Sony Walkman NW-E407 1GB MP3 Player - Blue

Very easy to install and get up and running, I had no problems with mine, just pop the CD in, follow the prompts and your good to go.

The player will play regular MP3 files, you can just drop them into the player as the computer reconises it as a "data storage device" just like a memory stick.

However to get the most out of it I would really use the Sony software supplied. The only downside to this is to get the most efficent use of space on the memory chip you are best converting all your old MP3 files into Atrac which gives you the same quality sound using half the space of MP3. The Sony software can do all this for you at the push of a button and new CDs are automatically saved in the correct format but to change your existing libary over can take a while. (Im not kidding I had about 250 CDs saved and it took my PC 8 hours to convert all the files - its no biggie though just set it running and go to work or whatever, come home and its all done).

Some other good points, I found the player really easy to use and navigate to the album/track I wanted to listen to, it plays all the standard features you would want, shuffle repeat etc. A lot of people seem to have really not liked the ear phones at all, now Im not a musical trained person but I found them fine, at the end of the day "Sony's" basic phones are better than most anyway so just try them. If you are really into your music and have a really good ear for sound quality then you may want to invest in a really good pair but I was fine with the ones supplied. Battery life is one of the best out there, if not "the" best and the player is compleatly skip free.

1gb of space is plenty of storage for the causaul daily user. I used to have a 20gb phillips player (till it broke) and I only ever user 5gb. Plus I ended filling it with junk I never listened to just because I had space. 1gb is plenty. The blurb says you should get 40 albums, I think thats a bit optomistic, Ive got 32 on mine and its got room for maybe another 2. Some people will want to put tracks on it rather than whole albums and thats just as easy to do, its just a case of what you prefer to listen to.

Ok some bad points. (all minor) Only charges via USB and there are no car adapters or battery boost packs that I have found. Although 50 hours should be plenty of time to get where your going!! The storage pouch the player comes with is far to big for it. The device is fitted with a neck strap "loop" but no neck strap given, I know Im being cheap here but I would have prefered a neck strap to be included rather than an ill fitting carry pouch. The "Belt clip" attachment has a really weak grip and I would not use it myself and finally...the little "twisty switch thing" at the end of the player feels very flimsey to me although Im sure Sony tested it to destruction so I have no doubts it will last the course even in my clumsey hands.

Summary.

A quality player thats small, tidy and very respectable - its only real faults are minor and easily over looked when you veiw the whole package. A good reliable buy that will satisfy your gadget fix till the next generation of players comes out.

It's a cool looking 1 GB player (I chose black) with a stylish organic EL display and the sound quality is what you'd expect from Sony - very good.

I've only tranferred my CD's so far using Sony's ATRAC format rather than MP3 and i've heard MP3 sound is even better though you should note that you have have to convert MP3's via Sony's ATRAC format using the provided Sonicstage software. The new Sonic stage 3.0 works perfectly well also (i've heard there were problems with earlier versions)and the USB 2.0 ensures that music transfers at a rapid rate so dispell any worries you may have on that score. 'Sony Connect' (Sony's music download site) is also well presented and easy to navigate.

The main advantage over the ipod is the fantasic 50 hour battery life! as well as a 3 min quick charge that gives you 3hrs worth of play which is a great idea as i've so often realised that i'm low on juice just as i'm about to pop to the gym etc. And the fact that there are no moving parts whatsoever means that there's absolutely no skipping so you'll never experience anything but smooth music which is particularly good while you're at the gym or out jogging. It's also very light and comes with a clip (so Sony have obviously listened to the complaints about the NW - E99).

The headphones are short but come with an extension to lengthen them. I've heard a few moans about this i.e, "why didn't Sony just make it longer in the first place"! I'll tell you why! Because some people like myself clip it onto their top jacket pocket and don't want loads of headphone cable dangling all over the place (it gets in the way and looks ridiculous!! and if I want to wear it lower down I just pop the extension on and Bob's your uncle!

1gb is plenty enough capacity for me (up to 47 CD's). If I had more memory I simply wouldn't use it - though maybe I'm just particular about my music. I can just imagine people buying ipods or other brands with larger memories and never using any more than half the full capacity or filling it with stuff they'll never listen to for the sake of it. But hey, i'm sure there are people out there who would beg to differ on that point.

Superb little number with great Sony sound and fantastic battery life! Apple could learn a thing or two.

when i recieved it through the post i quickly had a glance at everything then popped the cd into my pc. I then went ahead and installed it with the same error message popping up through out the installation. the installation was finally finished. i restarted my pc and opened up the sonicstage software to find it wouldnt work. I did the installation process about 5 times. "so i thought, i guess ill download sonicstage 3.4" only to have the same problem. I wouldnt mind if the user of the nwe-407 could drag and drop music files, but this is not the case. i then searched the internet for hours to try and find a cure. I then managed to find the support page on sony.com which read "urgent message for users of sony music software". Yes! apparently windows if you havent updated recently has some security patch that doesnt let you install the software. so if you get this problem download the overide program through the link on sonys support page.

The rest of the product is great even the software when you get it going (by the way dont use the cd software because it crashes when you got to transfer CD, get the 3.4 download)it transfers songs off cd which would be normally say 3.4 meg to a smaller 1.2, you can however make it better quality but there is no need "honestly". I also was suprised that it had the "group" feature so you can easily locate songs. But the best thing here has to be the battery life. last nite i fell asleep with it on and it still hadnt lost a bar on the battery display. The headphone I personally think are great. they are plenty loud and have a crystal clear quality even with a low transfer rate. Also it is clearly very durable and doest feel cheep.

If your worried about getting this item because of the software i would recommend downloading the overide program for windows first than download sonicstage 3.4, install and than make sure that it works (by "works" i mean opens up properly and doesnt display an error message). Than purchase the product because other than the software not installing corrctly it is amazing. by the way some users may have no problem with the software what so ever. oh and be sure when transfering Cds to opt for the CD info (it connects to the net and finds the artist, song, and album names) otherwise you will be there all day programing in song names