Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony 16 GB Walkman Video MP3 Player (Black)

This MP3 player is amazing. I've been searching for a replacement for my Nano who's battery only lasts about 1 hour per charge these days. I think this is a much superior product in many ways.

First off, the Pros:
1. Battery life. So far, I've been playing video and MP3s on one charge about 9 hours and the battery light is still 1/2 full. The statistics claim 10 hours of video and 30+ hours of MP3 songs. I don't know if I'll get that much, but so far I'm very happy.
2. My favorite feature of this player is that it does not rely on ID3 tags in order to catalog your music. The majority of my MP3 collection is several years old and do not have ID3 tags embedded in the file. My nano would not recognize these songs, but this player just plays based on files and folders. Adding music requires no 3rd party software, just a simple drag and drop in Windows Explorer. Couldn't be easier and I love it this way.
3. Sound quality is superb. There is a 5 band EQ, plus "clear bass" enhancement that really brings out the lows in
songs. The EQ really lets me customize my music to my liking. The sound quality is better than any MP3 player I've ever heard. Sony hit a home run on this player!
4. The video feature is outstanding. 2.4" LCD screen is bright and colorful. I didn't buy it for the video capability, but it's surely a cool bonus.
5. Navigation is a cinch. I didn't even need to read through the instructions and I was able to navigate all the menus in a few short minutes. The buttons on the unit are firm and responsive, and feel like they'll hold up for years. The volume and hold buttons are on the side of the unit and are easy to access.
6. The player will bookmark your movie file for you. So if you stop a movie and switch over to playing MP3, and then later on want to continue you movie, it will start up where you left off. Nice feature. And when the unit is powered off, and then powered back on, it remembers where you were in your last MP3 song (I've read that some Sony units won't do this, but this one does).

Cons:
1. The file transfer speed seems pretty slow to me given it's USB 2.0. Takes about 3 minutes to transfer a 500MB movie. About 50 seconds to transfer a standard MP3 album. Not a huge deal, but my Nano was much quicker.
2. When you unplug the player from the USB cable, and have hundreds of files on it like I currently have, it has to build the library, which can take up to 30 seconds, before you can access it. Again, a minor quirk, but nothing is perfect!
3. No FM radio, no recorder. I can live without these features, but they may be more important to other people. If keeping these features off the unit allows for more battery space, that's fine with me!

All in all, I'd highly recommend this player to anyone looking for a high quality, great sounding MP3 player that does not require special software (re: iTunes) to run.

This digital walkman is not jam-packed with features. However the features it does offer are executed better than any digital player i've owned. It feels solid and well put together, the kind of quality you would expect from a top name like sony. Nothing feels flimsy or like cheap plastic held together by Elmer's glue. The buttons are all tactile and the feel/action of the buttons are all top notch. It is also very lightweight. By comparison, I owned the 16GB Creative Zen before returning it. Build quality was poor, specifically the button action of the direction pad. The Zen was riddled with problems (probably due to software programming more than anything).
This Sony unit has a bright 320x240 resolution 2.4" screen. Images and video can be viewed with 3 orientations; that is either vertically or flipped 90 degrees to either side for widescreen. This is great for people who want to operate the controls with either hand during playback.
Menus are very easy to read and navigate through. The "Now Playing" information screen is customizable and shows you everything you need to know, including scrolling song title, Artist, Album, Album Art, Genre, and a Time Elapsed bar.
Because this unit uses flash memory the song recall is lightning-quick. play/pause happens instantly when pressed, and returns to the exact point in that song if the unit has been shut down and turned back on. Power on is so fast it seems as if the unit never actually gets shut off, but just goes into permanent standby. If you power off and put on the hold feature, the player turns on automatically when hold is turned off. battery life is 33 hours with music, 9.5 hours with video. My understanding is that this is great battery life for a single charge. Full charge takes 3 hours, 80% charge occurs in 1.5 hours. Device can be used as MTP for drag-drop from WMP 10 or 11.
Now to the best part of this player: the sound quality. Bar none the best sounding MP3 player on the market. You will be blown away. The player offers many EQ settings including 5 bands, 2 fully customizable EQ's and a 3-notch bass boost feature. The supplied ear buds are some of the best included with any player, so you should not have to upgrade.
I have not used the video feature yet so i cannot comment on its capabilities. The player takes either MP4 video or H.264. The player does not feature a line-in or a voice recorder. For $[...] more you can get this with bluetooth capability. Don't get it if you don't need it because Bluetooth drains the battry.
Great little player. Not brimming with extra features but executes everything it does perfectly. Highly recommended.

