built quality of nw-e00x series (and sony flash players in general)

[whtvr]

first of all i'd like to say hi to everybody; i've been reading your forum for quite long time, but now i decided to start posting;

so my first question is, how good is the built quality of latest sony devices? sony brand was always one of the top brands on my list, you could buy whatever sony's product and be sure it will last "forever"; recently however i hear quite a lot of rumors about problems that they have; exploding batteries in dell notebooks (supplied by sony) to name just one; they also seem to make a lot of not exactly smartests moves: damned by everybody sonicstage software for example;

so, how good is sony now? i would probably buy nw-e005 next week and i'd like to hear your comments; i'm not concerned about functionality - i've read lot of reviews and posts; but i'm a little concerned about the built quality (as i already mentioned above);

thank you in advance for your input;

greetings,

Maciej

Edited August 21, 2006 by whtvr

[pata2001]

The NW-E00x has not been out for long, so who knows. The only major concerns are the life of the OLED display, and probably the built-in battery (which also applies to all DAPs having a built-in battery).

[asadasad22]

It interests me too, but me not the E000 series, but the A608 model. I've heard, it has metal back part, its not bad, i don't love plastik built players. Its been a long time in the market, so how good is A608 for long time?

[imagine_]

I have the NW-E407 (about identical to A608) and I bought it a month after it first came out (~June/July 2005). I have been using it almost every day ever since and have had no serious problems. The only minor problem that I experienced was dust coming under the screen but I think they might have fixed that in the new models. The build quality is nice and solid, there are no cracks or creaking sounds when you press the buttons, etc..

As for the software, the latest sonicstage 4.0 is very much improved and it is stable and useable. I personally don't use sonicstage, I use MP3 File Manager 2.0 which lets me drag and drop files from any computer. The only little things I don't like about MP3FM is that 1) you can't create new groups, so you have to go into sonicstage and create the new group, then drag a file into it. 2) You can't play files from mp3FM.

That's about it. Other than that, the battery life is exxcccellent. Other players are just starting to catch up to the sony players. The sound quality is excellent there is no question about it.. all sony players sound amazing.