NW-A800 Transfer Speeds

[Dinko]

I'm considering an NW-A800 model as a potential purchase in the next couple of months.

But past Sony flash players have tended to be a little slow on transfer rates.

CNET UK says in its review that the transfer speeds are comparable to the Zen V Plus.

Transferring our 1.5GB test library of MP3s to the A808 took 22 minutes. This isn't too bad when compared to the 26 minutes it took to transfer the same files to our Creative Zen V Plus, but is vastly more time consuming than the Samsung YP-K3, which took a mere 12 minutes and 30 seconds.

From personal experience, the transfer speeds on the Zen V Plus are absolutely pathetic. From that review, the NWA800 is closer to the Zen V than Samsung players or iPods.

Transfer speed is my #2 criterion for flash based players. If it's as slow as CNET says it is, I'll be avoiding this thing. If it's comparable to a Nano, a Samsung Z5 or Sony HDD players then I'm sold on it.

Any comments on transfer speeds would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[Ascariss]

dinko, i say wait for the fall, seeing as sony canada releases most the products that it releases in europe and japan, I would hold out, that is what I am doing with my next mp3 player purchase.

[Shinji Ikeda]

I hope that someone will be able to test this for you. I will try, but I will give you more information such as the number of files etc. Someone people say the transfer file is reasonable.

The NW-A800 series player uses a Hi-speed USB 2.0 instead of Full-speed USB 1.1.

Your could wait and see what new players Sony releases later this year. Sony has seemed to be release several new lines of Network Walkmans over the past year.

[aob9]

I have the NW-HD3 and the NW-A805. The transfer speeds to the HD3 are MUCH faster. If transfer speed is important you may be dissapointed. I don't understand why this is, I always thought that access to flash memory on MP3 players was faster than to HDD.

[dura_]

My A808 is really very slow compared to my former HD1 & A3000.

[Dinko]

Cool. Thanks folks! That answers the question. Guess I'll be waiting for the next Sony guizmo.

[dura_]

Why? Filling the player is something that happens occasionally.

It still does a full album (at 356 kbsd in my case) in about 3 minutes.

It's a minor annoyance at most , something to keep in mind, like, "okay, I need to vacuumclean, let me first start up the transfer, then I do the housekeeping, then I pick up the filled DAP".

Edited May 27, 2007 by dura

[aob9]

Why? Filling the player is something that happens occasionally.

It still does a full album (at 356 kbsd in my case) in about 3 minutes.

It's a minor annoyance at most , something to keep in mind, like, "okay, I need to vacuumclean, let me first start up the transfer, then I do the housekeeping, then I pick up the filled DAP".

Even allowing for the slow transfer speeds to the NW-A800 that is a fairly quick vacuum clean..................any tips????

[Dinko]

Why? Filling the player is something that happens occasionally.

I tend to change the music fairly often. On a 4GB Nano, I used to change the music once every three days. It was pretty fast, so I didn't mind.

Later I tried a Zen V, and changing the music on it was a massive pain. What took less than half an hour with the Nano would take in excess of two or three hours with the Zen V. In other words, if, sometime in the morning, you got an urge to listen to something that is not on the player, you could forget about being able to transfer it before hopping on the train to work.

[Shinji Ikeda]

I tend to change the music fairly often. On a 4GB Nano, I used to change the music once every three days. It was pretty fast, so I didn't mind.

Later I tried a Zen V, and changing the music on it was a massive pain. What took less than half an hour with the Nano would take in excess of two or three hours with the Zen V. In other words, if, sometime in the morning, you got an urge to listen to something that is not on the player, you could forget about being able to transfer it before hopping on the train to work.

You are definitely a power user . If you are changing your music selection you would need a player with the fastest transfer rate. You also, seem to using the highest bit rates. Is this correct? The only other option is to randomly transfer tracks to the player before going to bed, in that why you get a surprise in the morning. Other than that, with hesitation, I suggest you wait and see what Sony offers this October.

[ceres]

You are definitely a power user . If you are changing your music selection you would need a player with the fastest transfer rate. You also, seem to using the highest bit rates. Is this correct? The only other option is to randomly transfer tracks to the player before going to bed, in that why you get a surprise in the morning. Other than that, with hesitation, I suggest you wait and see what Sony offers this October.

I ran the removable storage test that comes with sisoft sandra´s latest iteration. As you can see the 808 is a little faster than the nano 2g 4gb I pitted it against. so once more sonic stage seems to be the problem not the hardware. should sony make the change to ums or at leats give us that option you´d be handed a player with decent transfer speeds.

Edited May 28, 2007 by ceres

[dura_]

I don't think it's sonic stage this time; I could completely fill my HD1 & A3000 with 20 Gb of 256 kbs (about 200 albums) in under 25 minutes!

SS transferred an album in 10-20 seconds to those players, a contrast with the up to about 5 minutes the A808 seems to need.

It seems flashmemory is slower to write. This will probably hold true for different brands too, after all, the memory itself is mostly the same.

[dura_]

Coincidence, I juast read a speedtest comparing a HDD with a (very expensive) flash-HDD, containing new Samsung single layer flash memory that supposedly is faster then the multilayer flash that is in our DAPs. Accestime was 10 times as fast, powerdrain much much lesser, but transfertimes were 5 times as slow for the flash. This explains the slowness of transfer to the A8xx IMO.