Japanese) which is kind of funny since most of the interface is in katakana from the English cognates I would also recommend to resize your pictures to QVGA size, that obviously reduces the size of the files and makes a huge difference in watching the pictures on the VAIO Pocket. With my 4MP files it takes like 5 seconds to show a "high res QVGA" file in the color screen compared to almost instantly with the 320X240 jpegs. I think this is important since we don not have a thumbnail feature yet that I would like to see in future firmware updates. Keep posted and let me know if it works! Yoshi

Hey guys I have a question about the PDAir Case that I ordered about a week ago. What carrier do they use to send the case? (UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL?) I need to know since I sent the case to a friend's house that it isjust moving right now. Thanks a lot!

Thanks for your reply. So from your your reply I can assume that the Sony's are "muddy" right? If that's the case the sony buds will pass this time. I had been reading also a lot of stuff on the Shure E2c's and they are affordable enough (I had seen them for 50 bucks or so. If that means better listening experience I guess I will just order them instead of the EX71's. I barealy got the reply from PDair and I should be exoecting the case soon. I was interested in the belt clip since I always have my pockets full (maybe I should star weaing cargos, hehe) since I have my cell, my PDA my wallet and so on... I just thought that the thread is so funny, I have no problem in looking at one of chenfufur's pics of her with a tote having a wire from the VAIO pocket hanging out, hehe.

I'm still waiting for the PDAir case. I won't see the lack of a screen protector as a fault of the case since I enjoy looking at the screens directly anyway. I had been reading the reviews on the headphones/earphones and I like the portability of the IEM, but they are expensive! I was thinking on spending about 40 dollars but they are way out of my price range. It seems from what I am reading that the Sony MDR-EX71SL are good especialy for its bass reproduction and frequency range (6Hz~23kHz) this sounds like good specs to me and add to that some sound isolation. What do you think should I click the Buy button? I like the included MDR-838 from the VAIO Pocket, they have good mids and highs, but in order to hear the lows you have to painfully stick them in your ears. Does anyone else have this MDR-EX71SL with the VAIO Pocket?

Hey guys, well Ishiyoshi's review made me buy the VAIO pocket awhile ago and I am fairly satisfied with the device considering that at the same price I was prone to get a 20gb ipod with monochrome display. I also ordered the PDAir case as it is better than nothin' I like your idea of the cable, why did Sony expect us to use the player to transfer pictures from a digital camera (I have Panasonic FZ1 and FZ10) with the need to lug around a craddle? The Cowon X5 does not have a cradle and works as USB host. Hopefully some competent person will design and manufacture this cables... On a side note I found a little (but not significant) improvement on the Japanese firmware over the US/English firmware. When using the Photo viewer, the english version is restricted to the USER_001 folder while the japanese version works just as a file viewer allowing you to go to other folders. I don't have much experience with portable players but I like good sound reproduction. When I went to my local Target store in McAllen, TX I tried the BOSE triport headphones and I was in shock from the quality of sound the VAIO delivered, compared to the pathetic stock headphones that come with it. Now, the BOSE headphones are 150+tax which is not within my budget since I already spent it on the player itself! Can someone recommend me a high quality set of headphones/earphones to use with the player without breaking the bank? Thanks a lot for your help and sorry for the long post.