Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Recommendations for basic 2/4GB mp3 player-Sony?

Feb 17, 2009 10:51AM PST

My ipod nano died a watery death, and I'm looking for a replacement. All I need is something basic to play music and podcasts.

I was looking at the Sony walkman found here, and had some questions for folks who know these players:
http://www.epinions.com/prices/Sony_NWZ_S616F_4_GB_Digital_Media_Player

1) What kind of rewind/fast-forward do they have? I listen a lot to podcasts, and need to be able to cover ground fairly quickly.

2) Do they have decent bookmarking? that is, if I'm 1 hour into a podcast and shut it down, will it remember where I was? Or can I make it do this?

3) Is there another decent brand in the same (~$80-120) price range? I looked at some of the Sandisk players, but what I found online was the REW/FF was pretty pitiful. The two points above are pretty important to me.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Don't buy Sony!
Feb 24, 2009 10:08AM PST

Don't buy Sony? Cute, until you try to use it that is. Let's buy ipod, crown, sandisk instead!

- Collapse -
Nothing wrong with them...
Feb 24, 2009 5:40PM PST

...but really, for podcast-heavy use there is precious little to beat the iPod 'out of the box', especially as few other players offer two-way syncing of playcount info.

The Sony's are generally very good music players - stable audio performance, good quality, excellent EQ - but the transport controls have always been 'traditional Sony' in that they never actually got their head around the fact that people might want to ffwd/rwd around more than a 4-minute song.

- Collapse -
Reply To: Recommendations for basic 2/4GB mp3 player-Sony?
Feb 26, 2009 12:40PM PST

I have a Sony NWZ-A818 (8GB flash player) and I've been very pleased with it. As far as player's go, I'd recommend any player in the A-Series beginning with the NWZ-A810 series.

As far as fast forward and rewind goes, it is fairly fast as long as you pause the player. Based on my experience, when paused it scans at a rate of about 1 minute per second and when it is playing the rate is about 5 seconds per second.

As far as bookmarking goes, the player will resume playing from where it stopped unless you sync the player with your music management software. If you connect the player to your computer for charging you can resume from where you left off by just hitting the Option button and selecting "Now Playing" from the menu.

I hope this helps.