Silva Bokis Previews the NW-A800
An exclusive NW-A800 video review by our good friend Silva Bokis. This is definitely a must-see.
Forum Posts:
- Questions about the GYM bug
- problem with sonicstage software
- [Release] SAM - Sony Audio Master v05beta
- What's in Your Audio Player?
- Film you have just watched?
- Re-converting ATRACs?
- Walkman NW-S795F [PROBLEM PLEASE HELP]
- Want to buy the 30GB NW-HD5 or additional battery?
- Where to order the White PSP!
- PSP Firmware v3.52 Has Arrived!
wow, looks like I just found the replacement for my A1000.
the change time between menus us well insane. congrats sony on a great product and thanks to Silva for the video.
The device looks damn good. better than what I thought with just seeing the photos.
silva bokis,
good job. you must be lucky to get a chance to playaround with the device
LED backlight is the cool thing they have done. this is the reason for more battery life. LED backlight brings extra brightness with less power consumption. vaio sz premium models have this.
Great, now Sony killed their remote accessories, by not including a remote jack on these. Way to go Sony, killing your own accessory lineup.
[...] via AtracLife.com [...]
This player is much better than I thought. It seems that the NW-A800 uses the WM-PORT, this means that you can use the BlueTooth adapter and other accessories Sony released with the NW-S600/NW-S700F series.
Have the slide show with the music accompaniment is a nice feature that they included. Additionally, I like the fact that they allow you to create playlist in the player. This is something I wish the NW-S700 would do.
Thank you Silva for the video preview.
Looks nice, though coming from the iPod I can see a few things I’d want to change.
First: the directional pad is easy, but that could be a real hassle for flipping through a large library. Hopefully it has a smart progressive scroll speed.
As for video: the need to manually set the rotation of the display is annoying. If you have a mixture of 4:3 and widescreen videos, you may find yourself visiting the options every time you want to watch a different-ratio clip. I would have hoped for an accelerometer that automatically adjusted the display.
Also, I really do hope you can tell it to hide the status bar for the video. I wouldn’t want to watch a movie with part of the clip obscured for the entire duration!
It sounds like I’m ragging on it, but I do like the A800. It’s sexy, has great battery life, and has some good interface touches. I can only hope the next iPod nano uses a 2-inch screen and adds video support.
Yeah, as others have said, it looks really good. The interface seems lightning fast (the total opposite of my nwhd3!) and the video might actually be worthwhile, even on such a small screen. I don’t think the orientation is a big deal really - why not just leave it on widescreen and let 4:3 videos have black bars on the side? I’m very jealous of Mr. Bokis for getting to toy around with one.
It *is* a shame that Sony still don’t understand the importance of good software and its relation to the experience of using/owning a DAP. But, hopefully they’ll integrate all features into a smoother, more reliable and more intuitive package soon, perhaps when they release a new large-capacity player later this year (I hope!).
Jonathan, regarding scrolling speed, if you press left/right whilst browsing through the library, you will switch to the next letter. For example with the cursor on “Akon”, pressing right would take you to the first artist beginning with “B”. Also, mentioned in one of the previews was a full screen mode, implying removal of the status bar.
Overall I am quite pleased with the player, and the UI is the closest of any rival to matching the iPod’s simplicity (IMO one of its biggest strengths). Lack of noise-cancelling is a negative, especially when the lower positioned s7xx series has it. The 8GB limit rules out this player for me, but the new features of this player mean that the forthcoming HDD Walkmans might finally be some decent competition for other PMP’s.
One thing to stress is that the sound quality on the NW-A800 is superb. The bundled headphones aren’t the usual throwaways that you get with most MP3 players.
thx for the great video!
i noticed that there’s a “trash bin” option under the playlist menu, so we can delete stuff from the device directly?
dealbreaker for me will be whether it will be able to output video to a tv like the zen. any ideas if this is possible with an accessory through the usb port?
with regards to the headphones, seems like a burden on the price, i already own shures, will there be a separate package w/o them at a cheaper price..
thanks for any speculation
VERY NICE. Oh, I also just want to point out a few things.
First off, pata2001, what are you talking about?
Second, where are all of the people bashing it? A week or so ago, there was around 50 posts totally insulting this product, and now there are only a handful of comments? Looks like the pessimists got cooked…
Good job, Sony! Now we just need to work on marketing this thing!
Re: display of video status bar.
There is a ‘Display’ option in the menu. Set that to ‘off’ and the video status bar disappears automatically after a few seconds play.
So, is it metal- or plastic-bodied?
I noticed you can scroll by genre, too. So this param is not included in “search” only, which I don’t care.
I’d like to see more menus, could you post some good res screens?
I wont be buying one for the following reasons:
1/ It’s still tied to the horible SonicStage
2/ User interface still sucks like it does on my NW-A3000 (bookmarks and playlists for example)
3/ The lousy support from Sony on the my NW-A3000, they like producing these things, then droppping support from them so soon into the product lifecycle.. No more NW-A3000 updates?
I suspect my next portable player will be a Creative one.. Sorry Sony, you need to get your act together and fundamentally change the way you operate, if you wish to make any inroads into the portable player market.
I take back what I said before about the device from the spy pics, this device looks great. Does it also have the many sound effect features like the hard drive players?
Evan he means remotes like the minidisc lineup had/has. Pata remotes are fine on devices which have limited screens, or no screens at all, like some cd players, but for devices such as mp3 players, most people would not bother with them, since then there would be no point of having the screen on the device. I am sure you could argue that it is better to use the remote and prevent the player’s screen from turning on to conserve battery life, fine but if that is the case, why not buy a smaller 2-4 gig flash player with a smaller screen?
as for additional accessories, the WM port at the bottom means that there will be many addons, like bluetooth, speakers, etc.
mdsjack, it is metal by the looks of the pictures, since the sides and rear seem to be identical to the previus A series, I would venture to guess the front is metal as well. Sony probably thought this over well and wanted to avoid scratches on the front.
1, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH SONICSTAGE!
2, I love the look of the A800, good work Sony.
My HD1 is still going strong & I do use the full 20 gig’s so I too hope the new HD series whenever they arrive look as good as this.
Great video preview! Now I’m even more tempted to buy one asap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn86nBdKP0s
Sony Add
Unless you can’t tell, or haven’t used it lately, Sonic Stage is no longer horrible, crap, or anything else. They have been able to make a successful music program. I use it, and I like it way more than the other 5-10 music programs I have tried.
Very nice interface. Looks really good. Unfortunately, it’s arriving a little late to make much of a difference, and there’s always the thing that the press and many bloggers simply refuse to accept anything not by Apple as better. I’ve seen comments that the interface looks “cluttered”. Just wait till Apple uses something very similar in the next iPods and displaying cover art will not be cluttering the screen anymore. In any case, I’ve always been of the opinion that the A series interface was more intelligent than the iPod’s, and this seems to follow on that one, just adding more speed. I have the iPod and, if you discount its annoying lags, it’s no faster for me to get to a certain track with the scroll wheel than with the A series’ combination of vertical and horizontal navigation. Plus, it’s much easier to jump back to the now playing screen on the Walkman, and you don’t have to suffer from those annoying backtrackings of the iPod just to change artist or genre. It’s true that playlisting is still flawed, but that’s also true, in a way, with the iPod. The ideal would be something like the old Rio Karma’s, in which the now playing list becomes the “on-the-go” playlist, to which you can add tracks, or from which you can delete etc. Sony just needed to add gapless playback for MP3 and have a bigger capacity version, and I’d dump my iPod.
Oh, to Silva, if he can answer: what happens with PSP videos formatted for widescreen? They’re still 320×240, just with some kind of flag informing the player that screen ratio is 16:9. Do they show distorted on this player?
While everybody is praising the menu speed… I think what you’ve got to remember is that the Walkman only has 4 music items on it. The lag in menu times on the NW-A3000 only originates from having a considerable amount of music on the hard drive, at least in my experience. While I’m apprehensive, the product is looking good - just add at least another 12gb onto the storage space and I’m sold.
[...] Silva Bokis Previews the NW-A800 [ATRACLife] [...]
[...] Silva Bokis Previews the NW-A800 [ATRACLife] [...]
[...] Silva Bokis Previews the NW-A800 [ATRACLife] [...]
[...] Silva Bokis Previews the NW-A800 [ATRACLife] [...]
[...] Silva Bokis Previews the NW-A800 [ATRACLife] [...]
Japan gets a8xx series…!!
japan sonystyle price is as follows,
2GB:20800 Yens
4GB:26800 Yens
8GB:32800 Yens
this price is just 3000 yens above its apple counterpart , ipod nano. but with supposedly good sound quality, video capablity, good earphones and great battery life !!
US readers can expect the same price range, i.e 25 $ above ipod nano when it reaches there.
SORRY BUT AFTER 8 MONTHS OF PROBLEMS GETTING STUFF ON MY NWA3000 AND MY DAIGHTERS ALSO AND THEN AFTER 14 MONTHS OF HARDLY ANY USE THE BATERY HAS ALL BUT GIVEN UP THE GHOST,£96.35 just for a replacement battery to fix myself (after months of trying to source one and sony themselves not replying or caring)No I would have liked to have had another sony player ,the sound is excellent after turning off the sound limiter But No I will not be treated like my money and purchase isnt important and getting another below par product.
Off to creative or somewhere I guess. BYEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Here’s another video preview from GenerationMP3.com:
http://www.generationmp3.com/index.php/2007/03/07/5654-conference-de-presse-sony-et-preview-du-nw-a800-par-gmp3
Ascariss (12:43:57) sed:
Pata remotes are fine on devices which have limited screens, or no screens at all, like some cd players, but for devices such as mp3 players, most people would not bother with them, since then there would be no point of having the screen on the device. I am sure you could argue that it is better to use the remote and prevent the player’s screen from turning on to conserve battery life, fine but if that is the case, why not buy a smaller 2-4 gig flash player with a smaller screen?
————
A big screen is nice for a nice informative display and browsing around, but no substitute for a remote. I don’t think battery life plays a big part in the need for a remote for anyone, really. Just basic practicality when on the go; simply to stop taking it out of your pocket whenever you want to do something basic like change a track, volume, etc. Buying a smaller flash-based device with smaller screen is not a solution for the times when you want to use the device to play videos. Basic remotes are useful.
just because the remote port is gone does not mean sony will not have any, the WM port is there and sony could decide to create some kind of remote to with that.
some may want to use older remotes, but that is just pointless since they were never intended to be used with newer devices such as the A series (1000, 3000 or 800)
I agree with Pata. I really liked using a remote with my A3000. It’s much easier, if I want to jump just 1 track, or an album. But if the menu will be really fast, it will be a smaller problem. What I really miss from the A series (and all sony players) is a “Now playing” playlist, so I could enqueue new tracks to it, without interrupting the current ones.
Ive got the first flash drive by Sony and still got it for snowboarding and its never given me trouble..Sonic stage is ok..My wife has a i pod and I find it just as easy as i tunes .
The only thing I would say is can you connect it to your tv to show pictures or play movies on ??
This would make me buy it..being able to got some where plug the sony in and watch a flim that would be the idea Via HDI or some other universal cable.