Last questions before buying AW3000

[beanjam]

I'm still scratching my brain as to whether or not get one of these little wonders... But if these questions can be answered successfuly, Sony has me pretty much sold.

1. Battery Life.

This aspect has been about the *only* problem keeping me away from the iPod... Does the AW3000 actually reach 35 hours under normal play, or is this just another way for Sony to sell their product?

I'm not going to grudge about re-ripping my music collexion to another format should it improve my battery life.

2. Playlists!

I want to be able to make playlists ON the player itself...

So can someone actually explain WHAT a bookmark is, and how it works, its limitations etc. Is it REALLY an on-the-fly playlist, or does it act as some other feature...

If not, is there any chance of Sony EVER releasing firmware to allow users to do this?

3.

Is the player THAT sturdy? I've read a few problems with players that get dust under the screen, and more scarily problems with buttons that dont work. Should I actually be worrying about this???

Much thanks for answering these questions

[Obli]

1) In my experience the battery life for my NW-A1000 isn't as good as Sony claim. Search the forums though - tests have been done on battery life (might be the NW-A1000). ATRAC format apparently improves battery life. Battery life depends on file format playing, bit-rate, volume, screen / display settings (screensaver off etc). I have no idea what test parameters Sony have based their claims on, but I guess volume would be low and low bit-rate, ATRAC format a definite. I bet the unit is running under optimum environment temperatures etc. Don't let me put you off, I have no complaints about my battery life, but having listened usually at 70% volume, it doesn't seem like the claimed 20 hours in my case (I say seem as I haven't conducted tests of my own). I use a mixture of file formats, bit-rates etc. and I haven't adjusted display settings (so I have the screensaver on). However, battery life seems good enough imo, and the NW-A3000 has a battery life of nearly twice as much as the 1000.

2) You can choose to add a number of tracks, individually to 1 of 10 default bookmarks, on the fly (no idea of the capacity of one bookmark). Quite a number of preset icons can be chosen to represent tracks from a particular bookmark. I haven't tried adding whole albums / artists to a bookmark on the fly. I guess to rename a bookmark (if you can), you'd do that in the Connect software on your PC, unless bookmarks are just on-the-fly simple playlists that can't be changed (actually, this might be the case - in Connect, I have bookmarks and playlists as seperate categories under NW-A1000). I would imagine that firmware updates to change the bookmark system would be possible.

3) The player feels solid and weighty. The back is metal, I guess aluminium. I'm careful with my stuff so I don't intend on doing a drop-test! =D Only niggle for me is that between the right arrow on the pad and the option button, if I press the facia there, it creaks a little. No visible movement, no dust, no gaps. Not sure if these problems are related more commonly with 1000 or 3000.

I'd recommend going to check out the player yourself, maybe at a Sony Centre. If you think the player's too quiet on max volume (30), there's a guide on this forum to unlock a built in volume limiter (governed by a French law that affects all European models) which gives the player that extra bit of volume you need at times! I'd avoid letting the Sony salesman know that though =)

Overall, I'm really happy with the player. Sound quality is excellent, perhaps lacking a little bass even after equalizer adjustment (could be slightly down to my headphones though - Sennheiser PX100's, highly recommended!) and it's a nice player to use with some nice features. Quite often tasks I've wanted to do have been intuitive, a case of trying it. The software is poor, but for me it's stable and doesn't seem to slow (once it's started - takes 10 seconds to settle). I expect what with all the backlash Sony must be getting from customers, and now the media, they should be on the case to sort out the Connect software. Right now, for me, it's just usable, just little niggles like editing groups of tracks that can't be done bother me. Ripping, converting and transferring files to the player seem to work at a good speed in my opinion. Transfer speeds especially surprised me.

I'd recommend a 1000 or 3000. Just be prepared to put up with the software for the time being or resort to using SonicStage and live without some of the (more 'gimmicky') features, like Artist Link.

Let us know what you decide to do!

Edited January 23, 2006 by Obli

[Tetsugaku-San]

1. Battery life is very good, I used it for 320K MP3s all the time and it lasted ages.

2. No you can't. Not properly anyway the same way that you can with a creative for example. The silly book mark thing is crap cos really you might be listening to user created playlist one (for example) and want to add 3 tracks to it. You can't.

