little bundle of joy (Sony Memory Stick Walkman NW-MS7 64 MB)

Name: Gordon Woodbine

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Product:	Sony Memory Stick Walkman NW-MS7 64 MB
Date:	29/06/02 (540 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: small and compact, well designed, shiny

Disadvantages: copyright issue will bother some, converting files can be a pain

Being a computer science student, and something of a geek, it’s only natural that I have a rather large collection of mp3s. I’d been looking at mp3 players for ages and drooling over them, but after spending most of my student loan in the pub I’d resigned myself to not owning one for quite a while. My problems seemed to be exasperated when my room mate bought himself a lovely, shiny player in the form of the Sony NW-MS7. However, this was a blessing in disguise…

As it turned out, my friend didn’t use the player too often, and when I happened to mention that I was after one, he said that he would sell me his for the princely sum of 75 Earth pounds. This was an offer too good to refuse and although my bank statement warned me not to, I parted with the money and became the owner of a lovely piece of technology.

The first thing that caught my eye was the look of the player. After looking at the cheaper players on the internet, mostly the Rio models, this seemed just so small and cool. The dinky size which fits in the hand, the splash of blue, the way the screen refracts the sunlight. I admit it, I dribbled. I’ve heard some people voice worries that it’s not a particularly sturdy piece of kit but as it will probably spend most of it’s life in my shirt pocket and not in a war-zone, I don’t think I’ll be putting it’s structural integrity to the test.

The next thing that caught my attention was the layout of the controls on the player. Sony seems to have a jog-dial fetish, as just about everything from them includes one. However this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and in this case I found the jog-dial to be an intuitive way of operating the player. Play, skip, fast-forward and rewind were all operated by the dial, so that was nice and easy. The stop button is right next to the dial, and the volume controls are on the top of the player, next to the headphone jack. Although I
217;ve found it can take a couple of seconds of fumbling with the player when it’s in my pocket trying to find the right button, it’s the best layout I’ve yet seen on a player like this.

Now for the software. I didn’t have any trouble installing the software on my computer, and in a matter of minutes had converted a couple of my mp3s into ATRAC3s and had transferred them to my player. Yes, the conversion process is slow, and yes, it can be annoying when you want to transfer a lot of mp3s to the player in one go. However, I’ve never had to spend more than ten minutes transferring files, and that is a full transfer, from mp3s on my computer to ATRAC3s on my player. I never seem to be in such a rush that I can’t spare this time to download my music for the day. Also, the problem isn’t really there if you are copying music from CD, and in a dissenting voice from a few others here, I do see the point in doing that. I never bought a CD Walkman because I thought they were far too bulky, whereas with this player I can choose the CD that I most want to listen to on any day and download it onto my tiny player.

There have also been complaints about Sony’s measures to prevent people copying files to share with friends, and in theory I have to agree, it is annoying. However, in my personal experience this has never been a problem as most of my friends don’t have the ability to play Sony MemorySticks, and can’t be bothered to set up the software on their computer so they can copy from my player. With this type of usage, the copyright thing never really becomes an issue.

So to try and sum up, as I feel I’ve been a little long winded about such a small player, I do adore the thing. I use it daily. It fits my needs perfectly, as I’ve never been one for carrying a lot of minidisks with me, and I’m hardly ever away from my computer for any length of time, so the fairly limited stor
age doesn’t become an issue for me. Although I doubt I’d have bought one new, I’m very glad I parted with my money for it, as it really is a good piece of kit. My recommendation – convince a friend to buy one and then sell it to you for less. You can’t lose…

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