Well, I have been on a two day trip to London ( Chelsea Flower Show). I brought my new X-series Walkman along for the ride and here is my review after some intensive testing.
BTW this is my eight Walkman (sad I know) so my comments are based on previous Walman experience.
Touchscreen.......
In a word...Stunning. Nice and bright at highest setting and very responsive ( except for Netfront Browser, more later). The menu is very intuitive. I was familiar with navigating and scrolling in no time. I love the way the buttons "light up" when selected. It's a fingerprint magnet though so some sort of cover is essential......... 4.5/5
Video Playback.....
This is the first Walkman device I can comfortably watch movies on. The screen is excellent and the sound quality is also exceptional. At times I forgot I was focusing on a PMP. Touch on the little "arrow" icon thingy and up pops up a whole string of thumbnails. These can be touched to quickly navigate through your currently selected movie. I don't know if other devices have this facility but I think it's brilliant. The only issue I had was my selected movie got "choppy" in places. I'm not sure if this was faulty encoding or an issue with rendering on the device,comments welcome on this issue please. The only problem associated with watching movies is the highly reflective surface, sometimes I was drawn to my reflection, not a pretty sight and it can be distracting. 4.5/5 ( half point lost because of reflection issue).
Wi-fi and Internet.......
The good news first. The X series is very quick to connect to a local network and in my brief experience it stays connected. The Youtube feature is really good and I love the way it directly links to currently selected artists when playing music. Reception is also good. Now he bad news, the Netfront browser is awful. It's slow, it renders very badly and it appears to hang the touchscreen. When I touch on a link it lights up as it should but nothing happens most of the time. I also have problems downloading podcasts. It appears buggy and I wonder was it rushed during the design phase. I really hope this can be fixed with a firmware upgrade as there is no reason why it shouldn't work properly..........2.5/5 ( because of awful browser).
Picture viewer.......
Not much to say here except that Image quality is excellent. A picture can be chosen as wallpaper.........5/5
FM Radio....
This is pretty much a standard FM radio with no bells and whistles; No AF, No RDS; just an FM radio. BTW when I set the Scan Sensitivity to LOW it picked up nothing, not even in areas with very good FM reception.Sound Quality is very good though .............3/5.
Podcasts.....
I preset one podcast for regular download and it seems to work okay. I am not a big podcast fan so I reserve judgement here. However, as previously mentioned the Netfront browser seems to have a few issues with podcasts in my experience. ...........reserved.
Noise Cancelling.......
Very effective if you hike up the microphone sensitivity. This was very useful on the plane and really suppressed engine noise, I usually have to crank up the volume really high on planes. The only noise it didn't cancel was the screaming child 3 seats behind me. Firmware request; add a "Screaming Child" setting to Noise Cancelling. One thing to note about noise cancelling, it remains active even when you stop playback. You either have to switch it off or engage the HOLD switch. Otherwise it will drain the batteries. I'm open to correction if anybody knows better.............4/5
And Finally........Music playback.....
As expected this is another super digital music player from Sony. Sound is rich and detailed with some emphasis on Bass as usual. I'm not as much of an audiophile as some of the visitors to this forum but I know good SQ when I hear it. This is why I am such an avid Sony Walkman fan. Obviously, there are better headphones than the ( very good)supplied set of NC phones. The only issue is whether you are prepared to do without the noise cancelling as a trade-off. The menu for navigating music has changed slightly and there is no playlist option. This is a blatant blunder on Sony's part, surely it would have cost nothing to include this feature. BTW the blutooth adaptor designed for the NW-S series also works perfectly with the X series.
Overall.....4/5.
This is a really good device. IMO it was worth the wait. I'm not too sure that the sound engine is hugely different to previous high end models though. The combination of high capacity, excellent video,excellent sound and fantastic design is a winner. The only let down is the Netfront browser which should really be addressed in a firmware upgrade.
