Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony Walkman NWZ-S638FS 8GB Drag & Drop MP4 Video Player with FM Tuner - Silver

Purchased this to replace a Sansa Fuze, which refused to play at the correct speed (see review).

You want an excellent MP3 player for a reasonable price - get this. For the price, audibly it knocks the headphones off a similarly priced iPod and gives much more storage and better battery life. I generally listen to high bitrate MP3s and the sound from the S639 is crisp and dynamic. There are various audio preferences that can be tweaked in the player, but apart from the equalizer, I didn't find them useful in altering the sound favourably. The VPT surround option is meant to recreate various environments (live, club, arena, etc.), but I found my music to sound over-processed and artificial. The equalizer is more useful, with several presets and, better still, the option to set your own preference. In fact, it's possible to save two custom preferences and you can really add muscle to the sound using the 'clear bass' facility, if that's your thing. The bundled earphones are more than adequate and much better than the cheapo offerings usually included with an MP3 player. I tried my Grado SR80s and the sound was improved again, but the included 'phones will be fine for most.

There are a couple of features that this player lacks over similar players, however. There's no sleep timer facility, no support for gapless playback (unless you use WAV), no support for FLAC or other lossless audio and no ability to record from radio or externally. Though, these are all minor points and, unless you really need them, will not be missed.

The screen is crisp and clear and, for its size, displays a vibrant image. Video transfer is as easy as music transfer and BBC iPlayer is supported. The S639 is small, light and easy to use, being very easy to transfer music/videos to - plug in and drag 'n' drop. An excellent media player.

Only had this 3 days but am absolutely delighted with it. Had it up and running with all my music within a few hours. I bought this to replace my Samsung player which I loved but had run out of room at 4GB. The first thing I noticed once fully charged was the quality of the screen which is leaps and bounds ahead of what I was used to. Second the ease of getting all my music on (I already have Media Player 11 on my laptop) so I haven't used the software CD. When I attached the player it was immediately recognised and I was given the option on MP11 to syncronise - it also informed me in this box that if I didn't alter my settings after the initial set up it would automatically sync each time I attached the player, whether I wanted to sync or not - so I changed these settings to manual after the main sync was done. When it had finished I found it had transferred not just music (complete with all albums covers) but pictures and video as well. To edit these files I just came out of MP11 and went through 'my computer' to drag/drop/delete what I wanted/or not.

The supplied headphones are very good and I really am torn between using my Senheisers or these. You have lots of options for changing the sound and this applies across the board with this lovely little player from changing wallpaper settings to mood colours and I even found the SensMe feature appealing although like another reviewer these is the occasional odd listing.

The player comes with a small number of songs and videos already installed which show the quality and clarity but are easy to delete if you need the room. The only point that is a bit irritating is that I cannot use my already owned usb/ac plug to charge the player - it just doesn't work. But really if I had checked here I would have realised this so that's my fault.

After having the Sony NWA300 (the big purple player), I knew that Sony MP3 players had two important factors : 1) Great build quality/sound 2) Awful software that you had to use.
Honestly, the Connect or Sonic software was breathtakingly bad, and put me off Sony mp3 for life....until I saw they now allow drag and drop!
So I purchased this player, used Windows Explorer, dragged the mp3 albums onto the player, and job done. So simple. And so much better than Apple I-Tunes, which is more like Malware on my Windows machine, with countless processes always running.
Get this player, and save yourself all that Software grief.

This is a great mp3 player a good alternative to an ipod.
The reason i bought this model instead of the bluetooth models which I was torn between is because this model has
1) An FM radio
2) Supports bbc iplayer
3) This model is half price in the run up to christmas
or i could have got the bluetooth model which doesnt support these 2 features and is not half price.
Although i wasnt sure what the bbc i player would be like but now i have tried it out and its really good the picture quality is good.

After reading all the other reviews about superior sound quality compared to an ipod i didnt really think i would notice but the sound quality just blows you away.

The headphones at first looked funny shaped but they fit perfectly to the ear and dont fall out like i find with many other headphones.

The drag and drop works really well which saves you having to have any software although i do use window media player which quite alot of people will have anyway if they a windows pc.

Im really glad i bought this even though i wasnt sure if i would use it that much.

I purchased this product when it was reduced recently to just under £100 - so it is even cheaper now (originally nearly £130). So long as you have the most recent Media Player 11 on your PC(comes with this software on a CD) then drag and drop is simple. The sound quality is excellent through the best earphones I have used. One of the best features is the ability to download from the BBC iPlayer onto the MP4. I recently tried this with Wild China. The operation could not be easier and the picture quality and sound is exquisite. You do not need to be tec savvy to enjoy this product. I am now listening to music from my collection of CDs with a 'new ear'.