Re: bought it a few days ago
"no wireless" - surely that's not a deal killer. Besides, the screen's so small that you're not going to get a heck of a lot done.
"no video support" - rubbish. I've been using video rips that were designed for the iPod (either directly or via the Sony-supplied convertor) with no problems at all.
"picture viewer features" - erm, it's a picture _viewer_ so apart from being able to rotate pics, what more do you need?
"have to use the Sony software" - rubbish. If you use WMP then the MTP mode of the player means there's no need to use the Sony convertor. Do you actually _own_ one of these?
And I don't understand the comment about missing left/right arrows. The rest are personal preference.
@Tricky Dicky "Sony docks?" - yes, you need a WM-PORT one, check out Amazon for the BCRNWU7 "cradle" - sorry, this is just like the Apple one, so it's just a way to connect to a hi-fi.
@wondermouse "Deal with the Disc ID3 tag" - sorry it's the same as the other players - so disk 1's track 8 is followed by disk 2's track 8. This is a drawback in my book too.
@Simon Hayes "volume cap thread on AVforums" - not sure what they're complaining about. The volume is plenty loud enough for me - e.g. Feuer Frei! by Rammstein (used at the start of the film XXX) is plenty loud enough at level 20, at 30 (the top) it distorts and is very uncomfortable. Don't forget you've got a pretty good noise-cancelling setup, so you can use less volume.
@Al Taylor "volume level with other headphones" - my Beyerdynamic DT660s seemed also to be the same volume level as the bundled phones, but the DT660's needed some EQ settings because they were "tinny". (Same as an iPod Touch 1G, although an older iPod was fine).
@Tom38 "why buy this when a mobile will do the same job". Because the sound on the Sony is better than that on a mobile. See also the comment from M. Anton
I'm really not sure what folks are expecting from this Sony - I think it's being pitched at the high-end iPod Nano. In which case the Sony's probably got the edge - okay the iPod's got a diddy camera, but the Sony has better phones; screen (size AND quality); battery life and sound quality, plus it'll work quite happily with Mac OS, Windows or Linux, whereas the Apple won't work with Linux properly. Heck, when I bought my Sony it was actually cheaper than the equivalent iPod.
I'm not claiming it's perfect (there's definitely scope for some improvement - like the Disk ID3 support) but imho it rates a benchmark score 5-10% higher than the iPod Nano. And before I'm accused of being a Sony fanboi - I'm definitely not.