Customer Reviews

Perfect alternative to the iPod - Finally!
Frankly, I'm amazed that the Sony NWA800 series have not managed to creep up the bestsellers list to rival the iPod. It took a lot of surfing the net to find this mp3 player, but I'm now glad that I did. It not only looks fantastic (as good as, if not better than, the iPod nanos) but sounds fantastic. The earphones provided have pretty good sound quality although it takes a while to figure out how to get them into your ears. The quality of the visuals is also pretty impressive; the player came with the trailer for spiderman 3 and it was remarkably clear, though albeit a bit small to watch anything longer than a few minutes on.

For me, the main reason to get a Sony mp3 player was because they have the best battery life on the market and when they say 30 hours, they mean it. Sadly, they chose not to give this the massive 72 hour playback that some of their other players have, but I guess that's simply because this player has a powerful screen that the others didn't have.

The only quibble that some people may have with using Sony is the program used to transfer files, Sonicstage. Personally, I've never had any trouble with it even though it is occassionally a bit slow, but I have heard that others have had problems with it.

Pros:
Battery life
Looks good
Good sound
Can cram about 1000 tracks in 2gbs - not bad
Nowhere near as common as the iPod

Cons:
Sonicstage
Amazon not the cheapest (in this case)

Overall, if you have no problem with Sonicstage, this player is probably one of the best on the market and definately worth considering.

Possibly the best compact MP3/Media Player there is?
I wasn't even looking to buy another MP3 player, but when I got handle one of these in a shop I just had to have one. It's so small, light and stylish and the build quality is great. It plays video, music and you can import photos. But how good is it as a media player and is Sonic Stage really that bad?

1. Music. For playing music you have to use Sonic Stage. The version here is 4.3 and is much improved on the earlier versions that I have used. Sonic Stage really isn't that bad. You import your librarys and select your transfer method: you can import them as MP3 or convert them to Sony's ATRAC format which according to Sony is better quality at smaller file sizes. One downfall of Sonic Stage is that during the conversion it can take longer to transfer. However, just leave it to run in the background whilst you do other tasks (on my machine it isn't CPU/Memory hungry-and I don't a top-of-the-range PC). If you don't want to convert, then just transfer them in MP3 format. Note thought that .wmv files are not supported.

2. Sound quality. I'm a bit of an anorak when it comes to sound quality and to be honest the sound quality of the NW-808 is superb. Not as good as the iAudio players but not far off either (bear in mind that iAudio use BBE Maximiser which is exceptionally good). And in comparison to the iPods.... well there's no competition really. Sony have been making walkmans and headphones for years and with the NW-808 it really shows.

3. Video. The screen quality is superb. I honestly can't believe for a player this size and which is so light, that the quality is this good. The player is bundled with Image Converter which you use to convert your .avi files etc to play. Image Converter has the benefit of compressing and optimising the files for use on the player, so giving you more space for other things. Or you can simply drag and drop the files in an Windows Explorer window instead, without any compression.

4. Photos. You can use Image Converter again to compress your photos for viewing, or again drag and drop using Explorer.

5. As a memory stick. You can use the NW-A808 for as a hard drive simply by connecting it to any computer and using Windows Explorer for dumping files on to it.

6. Headphones. The headphones are actually quite good considering they are bundled. They come with a number of different size ear buds to accommodate different ear sizes. To get the best of of the NW-A808 you will need to buy a better set of headphones, but considering how bad the phones are that come with the iPod etc they really aren't a bad backup set of headphones.

Overall, an exceptional piece of kit. Battery life is good (although I'm yet to test it out to see whether you do get 30 hours). Don't be worried about Sonic Stage. Just learn the ropes and know it's limits and it will work fine for you. iTunes can be nightmare to use and in my experience Sonic Stage is easier and certainly more predictable to use than iTunes.

superb sound
excellent little mp3 media player....sonic works ok with my mp3s and yes it is clunky but you get used to it....headphones are best ive had on a mp3 and ive had a few!!!!
battery superb and sound options vast.
video and photo great and you can see it in daylight.
bit pricey but you get what you pay for.