Sony E-Series Walkman – Second Generation, 8GB, Black

Sum n substance:

Thumbs up: Good sound quality, decent video and picture quality, low price.

Thumbs down: Boring design, earbuds aren’t that comfortable.

Inside the trunk:

• Product type Flash player
• PC interface(s) supported USB
• Flash memory installed 8 GB
• Weight 0.1 lbs
• Dimensions (W x D x H) 1.8 in x 0.4 in x 3.5 in

THE WHIZ-KID SPEAKS: Sony has always been known to bring out the best MP3 players at rock bottom price. With this one Sony has launched the latest 16 GB player at a price of $100 and the 80GB version is being offered at $80. It has compromised a bit on the styling and the design but it has retained the same battery life and audio quality.

A look at the player and I was like “ nothings really new or innovative in this one.. atleast as far as the looks are concerned. Below the 2 inch screen there is a five way control pad, a menu button and a back/home button. At times the up arrow key is a bit difficult to press. Its got a standard 3.5mm headphone jack below it and the volume rocker has been placed on the right spine. Also the USB port is below the player next to the headphone jack.

At 3.2 inches tall by 1.7 inches wide by 0.3 inch deep this one easily slips into the pocket and can easily be strapped to the waist band or to your armband. Along with the black version this one comes along in a blazing red option as well, wherein the top part is black and the bottom part is all red which is pretty much a killer combination.

The main menu features the icons for the functions in a grid layout. However there is no option where you can change the wallpaper or the theme of the player. The songs are divided in o categories by artists, genres, albums, track etc. on the submenu. The album art though cannot be resized to full screen can easily be magnified on the playback screen.

Coming to transferring music or getting music onto the player, this is pretty much an easy process and all you have to do is drag and drop files from your hard drive using the Sony Content Transfer App. Also this one is compatible with most of the jukeboxes like windows media player and rhapsody. However the bad news for the Mac users is that it does not support content transfer through Mac.

This one has been spattered with a variety of features and supports MP3, secure WMA, unprotected AAC, and LPCM audio. Also it supports JPEG photos and MPEG-4, WMV and H.264/AVC video. On the other side, Sony has done away with the Rhapsody DNA which has a huge fan following and also this one doesn’t support podcasts.

The sound setting is pretty much flat and can be tweaked using the presets and the 5 band custom Equalisers. The sound quality is crisp and clear and well balanced. And as usual I rarely have any complaints when it comes to the sound quality from Sony players. Again I would recommend using Headphones instead of the Earbuds which come along with it.

The videos and photos are also pretty much clear and vibrant. However there is also a slight amount of glare. Though I have always been highly impressed with the battery life offered by Sony this one is kind of disappointing with just 30 hours for audio and 40 hours for video compared to the astounding battery life that the others in the E series have to offer.

Nitty-Gritty: This one is surely the best one in the price range. So if u don’t wan to spend a bomb on  the player and all you worry is about the sound quality, then go ahead and grab this one.

Popularity: 5% [?]