Sony S-Series Walkman user reviews (second generation, 16GB, black)

Pros Easy to use. Very good sound quality.

Cons Doesn't really shut off. Shutting it off puts it into stand-by mode.

Summary I have had this MP3 player for a month now and wanted to give it a little time before I reviewed it. I love this MP3 Player. First let me say that I don?t use it as a video player or for pictures, nor do I use the little table top stand or the headphones it came with so I am not going to give my opinion on those features. I use it as an MP3 player, that?s all, and for that it is excellent!

What I really like in an MP3 player is not having to use the software it comes with in order to transfer my music into the player like you do with the players made by the major computer monopolies. I am still a CD person and still like to actually buy my music on CD?s. I use Real Player to save the music to my computer and to edit the clip information, then I use Windows Explorer to copy and paste the music into the MP3 player. Yeah I know, I?m old-fashioned but I use my MP3 player as a convenient means of carrying around my own CD collection. On those occasions when I do actually download a song from the internet it is just as easy to use Windows Explorer to copy and paste it into the MP3 player.

The sound quality is probably the best of any MP3 player I have ever purchased. The built-in equalizer is nice in that you can customize your own personal equalizer settings as well as using the built-in settings. The transfer of sound quality into the MP3 input jack in a vehicle is the best of any previous MP3 player I have owned. It seems that all MP3 players will lose some sound quality when plugged into a vehicle MP3 input jack but this one does a very decent job. As I said I don?t use the little ear-bud ear phones, I simply have too many piercings to be able to use them, so I use good quality over-the-ear headphones and as I said, the sound quality is excellent.

The built-in speakers are a nice feature although they don?t give you much volume and are not something I would actually use for listening to music. They are more useful for those moments when you want to share what you are listening to with a co-worker who walks up and asks ?what are you listening to?? or when you want to ask ?who played guitar on this song??. You can simply switch over to the built-in speakers and share what you are listening to. It?s kind of a nice feature not found on other MP3 players.

The buttons and operation are easy and intuitive to learn to use. The one thing I don?t like is that you never really shut it off. Shutting it off just puts it in stand-by mode.

I made my own sleeve to carry it in and to protect it from scratching, etc. I can see how it might scratch easily if you are the kind who carries it in your pocket and it ends up next to your keys or your pocket change.

The bottom line, this is a great little MP3 player for the money.

Pros I love the sound quality...It has even better sound quality than previous S series..Also the battery lasts for long time

Cons I don't like that I have to fix the view of the pictures manually...I wish it worked if you just rotated it..and I can't also select a picture as a wallpaper

Summary I like this product because it has much better sound quality than all the Ipods out there...I actually had an ipod nano, but then I had to change it because of its WORST possible SOUND QUALITY with the white HEADPHONES..the battery also goes too fast...even if you just listen to music and watch any videos..but the new Sony S series has it all.. the new one has bigger screen which is very good to watch videos..eventhough the main function of this mp3 player is the built in speaker I don't use it much...because I feel that the button will get loose..

The bottom is that if you really care about the music quality then you have to use this mp3 player because this is the best one you have out there...and if you just like to show off with sound quality then pick up those ipod nanos

Pros Powerful Speaker, Nice Screen, Good Computer Interface, Great Sound!

Cons Long time to load playlist list, Reboots with large playlists, No expandable memory, Will not allow you to remove bundled software.

Summary This unit boasts great sound, great sound enhancement options, a user friendly and robust menu and GUI. Linking with computer is fast and easy. However with 16GB (actually 14.8 usable) you have a lot of music and have a good chance of having a relatively large playlist (especially considering that you can sync by playlist in many computer music programs, i.e. Media Monkey, WMP 11, etc.). Well, this unit will not play large playlists, actually it will not even recognize them. When the unit loads after a sync it rebuilds the library, but apparently this library does not include the playlists. When you first go to the playlist menu, it takes forever to load (20-30 seconds easy), then when it gets to a large playlist, it locks up, clicks, then reboots. And even further, the reboot is a hard reboot, the unit takes about 3-5 min to turn back on because it has to reload the library all over again. Even after reloading, the unit will not recognize the playlists, and repeats the same problem. Bottom line, Sony made a great unit for a great price, but practically made the unit unusable with this issue. Small playlists work fine and load fast, large ones, no luck. The speaker is great, user interface and display are pristine, OS could use some work. I have synced the same playlists with many other MP3 players with no issues what so ever. Hopefully Sony will come up with a firmware fix in the near future, unfortunately at this point, there is no internet support in forums, etc. to find if this is a reoccurring problem because the unit is so new. Maybe I will try the unit again later when it has had a little more exposure on the market and the bugs have been worked out, but at this point, both units I tried (while hoping I got a lemon at first) are going back. Fellow non-Ipod users, use a your own risk.

Pros Sounds excellent. Fast and easy drag/drop songs from my computer. FM radio recording comes back sounding just like the original broadcast.

Cons Photos are displayed across the width of the screen, so even though the pictures are sharp, they are very tiny, only using half of the available screen. The unit is "dead" while it's recharging/hooked up to the computer.

Summary I bought this because of the FM recording sound quality. Very pleased with that. Easy to use for most features. Loading songs was quick and painless. The built-in speakers are functional, but nothing amazing, just an added bonus if you happen to want someone to hear something without passing around a set of headphones. I tried loading a video file, but it was apparently the wrong format (AVI not AVC) so I'll have to figure out how to change the format, if that's possible.

Updated on Sep 21, 2009

OK, I found out where to set the photo setting to display in the "horizontal" format of the screen instead of the "vertical" orientation, so the pictures are now twice as big. Much nicer.

Updated on Sep 29, 2009

A couple more points on this unit... after you charge the unit up and disconnect it from the computer/USB port, it stays on... even if you had it turned off when you plugged it in. I had it plugged in and charged it up, then when I went to use it, the power was way down.. almost dead. The only thing I can figure out was that it was just own the whole time after I unplugged it from the charger and didn't realise it was automatically "on" at that point. It's also very easy to bump any button on the unit, and touching almost any button will turn it on. Very easy to inadvertantly have the unit on draining power that way as well. I found I have to keep the lock button armed just to prevent the battery getting drained.

The isn't much of a fast forward speed to go through recorded sessions. Better to just stop and retsart the recording at various points to divide up the recording into more managable sections.