Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony Walkman NWZA-826 4GB Video

After reading the other reviews from people who have purchased this player I went ahead and purchased one from Amazon.

I have only had this Sony Walkman NWZ-A829k since 23rd Dec and I have used it everyday since then, I can't remember ever using any of my ipods as much, I also have an ipod Touch 32GB 1st Gen, which now sits in my draw not being used.

Without a doubt this Walkman is the best sounding MP3 I have ever listened to...

1. I think this Walkman looks every bit as good as the latest gen of ipods, nice to hold to.

2. The SOUND the most important part of any MP3 player and Sony have done an amazing job, the sound is open and with great detail, the bass is clear it's like having a HIFI in your ears, AMAZING !!!

3.The screen is bright & clear, although I shall not be bothering with the video on this player

4. The Bluetooth side of things, I have a pair of Sony DT-BT22 headphones and it works really well, the sound is pretty good to.

5.I use windows media player 11 and syc my music to the Walkman and it works just fine no probs.

So if you if your after a different MP3 player, that is not an ipod then this might be the one for you, this is one fantastic player so don't be affraid to breakaway from the rest of the herd.

Buy One and enjoy it!!!!

Well its been quite a while since I "treated" myself to an ipod at Christmas and had to send it back due to unacceptable sound quality. Took the plunge with the Sony walkman 16gb version of this without Bluetooth yesterday and I have to say the difference in sound quality is quite remarkable. I have been ripping using windows media player 11 (128 bit rate windows media) and it is really excellent.

I did think when I got the ipod it was sexy but they had skimped somewhere and it was not just on the headphones. With the Walkman the first thing that I noticed was the openness and natural midrange without hint of distortion found on the ipod. the top end was also a lot cleaner and songs retain a fantastic sense of drive and realism due to the natural tuneful bass. I listen flat but you can tune the bass without the sound going stodgy if you like a lot of bass.

For those who know naim audio for their domestic hifi, well I would say this is the equivalent in the mp3 market. It really retains the natural pace and drive in the music and makes you want to listen to it. It *is* that much better.

great job Sony.

I cannot believe that Sony don't allow bookmarking or 'Remember Playback Position' with this MP3 player. This makes this MP3 player practically useless for playing audiobooks and only suitable for playing short songs.

Very poor!!

I would recommend this over an iPod any day.
It looks much better than them, and has a much higher definition screen, which is also much larger.
The lack of a charger for the unit may sound annoyin but its really not that much of a problem as you may think it is.
Putting the music onto the player is simple, as it's simply a case of selecting the songs you want to put on, dragging them over to the sync box in WMP and then pressing sync.
People have found problems with putting videos on to the player, and Sony provides no information on how to actually get them on, but they simply need to be converted to PSP format, and they work perfectly.

I could not recommend this any more highly.
Although i would recommend a form of cover for the unit, as the large screen easily gets dirty.

Videos play perfectly with amazing quality for such a small unit, and the sound quality is superior to anything i have heard from any other device.

Buy this!

I do own an NW-808 as well but I cracked the screen so decided to buy this. Massive disappointment. There have been many bad points said about SonicStage, which came with 808. Personally I found it very easy to use, if a little clumsy in parts. However, the new interface with the 729 is appalling. You cannot rename or edit tracks on your player with it (nor with WMP). You cannot play tracks off the player through your computer. You cannot select which way you view your files (eg sorted by album, artist or track). It freezes constantly (have had to cancel a few transfers already). There is no ATRAC format on the 729, meaning you have to reduce the MP3 size (I've got more music on my 8gb 808) with a very noticeable loss of quality. Pretty much all the album art is completely wrong (admittedly there could have been a mistake on my part somewhere?).
I've come back to edit, because it gets worse. When you manually enter a tracklisting, and then press enter, after wasting half an hour of your time, the tracks don't even change names! I'm taking mine back to Argos tomorrow, simply because the interface has been designed by a five year old. A five year old penguin.
I was expecting a lot more, as the 808 with the much derided SonicStage performed all the tasks I mentioned above. It seems that with trying to make it more user friendly (and to be honest, if you couldn't figure out SonicStage, you probably don't have thumbs anyway) they've made it as basic as possible, and, ironically, it's a thousand times less user friendly than before! I can't change my rating to 2 stars, but that's what I'm giving it. I give the 808 5 stars.
An annoying and frustrating piece of kit. I've carried on using my broken older model.