Great, but beware of OpenMG
Written: Dec 07 '02 (Updated Apr 24 '03)
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Pros: Small, light, really great design, sound quality is good
Cons: Expensive MagicGate Memory Sticks, OpenMG could irritate some people, MS Pro and Duo formats?
The Bottom Line: Hmm, a bottom line ... Check the last lines in my review =)
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| justcookin's Full Review: Sony Network Walkman NW-MS9 (64 MB) MP3 Player |
Updated on 24/04/2003
After looking for an mp3-player for over half a year, I decided to go with the NW-MS9. It's small, expandable, has nice sound quality, and looks fantastic. Sony has released the NW-MS11, but this is just the same unit, except for the color (dark metallic gray instead of silver) and the included MagicGate Memory Stick of 128 MB (the NW-MS9 carries a 64 MB stick), so I figured it was cheaper to get the 'older' one and to buy extra sticks later on (all sizes MG Memory Sticks will work, I checked Sony).
Update on MG Memory Sticks 27-02-03
There are two new MG Memory Stick formats: MS Duo and MS Pro. For what I've read so far, I understand that only the Duo ones will work with all Network Walkmen (including the new NW-MS70D), but for the NW-MS9 & NW-MS11 you'll have to use the adaptor, for Duo sticks are smaller than ordinary ones. The press kits of the MS Pro Sticks didn't refer to any of the Network Walkman players, so I'm afraid those sticks won't be of any use on these, unless Sony would provide a firmware upgrade (but in that way they would lose profits..). I'll update whenever I find some more information.
What's in the box?
When I unpacked it, I started druling right away: man, is this player small and light! (67g including the battery, 37g without). My box (the European version) included the player itself, a carrying pouch, Fontopia headphones (they do their job but look for a better pair) the usual papers and software (including drivers), a white MagicGate Memory Stick (plus carrying case and labels), a USB-cable as found with camera’s (small to male), a NiMH battery in a plastic case (I'll go into this one), a keyring, and a charger.
The charging took about 7 hours, not really fast and the battery has to be removed from the player, which might annoy some people, especially when you're travelling. This is a NiMH battery, so beware of the so called 'memory effect'! I'm thinking of getting a Li-ion one. I charged mine three days ago, and I've used it for about 7 hours, switching alot between tracks and checking out every possible button and option, and there's one bar on the indicator left, so I think Sony was almost right about the '10 hours playback': the manual gives this as a back to forth replay time, so when not pressing any buttons while playing. I think 8 to 9 hours would be a realistic playback time. I'm using it right now, by the way =)
While charging, I couldn't get my eyes off the player. The aluminium body is really gorgeous, and perfectly molded. Just be a little careful, I think it can scratch quite easily. I haven't found any on mine yet, just some 'ruff' edges in the metal itself, but that is to be found on any metallic object. I'll mail Sony to ask if they have put any scratch proof layer on top of it. But anyways: even if it gets scratched like hell, it's still aluminium: it won't break that easily. Strong stuff! The metal buttons are placed very well (after a few minutes I was able to control it with one hand, the player itself being in my pocket), and the doors to insert the battery and the Memory Stick (a slight push and the stick comes out gently) fit the body perfectly. These little doors are made of plastic, I believe, with a nice little coating on them. I checked them and think that they used plastic with aluminium on top of it. Niiiiice. The display is placed on the left side (or the right =)), as is the main see-saw butten, used to play, pause, stop, fw, rw, and to skip tracks. On the other side of the player is the little door for the USB-cable, this door looks like plastic, and it may even be plastic. But it still looks ... *druling*.
The front is almost empty, carriying a metallic Walkman logo, the player's name and Sony molded into the metal, and is mirror finished on the left, and there you also find the access lamp. This lamp goes on (in orange) when the MG Memory Stick is accessed. As I said before, this casing is really marvellously molded, without there being any soldered parts (yes, the metal just goes round and round, it's made of one piece). Then, when you turn the player around, you can't see the front anymore. This is the back. There, you find three small round buttons: Display, Menu, and Mega Bass, which also puts the AVLS on or off when pressed for about 1/2 second. Next to that is the Hold button, which does a great job. Then, you find a little metal keyring. I don't use it, and it might irritate some folks because it tinkles when you move the player. I think it's all part of the beauty of the NW-MS9. Underneath these buttons, you find again the Walkman logo, and the name Walkman itself. Right to it, almost on top of the player, is a little button to control the volume. Small, but very easy to find and control. On top of the player, on the left of the volume button, is the headphone jack. Nice detail: the metal comes out a bit, so the silver nicely 'molds' around the jack.
Ok, now let's try to operate it
Now, for the display: while only having one line, it still does a great job. It can either display the title, the resting time, the name of the MG Memory Stick, or a cool graphical equalizer. The light is a verrry nice shade of blue, and the letters are not gray! No, the letters are of a lighter shade of blue! This little detail made me, again, druling all over it. On the right of the display you can see the used bitrate (132, 150 or 66), the remaining battery power, Mega Bass (off, one bar, two bars), and a smiling face if the AVLS is on. When holding the Display button for a second or so, the date is displayed as well as the time. If you press the Menu button, the (!) menu appears. Options: Repeat (Off, On, Shuffle), Volume (Manual or you can set the volume to a level of your choice), Beep (On or off, when it's on you hear a beep every time you press a button), Light (On or off, when on it goes on every time you press a button, and when showing the title and artist it doesn't go off until the whole name is displayed)(I forgot to tell: the display scrolls from the right to the left like this: Title/Artist), Title (English or Japanese), Date-Time (to set it, of course), and Return.
