If you hate iTunes and apps and just want a portable media player that simply does its job, then you’re reading the right review. The latest Sony Walkman PMP to be launched with OLED is the Sony NWZ-A845 and over the last week, we’ve been given an opportunity to have a play with the new skinny Walkman and see what its like.
Design
We’ve reviewed a few Sony Walkmans in the past, so we sort of knew what qualities to look for in the new A845. The overall candybar design hasn’t really changed very much from other Walkmans, but you’ll probably have read plenty of headlines saying how slim the A845 is – 7.2mm to be exact. Not only is it slim, its also small, measuring in at just over 10cm long and and approximately 4.6cm in width. Its lightweight too, just 62g but it doesn’t feel that light, because it is quite comfortable to hold in the hand and feels solid just like the X1050 and not plastic-ky at all. The reason we often stress this is because some PMPs (like the Walkman S540) feel like they would crack open when under pressure (for example, when you leave it in your pocket), the A845 definitely doesn’t give any indication of this.
So its pretty slim (not as slim as the iPod Nano I’m afraid), similar in size to an iPod Nano and doesn’t feel as though Sony’s been cutting down on their budget. Another obvious design / feature you’ll notice worth mentioning is that it boasts a vibrant shiny 2.8-inch OLED, it isn’t the first Walkman from Sony to have OLED, that title went to the X1050, but nevertheless its been just as well exceptionally equipped on the A845. The keys / buttons are found on its front surface as well as to its left.
The premium EX in-ear style earphones that come with the Sony A845 Walkman were probably one of the most stylish earphones we’ve seen in a while, and this is including those not made from Sony. If you decide to buy the A845, you probably won’t have the urge to replace them and feel that “these earphones that came with the PMP were crap”, like you do sometimes when buying mp3 players.
Features
The Sony A845 Walkman boasts 16GB of internal memory and from what we know, this seems to be the only choice of memory capacity if you’re in the UK. As for those of you in the far east, the device itself will be known as A840 and will in fact be available in 64GB. Of course with 16GB (which is still not too bad) and a nice widescreen OLED, you’re going to start popping in films, movies and videos into the A845, that’s perfectly reasonable and the experience we’ve had so far definitely recommends that you do that.
he UI for the video player is fairly self-explanatory and has had no significant changes to other previous Walkmans. All videos are played in landscape mode and for those who are wondering, the A845 does not have an accelerometer. Also, there is no built-in speaker onboard the A845, so you’ll need to be putting in your earphones all the way through the movie. Its also annoying when you want someone to watch a video with you on a trip in the car, for example. On the other hand, the good thing about the A845 is that you can opt for a cable for the which allows the A845 to deliver the video to a supported TV at 720 x 480 at 30fps. Video playback is expected to last nine hours on a fully charged battery.
On the contrary, the A845 scores perfect marks for us as a photoviewer. This is largely due to its superior OLED display and fast and response slideshow interface. Anyone who has had a chance to play with its photoviewer will be impressed with how well Sony has perfected this compared to its predecessors. The experience would probably have been made much more better if the A845 boasted a touchscreen per se but then we’d be asking for abit too much.
Audio function wise, we don’t think Sony can do anymore to further improve the music player’s functionalities. Sony’s music player has always been filled with a range of functions which you wouldn’t be able to find in iPods and this is still the case with the A845. Sony has equipped the A845 with quite alot of tech and these include S-Master Digital Amplifier, Clear Audio and DSEE Sound Enhancement, our favourite of all as always has been the Digital Noise Cancelling. This if you haven’t heard of before works only with a range of Sony’s earphones which boast noise cancelling function, the Walkman is able to detect it if a non-NC pair of earphone is plugged in. While the specific NC settings do a pretty good job, I must say the earphones that were included with the A845 plays a role too. Music playback time is expected to be 29 hours on a fully charged battery.
Music, videos and photos can be transferred to the Sony A845 via drag and drop with a wide range of files supported or even via iTunes using the supplied software.
Conclusion
Other notable features which we haven’t mentioned in this review include FM radio and podcast, these are largely self-explanatory, simple and were practical to use during our review. We felt there were overall little that we could complain about and the A845 boasted many of its predecessor’s good features which Sony has appropriately brought forward. The elegant design of the A845 certainly merits taking a look if this is the quality that you look for in a portable music / video / photo player. Its also perfect for those who find it annoying having to fuzz with new applications, touchscreens and just desire something that simply plays good quality music and videos. Because the Sony NWZ-A845 haven’t in fact come on sale yet at the time of this review, therefore pricing information is still to be confirmed. We can’t comment on how practical it would be for its price range to buy as we do not have any idea of this ourselves but we will update this in due course. Overall we have summarised what we felt were the good and the bad bits of the new Sony A845 below…
Pros
- Elegant, well made slim and lightweight design
- OLED – great for watching videos
- Easy to use UI
- Practical functions that simply work well at what they do, as seen in previous generations of Walkmans
- Comes with high quality premium earphones
- Reasonable battery life
- Use its iTunes-supported software for transferring files if you like, if not just drag and drop
Cons
- Does not record videos, giving it a disadvantage if comparing to the likes of the latest iPod Nano
- No built-in speakers
- The UK version will only have 16GB
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