Sony NW-S705F Noise Canceling Walkman user reviews (2GB, black)

4.5 stars

"Outstanding..!! Excellent sound, cool look very portable..!" on March 21, 2007 by cabouche

Pros: Extremely large battery life, perfect sound.

Cons: May be the price and the 2 Gb capacity...but it's almost perfect

Summary: I bought it as a 2nd MP3 player. I use a Creative Zen vision, but it's a little bulky for every day use, so i was looking for something more portable.
The sound is as good as the Zen, I use a Sennheiser CX-300 ear canal earphone (very recomendable too) and sounds EXCELLENT...!!
Good EQ options, FM tuner, complete information display, good looking, ultra extended battery life, very portable, no shaking problems.
No regrets for the buy. I recommend it if you apreciate the sound quality and the portability.

4.5 stars

"Ahh, the old Sony exceptional quality" on May 26, 2007 by jj2me

Pros: Recording! Noise cancellation, design, materials, sound

Cons: Sony formats and store, flimsy-seeming charge/sync/record port

Summary: This is just such a quality piece. With a $15 cord from Sony, you can record line-in at up to 256 kbps ATRAC3 Plus (?I think it's Plus?) formats, or in Linear-PCM 1411kbps! (The CNET review and Sony's web site say you need the $50 cradle to record, but the cord is enough.) The other line-in recording flash players (e.g., Zen Nano Plus) use cheaper codecs that max out at 160kbps MP3, with reportedly substandard codecs.

The audio quality seems great, but I don't really have good enough hearing to render a valid judgment. It's a nice piece of equipment, metal sides and back. The display is nice, and I don't mind the Sonic Stage as I can add nice album covers by letting Sony do it for me (from CDDB I think it said), or download a JPEG from Amazon.com and apply it in the right-click "Properties" for the song or album (as I did for a Joseph Conrad free audiobook). These album covers appear as little icons in Sonic Stage and on the player. Playlists were easy to create (which I had to do for another audiobook ripped from a CD which wasn't recognized in CDDB). I had significantly more problems understanding Windows Media Player than Sonic Stage. I downloaded the latest Sonic Stage (4.3?) and it allows me to keep MP3s in the library and also transfer to the device without conversion to ATRAC. Using Windows Explorer, I can't see any MP3s on the Sony device, but right-clicking "Properties" on songs in Sonic Stage's device pane says they're MP3s. I'll probably rip some songs to ATRAC3 Plus for its compactness and quality--I've used this format before for a Sony MP3 CD player.

You're in a Sony world, no PlaysForSure for library audiobooks, no support for subscription music. You either have MP3s to load, or rip CDs, or shop at Sony Connect.

One possible con is if the noise cancellation earphones don't fit well in your ears. Then the noise cancellation won't work well, and if you switch to another type, then you lose the noise cancellation.

5.0 stars

"Great!!!!!!" on January 3, 2007 by buzzbean

Pros: battery life, cool, display, sound, features

Cons: software, but has gotten much better

Summary: This MP3 player is sooo cool, the noise canceling works! sound is amazing, battery life is long, ease of use is great.

5.0 stars

"tight! enjoy your music without blowing out your ears!" on February 4, 2007 by huyjngo

Pros: the noise canceling is great and doesn't require bulky noise canceling headphones! let's me enjoy my music in noisy places without blowing my ears out with loud volumes to overcome ambient noise.

Cons: sonicstage isn't THERE yet.