I have Rio karma and it has been going strong for 5 years now. However i was in market for a player that would replace this awesome player. So i reviewed Ipod touch, Creative Zen, Cowon D2 , Iaudio and Sony A729. Here is what i think about the Sony A729

Best features:
Sound: The sound quality of the this player is phenomenal. It is close to Rio karma ( Which IMO is the best DAP ever). The clarity of highs and the bass is just exceptional. I use UM2s for listening. The packaged headphones are excellent. so for average user they don't have to upgrade. The sound without EQ will be sufficient for most users. for crictical users there is a 5 band graphic eqaulizer. The clear bass is well executed without bloated bass you used to get with Mega Bass. Clear stereo is also a good feature. Manual says it works with only packaged head phones but i have kept it on for my Um2s and see a bit of difference. The DSE is good feature but i have tuened it off since i use cutom EQ and don't want too much clutter with other treatments.

Headphones: The included sony EX headphones are really good and you don't have to replace them. They don't seal well as UM2s but they handle the load well

Screen: The screen is bright and vivid and shows album art and detailed track information

Music DB: You can drag and drop music using windows explorer(UMT), Use WMP 11 or included Media manager. Each has it quirks i will explain later. The songs can be categoried by Album,Song, Artist, Year , Genre folder.

Responsiveness: As it is a flash player the response is instant. There is no power off button. However holding the Option button will put the player in standby. The battery life is about 30 hrs which is good for 3-4 days worth of playing without charging. The songs are bookmarked and start at the same place when you exit standby.

Video/Pictures: I don't fancy wathcing Video on such small screen. But the demo video was crisp and quality is good.As i won't using this player for either of these features i can't comment on that.

Build quality: It is typical sony build. Nice metal finish on the top side and hard plastic on the back side. The seams are flawless and it feels light and solid.

Not so Good features:
Price: It is expensive player and comes with no accessories. I spent about $100 bucks additional for Ac adapter, Leather case, Protection screens.

Transferring music using windows expolrer: you see the player as USB drive with following folders in addition to others : MUSIC, PICTURES, PICTURE, VIDEO etc. You just drag you music folder into music directory and you are set. It supports 9 level hierarchy for music categorization. However i found that when you use this feature the Now playing screen doesn't display year for the music track. Not sure why . I use ID tags 3.2

Transfer using WMP 11: When you connect player go to sync tab and register your player and transfer away. The major problem was i couldn't get it to stop synching and only transfer music i put in sync list. I had about 40 GB in my folder and it tried to transfer all music. I still can't figure out how to disable the automatic sync. Also i think it gives
incorrect information on space remaining on player. Also you have to use WMP 11 to tranfer playlists.

Transferring using media player 1.1: I hate to say but this is the best way to tranfer music. The space remaining on player is more accurate.The ID tags are transferred correctly. You can update album art correctly. However the transfer is slow and UI freezes often. So you have to be patient. Also if you do have good quality Mp3s disable Senseme analysis or else ternafers will be at a crawl pace.

In general transfers are slow even on USB 2.0.

Bluetooth: Eventough this player came without bluetooth, just a note to those who would think of getting A829. The bluettoth is just for playing music and it compresses already compressed music so sound quality will suffer. If it was used to tranfer or share music i would have got A829. Maybe it will be firmaware update.In its current state it is just a gimmick.

Other shortcommings:
1)No on the go playlist. This is a must for me. Maybe they will include in next firmware.
2)No FM radio ( not that i listen to radio often but nice to have in need).
3)No ability to manage tracks in player. You have delete/modify tracks using WMP11 or media manager 1.1 or explorer
4) Equalizer. It is a good start , but is not parameteric and increases in steps of 1 and goes upto 3 only.

Conclusion: Sony A729 is worth every penny if your main goal is to listen to muic as it was meant to be listened. It has excellent sound quality and good battery life and built solid. It is the only player that came closer to the phenomenal sound quality of Rio karma. It is far superior than Ipod touch and other players in market currently. Cowon is close second. So i would recommend this player Highly

I'm going to try to make this review as comprehensive as I can.

I've owned this Sony NWZ-A728BLK MP3 player for about 10 days now and have tweaked around with it as much as I can. However, I did not like the included media manager software and won't be discussing that part of the package.

In short, the main reason why anyone would consider this player over other competitors is simple--sound quality.

