Sony - Walkman NW-A55 Hi-Res 16GB* MP3 Player - Black

At the place that I currently work at right now, there are strict security guidelines, and having an unauthorized cellphones can get you in trouble if you are using one. So I bought this music player because it doesn't have a camera or a microphone. I've been using Samsung phones previously my whole life to satisfy my music needs, so how does this product hold up? So this music player uses it's own proprietary OS on this device. "Sony original OS" as it's called on their official product website. So it has a very nice "battery save" feature that prevents the device from charging past 90% in an attempt to make the battery last longer which I use. I'm glad the thought even a bit ahead of time to make this device last long and add in a measure to prevent the battery from frying from overcharge. However, the OS on this device is, well , slow compared to the Android OS. If you are used to playing music from a Smartphone from someone like Apple or Samsung, then the UI in this device will be slow to you. It's actually not slow like minutes slow, but it can take at most 3-4 for some things to appear like large music albums or large lists of albums available to play if you have imported tons of music onto this thing. But I got used to it over time, and I think that anyone willing to try to put up with the response time of this device for at least a week will get used to its UI speed and be able to use it no problem. As far as audio quality goes, because it is advertised as a high-resolution audio product, it is as good as my desktop computer with a desktop DAC. If plug in my headphones from my computer's external DAC into this music player, I will be able to hear pretty much the same quality of audio from this music player. I think that this small device plays music with great audio quality since it I can listen to audio from my computer without any noticeable distortions or missing parts to music I play. If you have some high resolution audio headphones you might have trouble driving it cause it's a portable music player that's using a small battery to drive headphones but something like smaller headphones and earbuds should have no problem sounding loud and clear. As for battery life with this device, it can last me a whole day with this device on and playing music, even on bluetooth. The official numbers of the battery life are available here: https://helpguide.sony.net/dmp/nwa50/v1/en/contents/TP0002342893.html I think that while this product is a little expensive compared to other music players, the features, functionality and battery life of this device justify the price of this product. I have brought out this product everyday for work and every time I go working out. The small size of this device mixed with it's bluetooth functionality and it's audio quality make it practically a fool proof way of listening to music independent of the internet or without a bulky phone.

TL;DR I love this Walkman. The sound quality is excellent and it plays everything I've thrown at it. I'm sure there's a format or two that it's not compatible with, but so far, it's a moot issue for me. The Bluetooth features - transmitter AND receiver make this a very versatile device. The USB DAC (think external sound card) feature has become a go-to for me. I find myself using it on my Mac almost exclusively over the built in speakers/headphone jack because of the quality and convenience. The only downsides are lack of WiFi sync, no proper Audiobook support, some quirks with MP3 tags and album art as well as the need to recreate the database every time it boots makes for some minor inconveniences, but definitely not deal breakers. With the exception of WiFi, all should be able to be fixed with firmware updates (maybe Sony reads these reviews? One can hope.) Those shortcomings aside, this is still a definite buy recommendation from me. ===FULL REVIEW BELOW === THE GOOD Sound: It's phenomenal especially when using a quality lossless, high-res format like FLAC, ALAC, WMA or DSD. If you're playing an MP3, even ripped from a CD at the highest bit rate, you really can't tell the difference between this Walkman and an iPhone/iPod. However, once you dip your toes into the high-res pool, you won't want to get back out. Functionality: This is where it shines. It can pair with every BT headphone and speaker I own - from Bose to Sennheiser - with no problems (transmitter mode). Pairing is super easy and NFC makes it even more so. I haven't had a single issue here at all. This can be a Bluetooth receiver as well and act an a headphone amplifier for your music stored on your computer or even your iPhone/iPad/iPod! I even connected it to a Bluetooth transmitter on my TV to watch TV with my headphones instead of the speakers/soundbar! If I plug it into the USB port of my computer - I have a Mac and a Surface Pro - it acts as a USB DAC. It basically becomes a USB audio interface (think USB sound card) with no drivers necessary! Interface: It's very easy to use and very intuitive. I have many options as to how to access my library and Sony even provides an option to filter out just high-res audio. The screen is bright, clear and very responsive. What's especially nice is the physically buttons with conveniently placed "homing bumps" (like on the F and J keys on a keyboard) so you can operate the player while not having to look at it; in your coat pocket, for example. Capacities: 16GB is an excellent starting point, but the fact that you can expand the storage of the device with micro SD cards alone makes this a better choice than the iPhone/iPod. You can use a single large SD card for your whole music collection or many smaller ones for different collections (like a party mix, or a study mix, etc.) I've tested this with a SanDisk 512GB Micro SD and it worked perfectly. However, (full disclosure) I use 128GB SD cards instead because I currently don't have more than this in music and the smaller cards synchronize and update the internal database quicker. THE BAD While not many, there are some glaring faults with the device. For me, they're not deal breakers. However, some could be fixed with a firmware update to further enhance the product. No WiFi. The fact that I have to plug the device physically into a USB port seems so 1990's. The Microsoft Zune was able to sync wirelessly, so there's no reason for this not to. Whether you plug the whole Walkman into the USB or use an SD card reader to copy over the files, you need to physically connect to a host. No proper support for audio books. Sony makes reference to "learning" folder that can be used for audible language less (though they don't tell you where to obtain these lessons). There's no reason why it can't support audio books as the M4B format is just a container for audio files that it already supports! All they need to do is update the firmware with support for this file type. Updating the database. Every time you power on (not wake from sleep) or disconnect the Walkman from your computer, it has to create the database which adds to the boot time. If you have larger SD cards, the time is increased. There's no need to recreate the database if no files were modified. ID3v2 Tags. Unfortunately, Sony chose to use the OLDER v2.3 of the MP3 tags. This means that you have to embed a baseline JPG or PNG into the song itself for album art to show up and tags with multiple values aren't supported. Going to the latest v2.4 spec is just a firmware update and Sony should do this to stay current. CONCLUSION While inconvenient, the bad points don't carry enough weight to have much of an impact on the positives. These are "nice to have" features that for the most part, Sony could add with a firmware update. As such, it earns a "Good" rating instead of a "Great" but I would still highly recommend it.

