The best flash based MP3 player money can buy (Sony Walkman NW-A808 8 GB)

Member Name: joefireline

Product:	Sony Walkman NW-A808 8 GB
Date:	21/02/08 (163 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything, battery, sound quality, design, features...

Disadvantages: Errmmm . . . Price? Although worth every penny!

This mp3 player has got to be the best flash based mp3 player money can buy! It beats any ipod, any creative etc, it is the ultimate of the ultimate!

It is a fairly small device, which will fit into any pocket easy, and you don't have to worry about crushing it, it's an extremely strong metal.

In total there are 11 controls on the device, a 4 way scrolling system, with a play/pause button in the middle, a back button, which if you hold turns to a Home button, an OPTION button, which if you hold turns the divice off, an up and down volume control to the side of the device, and a reset button on the side, and a side up to hold on the back. The earphones socket is at the bottem of the device, and so is the data cable socket. As it is a bit hard to tell, the data cable goes in with the walkman logo facing up.

The screen is a nice 2" display, with video and photo playback, although I don't use this so much, it can be useful. The great thing about this display, it makes it dead easy to find the songs you want, by artist A-Z, by album A-Z, by song A-Z, by playlist, by Genre, by Rating, by Release Year or even Recent Transfers. Now, if you can't find your song by now, you may as well just give up!

On the 'Home' screen, there are 9 different icons:

Intelligent Shuffle, Initial Search, Clock Display

Photo Library, Music Library, Video Library

Settings, Playlists, Now Playing

The intelligent Shuffle randomises the songs, but plays the better rating songs more.

The Initial Search Inables you to find songs by Artist first letter, Album First letter, and Song First Letter, so you can quickly and easily find the song you want.

Clock Display just shows the time and date.

Photo Library enables you to look through all your photos, and even set up a slide show, so the image changes every few seconds, and you can have a song playing while looking. You can also sort your photos into folders, and choose which way up the photo goes, as it will be on it's side.

Music Library enables you to find songs by All Songs, Album, Artist, Genre, Rating, Release Year and Recent Transfers. Songs you can look for through letter, A, B, C, D etc, Album you can look through by 2 letters, AB, CD, EF, GH etc, Artist you can look through by a lot of letters, A-E, F-J, K-O, P-T etc.

Video Library enables you to find and play videos, quite simple to use.

Settings you can change settings (obviously), there are a lot of settings avalible, so I wont go through them all.

Playlists enable you to sellect playlists, create Bookmark Lists, and play your Favourate 100, which is done according to song ratings. There is also a Trash Bin here, and a Playback History.

Now Playing takes you straight to the song, video or picture that you are currently playing.

So, the features on this device. There are plently of things you can mess around with on this.

For sound enhancement, there is a 5 band equaliser, with a 4 stage clear bass setting, which works a treat. There is a "DSEE", in other words sound enhancement. There is a "Clear Stereo" setting, which makes sure you get that correct stereo sound, and somehow it works well. There is a "Dynamic Normalizer" to make sure all sounds are around about the same volume.
So, you put all these great sound enhancements on, and along with these amazing earphones supplied, you get an amazingly outstanding sound quality, with really rich, and full sound, crisp and strong highs, and deap lows. The bass on this is crazily good. You can feel it vibrating in your ear, and it's near the same sound quality of a hifi, if not better. The earphones supplied with this, go from 6hz! Try a bass test, it's insane.
You really don't get this sound quality on any other mp3 player. No other company seem to supply good earphones, so good on you Sony!

The battery life, 30 hours, absolutely amazing considering it's sound quality. It runs on a Lithium-ion rechargeable battery, which can be charged by USB, or you can buy an extra adapter to charge through mains. It also has 8 hours video playback before you need to charge again.

This device beats any other, and is 'like no other'. Sony should be very proud of themselves here, and excellant piece of technology. Buy it!

Summary: Just buy it!

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