princessangry's Full Review: Sony Network Walkman NW-E107 (1 GB) MP3 Player
first off this is a minimal mp3 player, well you can call it that, but what it really does is converts the files to the sonicstage format if you so desire or you can leave it as .mp3 extension. however when you convert the files to sonicstage .omg format thus is it not an mp3 player, but rather a music player, so I will refer to it as such becuase my files are currently compressed to .omg format @ 64kbps (half of normal 128kbps format so I can technically have a 2GB mp3 player for 1GB price! my car stereo's speakers are bad anyways so I cannot tell the difference!) however for those with really nice car stereos that might pose an issue but for me it is fine and essential becuase I am not going to get an mp3 player again, I will wait for the best all in one I can get that has mp3,GPS,PDA,and phone in it and for it to be the size of a pda not a HUGE brick.
now onto the review!
sonicstage-needs work but does what it's supposed to-if you can take a few headaches.
when I first got it I instantly tried it in windows media 10 (since I allready had a playlist compiled) and sure enough it put the files on there, but there was a problem, it couldn't play them becuase it transferred them in raw data mode which does not play back but holds the files like a pen drive instead. I suggest you install the software from sony's website instead of the one on the cd becuase the one on the cd is old. I grabbed the connect verson becuase it was the first one I found and navigating sony's huge website can be a pain sometimes. it works so oh well. This is a HUGE gripe for me since I have to compile my playlist in windows media 10, then save it as .m3u format, then fire up sonic stage, then import the .m3u file, then open up the transfer dialog, then, create the folder of the playlist, then drag songs onto it, click transfer, then wait. and it don't do drag-n-drop either! which sucks if you just want to drag a couple songs onto it real quick you have to import them the old fashioned way. and the software is shaky and very unstable, it crashes on me alot specially when I upload japanese music (HUGE j-pop fan!) onto it with special characters it freaks out and dies on me! :( I hate that! And one time it took me 4 tries to put a song on there and it corrupted it and the player could'nt read it! And the interface is ok but it needs some work. It often has graphical glitches like buttons being taken over by evil black boxes.
note!:in order to tranfer tracks from the player to another pc, say your laptop, you need to create a sonicstage account then add the other computer to it, and you can only have up to 5 computers associated with the player, and this is frustrating if you have more then one pc in your house or you just reformatted!
but that aside....
I give the software a 2.5/5 *'s
the player itself-a music player-that plays your music-and not much else
using it is simple as instant taters (which I just ate!) it has the typical play-pause-volume-etc buttons, plus a menu button,play mode/sound button, and a folder-song mode slider with hold mode, and a usb port and headphone jack. and the menu is just that, a very simple menu that gives you options for viewing either track info,song title,or track number and time (I wish that the display displayed both the track inf. and time!) you have ot choose one or the other that gets annoying specially with long trance songs that are 7+minutes and you want to now how far you are into it to see when the exciting parts will take place in the song since trance music is very different that pop or rock music! the next options are sound modes, which are basically 2 presets for bass and treble lift and cut, which are in steps of +-3/0 for bass and +-3/0 for treble, with no midrange control this bugs me becuase it would make my car stereo sound much better since mine has too much midrange and it don't have midrange controls either :( and my speakers are defective too :( the bass actually does pretty good considering this unit runs off of one AAA alkaline battery and the headphone output level is very low compared to other players out there that's why for serious audiophiles there's external amps to compensate. and when you are done defining your presets (2) the sound button on the back changes them. and the rest of the menu options are self explainitory. the battery life is really good I get about 50-60 hours of it's claimed 70+ battery life, and it last me 2 12 hour trips from raleigh to litte rock without a single battery change! creative equivalant only had 20 hours tops. switching songs/folders is really easy and I need not explain it.
I give the player 4/5 *'s
overall this player is a good entry level player if all you want to do is play your mp3's. if you want nice looks, videos, and stuff like that spring for creative, rio, iriver, or the apple ones. but with apple you are paying for the name and not nessicarily more features, you can find some no name players with tons more features for less money.
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