Question
Anthony
Well, I have been on a two day trip to London ( Chelsea Flower Show). I brought my new X-series Walkman along for the ride and here is my review after some intensive testing.
BTW this is my eight Walkman (sad I know) so my comments are based on previous Walman experience.
Touchscreen.......
In a word...Stunning. Nice and bright at highest setting and very responsive ( except for Netfront Browser, more later). The menu is very intuitive. I was familiar with navigating and scrolling in no time. I love the way the buttons "light up" when selected. It's a fingerprint magnet though so some sort of cover is essential......... 4.5/5
Video Playback.....
This is the first Walkman device I can comfortably watch movies on. The screen is excellent and the sound quality is also exceptional. At times I forgot I was focusing on a PMP. Touch on the little "arrow" icon thingy and up pops up a whole string of thumbnails. These can be touched to quickly navigate through your currently selected movie. I don't know if other devices have this facility but I think it's brilliant. The only issue I had was my selected movie got "choppy" in places. I'm not sure if this was faulty encoding or an issue with rendering on the device,comments welcome on this issue please. The only problem associated with watching movies is the highly reflective surface, sometimes I was drawn to my reflection, not a pretty sight and it can be distracting. 4.5/5 ( half point lost because of reflection issue).
Wi-fi and Internet.......
The good news first. The X series is very quick to connect to a local network and in my brief experience it stays connected. The Youtube feature is really good and I love the way it directly links to currently selected artists when playing music. Reception is also good. Now he bad news, the Netfront browser is awful. It's slow, it renders very badly and it appears to hang the touchscreen. When I touch on a link it lights up as it should but nothing happens most of the time. I also have problems downloading podcasts. It appears buggy and I wonder was it rushed during the design phase. I really hope this can be fixed with a firmware upgrade as there is no reason why it shouldn't work properly..........2.5/5 ( because of awful browser).
Picture viewer.......
Not much to say here except that Image quality is excellent. A picture can be chosen as wallpaper.........5/5
FM Radio....
This is pretty much a standard FM radio with no bells and whistles; No AF, No RDS; just an FM radio. BTW when I set the Scan Sensitivity to LOW it picked up nothing, not even in areas with very good FM reception.Sound Quality is very good though .............3/5.
Podcasts.....
I preset one podcast for regular download and it seems to work okay. I am not a big podcast fan so I reserve judgement here. However, as previously mentioned the Netfront browser seems to have a few issues with podcasts in my experience. ...........reserved.
Noise Cancelling.......
Very effective if you hike up the microphone sensitivity. This was very useful on the plane and really suppressed engine noise, I usually have to crank up the volume really high on planes. The only noise it didn't cancel was the screaming child 3 seats behind me. Firmware request; add a "Screaming Child" setting to Noise Cancelling. One thing to note about noise cancelling, it remains active even when you stop playback. You either have to switch it off or engage the HOLD switch. Otherwise it will drain the batteries. I'm open to correction if anybody knows better.............4/5
And Finally........Music playback.....
As expected this is another super digital music player from Sony. Sound is rich and detailed with some emphasis on Bass as usual. I'm not as much of an audiophile as some of the visitors to this forum but I know good SQ when I hear it. This is why I am such an avid Sony Walkman fan. Obviously, there are better headphones than the ( very good)supplied set of NC phones. The only issue is whether you are prepared to do without the noise cancelling as a trade-off. The menu for navigating music has changed slightly and there is no playlist option. This is a blatant blunder on Sony's part, surely it would have cost nothing to include this feature. BTW the blutooth adaptor designed for the NW-S series also works perfectly with the X series.
Overall.....4/5.
This is a really good device. IMO it was worth the wait. I'm not too sure that the sound engine is hugely different to previous high end models though. The combination of high capacity, excellent video,excellent sound and fantastic design is a winner. The only let down is the Netfront browser which should really be addressed in a firmware upgrade.
Anthony.
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