I absolutely love this MP3 player I had one before and I lost it because it was so smalle and it was the NWA45 series. It went on sale last year around Christmas time for $50 less and I didn't take advantage of it so I lost out. But this year it went on sale for $50 less and it was the newer model which is the NWA50don't really see any difference except that newer technology I guess it works totally OK a the sound quality is amazing it has a lot of memory and I've already added a couple of playlists in their. It would be nice if it came with some type of carrying case or Clip on my shirt or a carrying case on a lanyard but other than that I absolutely love this thing It has Sony as its name and Sony has always been high quality stuff. This is the 4th Sony walkman that I have owned, 2 of them were CD players and now with technology the way it is 2 of them were MP3 players. I definitely recommend to a friend. The only thing is I don't know why the headphone is on the bottom that kinda is funny to me but it doesn't matter this thing is extremely high quality stuff

Great music players but the only negative thing about this player is the charge/data port. Its not your typical USB port. So if you lose the cable that comes with the player, you're gonna be in trouble.

Really love the FM Radio on this version despite having to use my wired beats headphones. When I go for walks love the ability of this model to use my wireless headsets. Also love the many fine tuning I can perform regarding to the sound down to the equalizer feature, ability to set the sound to sound like a vinyl record. Enjoy the expandable memory right now using the 256g Sd card. Love how the album covers come up on the display while the music is playing . In addition the touch screen makes for easy and smooth navigation with the touch screen.

Very good player, taken aback only by its poor interface and recognition of tags on songs. The sound is great, especially compared to any phone. Music sounds good and a lot of different equalizer and sound processor options let you find the best tune. Only issue is that the tags and albums aren’t always recognized, so you often have to go and fix things manually (on pc). Other than that, all good.

A tremendous improvement over prior digital music players I've had in the past. I wish I knew about the Sony Digital Walkman before I bought my last unit. I took the SD card from my previous player and put it in the Sony and WOW! Night and day. Bass response, separation, you name it, it improved. Two minor critiques: the touch screen is very sensitive so the locking feature is a must. Also, do not understand why the database needs to refresh every time the unit is turned on, but it refreshes quickly.

I bought this Sony Walkman NW-A55 player due mostly positive reviews. I purchased a 128gb card to increase storage. It was a little complicated initially to set up, but worked through it. I downloaded most of the playlists I have stored on my computer hard drive. The are recorded as wav files. I used a wired connection with my Sony 1AM2 headphones and the sound quality is excellent. Overall, very happy with my purchase.