Customer Ratings & Reviews

My sister has one and said it is great. Bought for my son.

The good: Plays all sorts of lossless files and sounds great. The bad: I had trouble with the charge cord and it is now not working after 2 months.

If you use bluetooth headphones, you absolutely want to buy a pair with AptX HD (not plain AptX) or Sony's proprietary LDAC which is much better than plain AptX. The sound with LDAC is incredibly full and my LDAC 'phones, the Audeze Mobius 'gaming' headphones, are very detailed with planar drivers nearly overwhelming the connection with sounds. If you are not using AptX HD or LDAC, this player is quite good. I am not much of an audiophile so I can't compare the sound to other similarly priced products, other than to say there are no obvious shortcomings. The battery life lasts for the entire day of commuting and work. The FM is good for those times I want to listen to news / weather. The ability to add my own music / spoken book via the included external storage SHXC slot is a requirement for me. The Sony Walkman reputation for quality products that don't break easily makes this an easy purchase, even if I think the retail price could be a bit lower, at $220 instead of $160 I'm still getting a decent price. One could do much worse. And as I stated up top, if you have LDAC headphones, this is a no brainer. The sound quality with LDAC makes this worth the asking price all day long.

I got this to replace my much loved old Sony MP3. This was the biggest waste of money. When trying to play through my car speakers the sound was tinny and hard to hear, even with my car cranked up. With headphones same issue - very poor sound quality. Not an issue with my old Walkman. The unit would frequently decide to put itself on a different play mode and repeat one song or stop shuffle mode. I never got the battery to make it more than 9 hours on a full charge. After less than 13 months of infrequent usage it decided to stop charging and I cannot even get my music off of it because it is dead in the water. This is not due to abuse or overuse - it just stopped charging. Definitely not the quality of older versions. Don't waste your money.

The Sony Walkman NW-A45 is a great product. It has excellent sound, including supporting Hi Res music. I'm presently using a set of Beats Studio Headphones, which I'm planning on replacing w/a much better set of phones, Audio-Technica ATH-M50x's perhaps. Sadly, Best Buy doesn't carry them. Anyway, my iPod Classic was some ten years old, and was needing to be recharged more often. While I could of replaced the battery, It has no Bluetooth, nor any WiFi, so It was time to replace it. I started looking and reading about several different products out there, including Apple's aging iPod Touch. Apple pretty much took over the market on the low end, up to $300, w/some others concentrating on the high end, $1000 plus, including Sony. During my research I came across Sony's new Walkman NW-A45, which supports Hi Res music. It's new for 2018, replacing the NW-A35 model, which came w/no Hi Res music capability. It also comes w/Bluetooth, and some other music tuning features that I'm learning to use. The NW-A45 was also cheaper than Apple's iPod Touch (128 GB). While the NW-A45 comes w/only 16 GB of memory, it does come w/a memory card slot for more memory, which the Apple's don't have. Anyway, Best Buy carried the product, and had it on sale for $175.00, it normally sells for $200, so I went and purchased it. All my Apple iTunes music transferred over w/no problems, other than it took a long time due to the size of my library. That 16 GB of built in memory is pretty much full now, so that memory card slot will come in handy. I have no issues w/the quality of the product, especially when it comes to the case. The $1000 Plus products out there come in machined cases, w/more memory, 128 GB Plus, Video, and more features, and other bells and whistles, which will over time, trickle down, just like Hi Res has. When it comes to Hi Res, the music needs more memory, you need much better headphones, and there appears presently to have a small market of music available, which hopefully grows, as the technology gets cheaper. But of course, that depends on people's taste's in music quality. ; ) Finally, I also have a Sony PHA-1A Headphone Amp, which works w/my Apple iPod Classic and iPhone, but I can't get to work "yet" w/my Sony Walkman NW-A45. From what I've read, it appears I will need to purchase a Sony proprietary cable for it. Maybe a Sony Rep. here could answer that here.

Battery doesn’t even last. It’s a joke. Very annoying

This product does not always sync correctly. Even with an SD card this product does not sync half the time. Search engine is terrible. If you want a good product stick with an iPod. I would never buy this product again, would not recommend to anyone.

Loved the product. Very easy to use. The sound is mind blowing

To save storage I always just have a single Folder.jpg file in my album folders rather than embedding cover art in each on my songs. This player does not use the folder.jpg so it appears that I have no cover art for my music. This seems to be a pretty big flaw in the Sony firmware for this device. Other than that it seems to be okay, but I would not recommend this device when all other players I'm aware of will use the folder.jpg for cover art.

very disappointed with this unit, I returned it 1st day. MP3 quality is fair at best, the biggest issues is that there are numerous audio adjustments available, but not if you are using bluetooth. so streaming is a very dull, flat audio. even using corded isn't much better. tried it with wired apple ear buds & Bose, sounded fair at best. also use Jabra 65Te bluetooth buds, very dull audio. going back and using my Samsung S7, the sound is 10 times better. not sure how so many say the audio quality is so good.... I have not tried hi res, but if it sounds like crap with MP3's , I'll pass. also it is a proprietary usb cable, loose it, and you will have to order one as no one carries them.

I just received this product. I have no experience with it. I have not charged it or turned it on. I immediately noticed it uses a proprietary cable instead of a standard micro USB or USB type C. I refuse to use products that force me to carry around, and eventually purchase, a proprietary cable in order to charge it or connect to my computer.