Pros:
Excellent battery life
Excellent sound quality
Very crisp 2.4 inch screen
Pretty good video playback
Plug and play recognition
Organizes music files based on ID3 tags as well as file name

Cons:
Charges only through the included USB cable
No FM radio, voice recorder, or other extra functions
No playlist creation on the MP3 player itself (has to be done on the computer)

Sound quality:
Compared to the Sansa and Ipod players, this thing blows them away due to its crisp sound quality. Playing the same track on each one, I was able to hear background instruments and melodies that were inaudible on the other MP3 players! This is particularly useful when listening to orchestrated music tracks or any other tracks with a wide array of instruments playing at the same time.
The 5 band equalizer also includes a "clear bass" column that you can adjust, which really helps to bring out the low bass sounds. There are a few preset equalizer configurations as well as two custom ones. (Mine is set to a V formation across the 5 band with bass up to +2, try it =P).
The VPT Simulated Surround feature is amazing and offers 6 different surround sound environments for the user's taste. (Matrix is my favorite followed by Studio and Live whenever I feel like listening to my songs in that kind of setting).
The other sound options, DSEE and Clear Studio are mentioned in the item description above.
The included Sony EX earphones are great looking and quite durable. You get small, medium, and large changeable silicon rubber earbuds in the package. I even accidently yanked the earphones out of my ears while doing some punching exercises only to find it undamaged.

Video:
To get video playback on MP4, you must find a video converter with customizable conversion settings. Simply getting a PSP converter won't work due to differences in the required resolution. I have converted 4 files so far without fail by following these conversion specs:
Video Codec: mpeg4
Video encoder: H.264 / AVC
Video Size: 320 x 240
Video bitrate: 1000
Audio Bitrate: anywhere from 128 to 320
Audio encoder: AAC
Audio channels: 2 (stereo)
Hopefully everyone else will be as successful in their attempts to get their video files to play on the MP3 player.
The video files play beautifully once you get them in with the right format and can be viewed vertically or horizontally left as well as horizontally right (basically means from every side except upside-down from the top). The only downside with the video playback is that you can't tweak the sound quality like you can with music playback.

File transfer and organization:
This player is automatically detected on the computer and works just like a flash drive. You can click and drag files into either the "MUSIC," "PICTURE," or "VIDEO" folder. You can also store your music into organized folders that you make yourself (basically a folder hierarchy that goes down all the way to the 8th folder in a folder according to the manual). This also allows files to be played according to the folder it's in if that's your desire. You can also create new folders outside of the MUSIC and VIDEO folders to carry other bits of data such as text or PDF documents (flash drive-like function).
Once everything is loaded onto the MP3 player, you'll be able to browse through your songs via the first character of the file name itself (including 0-9) or the folder name that contains the file. This means messy and old mp3 files will still be manageable when mixed in with new mp3 files that contain ID3 tags! It's essentially up to your preference on how you want to organize your collection.

Battery life:
Sony claims this MP3 player can do 36 hours of music, but the problem with that claim is in the details. The player does get 36 hours when playing 128 kbps files with all the sound features turned off and the equalizer set to all zeros. But why anyone would plan to do that is beyond me... You paid for the advanced sound features so you might as well use it! I got roughly over 20-some hours with all the features turned on and constant fidgeting with the options as well as some video playback. (This is a very rough estimate. If I have time to track the playback time with all sound functions on, I'll update that number). Overall, I'm still impressed with the longevity of the product's battery life.
To extend the running time of the battery (aside from the sound features), you can turn:
-turn down the screen brightness
-set the screensaver timing to "15 sec"
-set the screensaver to "blank"
-set New Song Pop Up to "deactivate"
This configuration will prevent your player from needlessly turning on its screen while playing music (which it does every 15 seconds by default).

Other accessories:
Accessories for this MP3 player are few, far, and expensive. The only one I bought was the silicon case, CKM-NWZA820. This thing comes with a screen protector as well as the silicon case. For anyone who has a problem with the ease in which the "hold" button slides, this might help. (This has never been a problem for me though).

Conclusion: This is a great MP3 video player that does what it's supposed to do very well.

Update: With all sound features turned on, including equalizer and VPT surround, I got around 20 to 21 hours of playback (tracks ranged from 128 to 320 kbps).

Even though I am older in years my spirit is young so I wanted an MP3 player that was easy to use and understand and I also wanted a little bit larger screen so I could see some of the Pod Casts I was looking forward to enjoying. This fits the bill. I have had no problems downloading my music (Rock if you need to know)and the Pod Casts I wanted to see. Best purchase I could have made.