This was the hardware section of my review =)
In case you didn't know yet: no native mp3 support!
Now, for the other part, I must make one thing very clear: neither the NW-MS9 nor the NW-MS11 play MP3's natively!!! You have to use the supplied OpenMG Jukebox to 'optimize' your mp3's, cd tracks, wma's and other formats to Sony's own format, ATRAC3. I knew this a long time before buying the player, but I'm sure some people don't until they want to download tracks to the player. The software installs itself normally (I had no crashes), but since I'm using Windows XP I had to download a (59 mb!) update, OpenMG version 2.2.
It also installs the NW-MS9 drivers, but if you have Windows XP, these drivers aren't necessary.
I read in a lot of reviews that the OpenMG Jukebox is really, really buggy, and I too was afraid that it would crash (for example, a known issue is that the software hangs at 9% when converting a song). I had no problems, and by the way: a song takes about 6 seconds to convert (AMD Athlon XP 2000 , 512 MB DDR, IBM 60 GB 7200r).
I always use the 105 kbps setting, which still sounds good, especially when ripping from a cd. For the record: 132 kpbs = 60 minutes on the 64 MG Memory Stick, 105 kbps = 80 minutes, 66 = 120 minutes. As you can figure, higher bitrate means better sound quality but shorter playback time. The 105 bitrate I use gives a nice, rich sound, but there’s a little buzz on the sound, only noticeable when switching between songs, and if you listen very carefully.
When playing back I always have the MegaBass setting put on (one bar). It adds bass (=)), and when driving (in) a car, I suggest you to put it on two bars, so that the humming of the car doesn't dominate the basslines of a song. I haven’t tried all of the bitrates yet, and I should check out the differences between mp3 to ATRAC3 and CD to ATRAC3. I’ll update this as soon as I tried everything. /Update I checked in a 132 kbps music file, optimized from a 256 kbps mp3 file, and the sound didn't really made a difference, though it was a bit more crisp. I'm also looking for other headphones, ear buds are not so comfortable for me, I think I'll go for some Street Styles/Update on little experiment I checked in three songs, each optimized three times in 132, 105 and 66 kpbs. These songs were three pieces by the orchestra directed by my father, and I let him listen through my new StreetStyles (Sony MDR G73SP, check my review). He told me it sounded very well, not perfect though, and that the differences between the 132 and 105 bitrate are hardly noticeable. When listening to the 66 kbps versions, he said you could already hear that the quality had been broken down, but it wasn’t bad at all. But, he also added that the volume was too low. I heard this too, but this sort of music is very subtle, so if you import quiet songs you should definitely normalize them first, a feature that unfortunately isn’t to be found in the current version of OpenMG./
If you want to, you can replace OpenMG Jukebox by RealOne, because this software can also play ATRAC3 and convert songs to it, àfter installing the plug-in of course. There are no plug-ins for other players, which I regret, but I don't mind it at all.
Another thing you need to know is: you have three credits for each song. This means you can transfer (check-out) a song three times, and if you want to transfer it again to another MG Memory Stick or device, you have to retransfer (check-in) a copy of it from the other player or MG Memory Stick (when deleting a song using the player itself, the remaining check-ins increase automatically). This is for preventing users from copying music to other people, because, don't forget, Sony is also a music distribution company, and they don't want to lose profits. If you have a problem with this, do NOT buy the NW-MS9 or 11! You might wonder why Sony makes an mp3-player that doesn't actually play mp3's, or why they even go into the mp3-player industry when they sell music themselves. Well, I wondered too, and I didn't care: as long as I can listen to my music I'm happy.
You might also have noticed that I always added 'MagicGate' or 'MG' to the name 'Memory Stick'. Well, this is because the player can't use any other Memory Stick than the white MagicGate type. This also plays a part in the OpenMG idea (hey, the MG in OpenMG stands for MagicGate!). These sticks have a little copyright thingy in them, I don't know the exact explanation, but anyway: they cost more ('What? They restrict you ànd they're more expensive??' Again: do NOT buy this Walkman if you can't live with this).
MagicGate Memory Sticks
A little more on the sticks: they're white, have the words 'Sony', 'MagicGate', 'Memory Stick', 'MG', and '64mb', and some serial number type stuff on the back. It also has a little switch to lock it, in order to prevent erasure. And it weighs about 4g. They come in 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128 MB, larger capacities to be released. I have to add that these MG Memory Sticks are harder to find then normal ones.
A bottom line, at the bottom
I think I've said about everything I could come up with the past hour (and the player is still playing music, sweet), so let me make a bottom line:
If you want a extremely small, light, really good sounding (when having better headphones than the supplied ones, too bad they didn't include better ones, you'd expect it regarding the price), expandable player, and you do NOT mind the OpenMG restrictions, you can't go wrong. And of course, you will have the most beautiful designed player out there (and believe me, it grabs attention: 'What a beautiful remote.' 'That's not the remote, that's my walkman itself'). And it's from Sony, for those who didn't know yet. If you are doubting about buying the NW-MS11 or the NW-MS9, take my advice: get yourself a NW-MS9 and buy an extra 128MB MG Memory Stick: it'll cost less and you'll have more space.
References
You should definitely check babyeddy7’s review on the NW-MS11, he seems to know more details than I do, and he even goes into the beauty of the Sony logo =)
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 200
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Epinions.com ID:
justcookin
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Reviews written: 8
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