Sony NW-MS9 Network Walkman

Amazon Customer Reviews

(4 out of 5)

Very Nice - but memory sticks still to expensive

The title says it all - very sleek - very small - you can put about 1 1/2 cds on one stick. The two drawbacks are 1) you cannot use the blue Memory sticks and 2) Memory sticks are far too expensive.

(3 out of 5)

Great player, rubbish software

The player itself is fantastic, all the excellence you'd normally expect from a company with a reputation like Sony. Sound quality is excellent, and the player feels solid and well-built. It looks sexy as hell too.

However, the OpenMG song management software is seriously bad. In an effort to protect music copyright, songs must be "checked out" to the player and "checked in" again when you've finished listening to them, which makes the process slow and cumbersome. Also, the player does NOT natively support MP3 or WMA, so songs have to be converted to ATRAC beforehand, which slows the copying process even further. The blurb says that the player is "compatible" with MP3 and WMA, which means the sucky software will know how to convert it. The software is so slow and clunky it ruins the whole experience of owning what is otherwise a really slick little player, so much so that I sold it.

I've now bought a Creative Muvo NX instead, which as well as having more memory is significantly cheaper and plugs straight into the USB port on my PC. It appears as a removable hard drive in Windows Explorer, and you can just copy songs straight to it with no faffing around. It also plays MP3 and WMA natively, so there's no crummy converting to be done.

I simply can't recommend buying it because of the software. Sorry Sony, but I'm afraid it's that bad.

(5 out of 5)

Excellent

What a piece of kit! My girlfriend bought me this for christmas and Ive carried with me it every day. Songs load into it quickly, software is very easy to use..although I couldnt get my old Napster MP3's to work, but as I had burnt them to CD I could get to them that way.
Battery life is good, I just wish it had come with a 128mb stick.
It is superb for running with, you dont even know its there. Get a good pair of headphones and you wont regret buying this.

(5 out of 5)

Excellent ...and Very Sexy

I used to have the NW-MS7, but when my wife wanted a new personal stereo, I gave her mine and bought this instead.
The sticks don't take MP3's, but use their own format, which may sound a pain, but the software that comes with it is excellent. It is very easy to use and can also be used to play MP3 and WAV files on your computer, and does all the converting for you automatically.
I can usually get about 80 minutes of music on a stick, and as I have a spare, this and the battery length is just perfect for my commute to the city.
And it's a very sexy small machine.

(5 out of 5)

The best way to commute (The only way to commute)

So small & compact, the main unit is slightly larger than most personal music system control units but you don't have the cassette/CD/Minidisc player on the end of it, need I say more. With a 128M MagicGate ministick (the white ones) and recording at the lowest setting (66kbps) you can get about 4.25hours (yes four and a quarter hours) of music, with a rechargeable battery life of 10 hours that's just over twice through the full set of music, more than enough for a full weeks commuting.