| Product: |
Sony Memory Stick Walkman NW-MS7 64 MB |
| Date: |
12/01/01 (762 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: size
Disadvantages: memory
Sony's designers did a great job on the hardware for the NW-MS7 Memory Stick Walkman. I am especially fond of the jog dial that makes the small MP3 player very easy to use. However, Sony's OpenMG software is time-consuming, difficult to use, and wastes storage space on your PC with its file conversions.
The beautifully designed rectangular player is similar to Sony's Music Clip. The backlit screen is easy to read, and the jog dial lets you play, pause, and skip tracks with a tap of the thumb. The Memory Stick Walkman comes with a neck strap and headphones with a very short cord for listening on the go. If you'd rather put the player in your pocket, a headphone extension cord is included.
Unfortunately, the great design is not carried through to the software. It comes with the same awful OpenMG software as the Music Clip, which requires you to encode your MP3 files in Sony's format. This takes as long as encoding the files from CD in the first place and leaves you with two versions of each song eating up hard-drive space. Thanks to a speedy USB connection, music transfers from the PC to the player pretty quickly, but it works with only Windows 98, and we had trouble using the software on a PC that had been upgraded from Windows 95.
Once I loaded my music onto the player, I liked what I heard. The OpenMG files sounded indistinguishable from the original MP3s. Two bass-boost levels helped adjust the tones to myliking, and despite Sony's mention of a signal-to-noise ratio of only 80 decibels, i didn't notice any hiss.
One of my complaints about the Music Clip was its lack of room for additional memory. Instead of built-in memory, the Memory Stick Walkman comes with one removable 64MB Sony Memory Stick that holds about 60 minutes of MP3 music at 128 kbps. The advantage of removable memory is the ability to purchase additional Sony Memory Sticks and bring more music with you.
I have tried to keep this opinio
n as unbiased as possible and let you make up your own ideas as to weather you wish to purchase the player but in my opinion it is amongst the best
Summary:
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Last comment:
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Wease - 13/04/01 Some useful info and good points, thanks :o) |
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