I wouldnt buy anything else (Sony Walkman NWZ-A818 8 GB)

Member Name: damsmi2002

Product:	Sony Walkman NWZ-A818 8 GB
Date:	02/05/09 (100 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great sound quality, easy to use,looks great

Disadvantages: None

I went travelling around a year ago and needed some way of playing my music when I was away, my brother and almost everybody I knew had ipods, but I wasnt convinced by their tie-in to itunes so started looking elsewhere for an alternative.

At the time I came across this Sony 8GB player which was only £80 around a year ago, this was a great price for what you got. Now they have superceeded this unit with one that holds 16GB for around the same money.

This had everything that I wanted, stylish looks, a relatively large storage capacity and with Sony you know you are getting a good quality unit, perfect for time away as having to replace a cheaper one wasnt something that I wanted to do.

So firstly the looks, with it being black with chrome strips down the side I thought it looked great, the backing has an anti-scratch coating and as yet it has not been scratched, so I think this claim holds up after a years use and the unit still looks brand new. In the box you had some software and the headphones. The software isnt really needed as the main reason I went for this was due to its drag and drop file transfer. This was what I needed for travelling as it didnt rely on somebody else having itunes and made transfer of files very easy. The Sony software doesnt really offer anything extra to purely pugging the unit into you computer as if it was a USB device.

The storage being 8GB has held around 2000 tracks for me, and at various times I have put movies on it too which despite the small screen are watchable.

The sound quality was something that I had read about before purchasing and I was absolutly amazed when I heard this. Even without adjusting the equaliser the sound was amazing, espicially on movies, but after altering the setting the bass was fantastic. I have used some of my friends expensive sennheiser headphones and have to say that these certainly stand up to them. I also found that they fit in your ear really easily and didnt pop out on the move like some cheaper headphones do.

The actual operation of the unit is simple and as it has buttons rather than a touch screen it makes it easy to change a track if you leave it in your pocket whilst on the move. There are only three buttons on the unit so it shouldnt take more than a few minutes before you know your way around the menus.

One slightly annoying thing is that you c ant make up playlists on the unit itself, for this you must make them up on the computer and transfer them across, not a huge problem as the songs are still on the unit, just I find this easy with ipods.

Probably the best feature is the huge battery life, it does last for what it claims, which is about 32 hours. This is unrivaled with ipods as they typically last around 20 hours.

Overall I think that this is a fantastic little MP3 player, espicially for the money. As I said, you can now get an upgraded version with double the memory for less money and I wouldnt hesitate to buy another in the future.

Summary: A fantastic little MP3 player, much better than ipods

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Features:
Sound quality:
Download speed: