Sony Memory Stick NW-MS7 Walkman review

Hardware-One brengt ons een review van de Sony NW-MS7 MP3 Walkman die gebruikt maakt van 64MB Memory Sticks. De unit ziet er vrij aardig uit maar dat bleek naast de redelijk goede geluidskwaliteit helaas een van de weinige pluspunten te zijn. Batterijen gaan maar amper 4 uur mee en de de Memory Stick is uitgerust met een copyright beveiliging. De bijgeleverde software was verder erg gebruik-onvriendelijk en de USB connector voelde nogal gammel. De onlangs aangekondigde Clik! MP3 spelers van o.a. Iomega lijken dus alsnog een betere oplossing om je MP3's de straat mee op te nemen...

Things certainly don’t look too rosy for Sony’s first solid-state music device. You would think that with all the experience in building the first Walkman, and the numerous Walkmen (or is it Walkmans?) in their various forms (MD, CD etc) since then, Sony would have gotten their first attempt at a solid-state version right.

Sadly this is not the case. The battery life is terrible, the software interface needs a lot of work, and the secure music format makes life for average no-pirate Joe a real pain when uploading, downloading and encoding ATRAC-3 files.

To be fair to Sony, the sound quality is very good, and the build quality is also quite good. But I still have my doubts about the USB connector clip. Some tactile release mechanism would have made the whole unit much more robust.

My advice? If you haven’t already decided between MD and MP3, I would recommend the MD wholeheartedly. But if you already have a backlog of MP3 files in your PC, and are contemplating the Sony, then please run, don’t walk, as far away as you possibly can from the Sony MS7 and get yourself any half-decent portable MP3 player, saving yourself some grief and aggravation in the process. Life is just too short.