3. This thing might as well be made from egg shells. The back is metal (albeit v thin) the front is plastic that it surprisingly hard to scratch. I've dropped mine twice onto concrete, from about ametre, buttons started playing up. The 3rd time I dropped it 50cm onto carpet and they packed up completely. It's in for repair under warranty now.

As a comparison, I had a creative zen for 3 years, I droped it dozens of times and it never broke. Didn't have an accelerometre either . . . .

[Obli]

You dropped a hard disk based device on to concrete twice, and only the buttons packed up (plus a few scratches, but that's what I'd realisticly expect - you should invest in a pouch / case) ? If the buttons still worked, would the player function as normal? If so, I'd say that was pretty good. I guess the 3rd drop on to carpet was the final straw that snapped the camel's back. Yeah, the Creative sounds solid, but it is a bit of brick and maybe you got lucky / unlucky with the Creative / Sony.

[Tetsugaku-San]

Well I can see your point of view but I've had *SO* many portable devices and dropped every single one of them tens of times, and never had a problem.

I had a Sony Ericsson P900 Smart Phone, dropped it dozens of times when drunk and sat on it lots - never bust - sold on ebay for £150 as well

The Creative, it is held together with tape but after 3 years and an estimated 7,500 hours use - still works.

A Sony SPORTS walkman (the orrible yellow ones) lasted two years when I was at school and probably treated it worse than any of my other stuff, still have it, still works (dunno *where* it is to be fair)

I'm just saying that these things should be built like tanks - if they aren't - they don't deserve the moniker 'mobile'.

[Olz]

Tetsugaku-San, do you make it a habit to drop your players as much as possible or something? I mean sure the player should resist a one or two drops from 1m or less, but it isnt really designed to. All the gravity protector thing does is park the read head off of the HDD, to stop it being damaged. The HDD on your one probably still works, its just the rest of the electronics have given up.

[Guest Stuge]

Tetsugaku-San,

Its your Luck that is saving your player from damage.Only Hard disk player that i dropped was hd3 from 10cms & Its hard disk was damaged at that instant

On the other side I have dropped my Nokia Cellphone 30 times & It still works ....

[Tetsugaku-San]

The HD on the Sony did work fine yes - when I pressed the vollume etc it did start up and go on it's merry way - I just couldn;t control it! I just use my player a hell of a lot and I don't have the patience ofr the motivation to treat it like a precious egg.

the point I am trying to make is that *ANY* mobile device should be capable of being dropped - lot's. If it's not then it hasn't been designed properly.

Mobile phones - peeps drop em all the time and they still work. Remote controls, not mobile but constantly being picked up and dropped - they last forever. PDAs, Ipaqs etc, drop em all you like, they still work.

The crux, I wouldn't expect my (Sony) telly to work if I dropped it a metre, but if I had a Mobile battery telly, I *would* expect that to work if dropped.

[Olz]

I agree with what you have to say Tetsugaku-San. Manufacturers cant mobile products not be dropped. The reason that things like PDA's and mobile phones keep on going is becuase they use flash memory and have no moving parts. If you want a portable music player that wont ever break maybe you ought to get a large (obviously not as large as as a HDD as that isnt possible atm) flash mp3 player. You could probably snap it and glue it back togther and it would still work. Just an idea. Or you could just stick with your old faithful Creative. Does that make loud noises when playing?

[Tetsugaku-San]

Does that make loud noises when playing?

It's got a 2.5 inch HD in it, practically sounds like an aircraft taking off nowadays!! (it used to be quieter) the main reason for replacement is the battery life and ocasionally unresponsive vollume down button (sometimes it makes a track skip or fastforward, off eh).

thing is, they make ruggedised hard drives for laptops, and other mobile devices, there is no reason anymore for them to break. The ones you get in your desktop aren't the same, they don't have internal rubberised structures, accelerometres or shock protection.

But yes - Flash would still be better, I can't deal with that limited number of tracks however - I use the thing way too much every day and I get repeats of stuff.

Nevermind, I'm sure this is the last generation of players before flash takes over on 20Gb models anyway. All I need is for the new one to last until 2007.