Top deals on CNET here
- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 4 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
-
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
3.5 stars
"Audio quality=excellent. Video quality=questionable"
Pros: to the point Interface with excellent sound, superior headphones in box
Cons: video is washed out
Summary: For music this new player is quite superior. The quality of output is just excellent, and the included headphones are a cut above all its competitions bundled units. factor replacing headphones into the price of its competitors and you can see that sony has delivered value for money. The units build quality is high, and gaps are very small, and it feels very solid.
Library navigation is via the joypad and the tactile buttons are very easy to use. No fancy touch screen or touch interface, but sometimes simple works best. I like the volume control buttons on the side, not having to push button combinations or look at the screen to do a simple things like that should be standard on all players, but its not.
Whats good, it sorts by the standard catagories such as artist, or you can browse by folder. The bad, it doesn't have any way to exclude podcasts from shuffle mode. They really should have made a separate folder for podcast/audio books. and kept separate book marking for such material.
The screen is big and bright. It looks much larger than the .4" increase over its predecessor would seem to indicate. Photo display and menus are sharp. The problem comes when displaying video. I think reviewers only watched the units included demo video when judging because that full screen video hides the flaws. Its video display is washed out and is especially noticeable if you play wide screen letterboxed video. the letter box areas are grey instead of black and this is not due to the lcd as in all other modes including photo display the black level is much darker. It is only during video playback that the screen is washed out. It is most noticeable indoors.
If you don't care about video playback quality this is a very good unit to buy, but sony missed the mark on video. They were so close to making something ahead of the pack with superior sound quality and incredible battery life.
Hopefully they put out a fix or fix it in the next version.
Where to buy
Sony Walkman NWZ-A726 (4GB, black):
$139.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Amazon.com Marketplace
|
$139.99 | Yes |
|
%20user%20review%20and%20rating%20-%20CNET%20Reviews&srcUrl=http://reviews.cnet.com/mp3-players/sony-walkman-nwz-a726/4864-6490_7-32893604-2.html){kind=small}