NW-A45 3.1 Inch Touch Display High Resolution Audio Walkman 16 GB, 45 Hours Battery Life - Black

This is a great piece of hardware for music lovers. Been using it for almost a full year now. Not sure I'd necessarily call myself an audiophile but I care for my music and am always listening to something. As such I want high quality but without spending thousands on equipment. Basically I'm after the best possible audio quality from pro consumer gear. As I have begun adding more FLAC to my music library this device seemed like an obvious choice and it's been great. The battery life is fantastic, it takes a 128GB microSD no problem, and I've dropped it a fair few times and it's still going strong. The audio quality is astounding, it supports pretty much any format including lossless, it has a handy touchscreen, It does everything you could want from a dedicated audio player... as long as you don't mind fiddling with the software a bit. Other reviews have already covered the issue of the volume limiter. This appears to be mandated by the EU. You can disable the volume limit option in the settings, but it will still randomly turn your volume right down and throw up a box telling you to "check the volume" just completely out of the blue which, if you're immersed in a song, kills your vibe completely. According to online posts the volume itself is also still limited to a lesser extent even with the limiter option disabled. Another not so severe but yet still obvious oversight is the lack of ability to add a playlist. There's a menu option to do it, but when you try to use it you're told you need to connect your device to special software just to make playlists. This is frankly absurd when pretty much any basic cheapo MP3 player can make playlists. What's even worse is that the ability to create playlists is right there in the software, it's just disabled by default. The fix is to look up software called "SonyNWDestTool" by Rockbox. There's a version for Windows and Linux. It runs in the command line and with just a few simple keystrokes you can remove these limitations just by changing the "destination code" to "J" (Japan). Once you run the commands successfully, just reset the settings (no, this won't remove your music) and boom it's done. Takes 5 minutes. A few other features are unlocked when you do this too. For example it can now do in-line recording, although this requires a special cable. Once the limitations are removed this is a great device and I'm sure the true audiophiles will love not only the audio quality but all the little features it has like custom EQ as well as presets, the ability to upscale MP3 to lossless quality which works better than I expected, and some fun stuff like surround sound effects. It also has something called "ClearAudio+" which tries to automate the best way to output music, but if you want my opinion you're better off manually adjusting the EQ as many songs sound much better with manual adjustment. Other than the easily fixable software limitations this does have one small bug which is that it is very hit and miss with picking up album art, and in regards to FLAC, it is more often miss. So you get a lot of songs that just show a generic music logo instead of the album art. Hardly a huge deal but it seems like a basic oversight (much like the ability to create playlists). Another basic oversight is the lack of a clock. Seems like a very basic feature to me, and although you can set the time on the device, there's a box telling you explicitly that this setting is only used to manage the library, not to tell you the time. Again not an enormous deal, but how hard would it have been to just let me enable a clock on the top of the screen? Overall I recommend this to people serious about their music as long as you know your way around a computer enough to run a few commands. Paired with some decent (preferably wired) headphones, this gives you banging sound quality.

I dislike iTunes and I tried about four cheap and cheerful generic Chinese MP3 players before giving up and going for a quality brand. Other reviewers have criticised the Sony music management software but I find it works well and was easier to use than other products like Media Monkey. The Sony software (can’t remember the name), is also very good at finding album covers on the Net. Files can be easily dragged and dropped from a PC without the need for software anyway. I haven’t yet found an updating function on the software yet and I am copying all files across to the player when I need to update. The case is solid and works perfectly with an igadgitz flip up outer case (Amazon). A few niggles: The radio was virtually useless where I live in Surrey, which admittedly is behind a hill but even so I couldn’t get Radio 4 which is one of the strongest UK stations. Recommend that you ignore the radio if you are thinking of buying this product. Radio function is disabled when using Bluetooth headphones anyway so not much point in having it. Sound quality is very good and works a treat with my £90’ish AKG Bluetooth headphones (highly recommended). Worth noting that the sound equaliser function is disabled with Bluetooth devices. On board memory is supposed to be 16gB but available is actually 12gB. I bought a 128gB card as I hope to get all my music on to this player. The menu system is a little cranky but is quite limited which makes life easier. Main thing to remember is to read the instructions about swiping a finger on the screen to bring up top menus and settings etc. which makes life easier. All in all very good - so far...........!

Finally got myself one of these, after lusting after it for some time but not being able to justify the outlay. I used to own a Cowon D2-DAB and that too was a great little device, but the need to use a stylus to operate the touchscreen, and the limitation on memory kind of forced me to use my smartphone(s) instead as it was just easier. I recently sold on the D2, so was looking for a replacement, since while my smartphone with the DSub (Android) app gave me remote access to my *entire* music collection remotely (via the Subsonic Music Server I run on my NAS), the phone is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Battery life degredation being the main concern since i'm not on contract, and the chance of being able to afford a £500+ upgrade once the thing dies is unlikely in the short-term future. Therefore a dedicated music player with good battery life, that's not going to premeturely "age" my phone (Xperia XZ1 Compact) was the order of the day. Ironically, the NW-A45 shares many similar design elements to the XZ1-Compact (one of the initial reasons I was drawn to it in the first place). It's a neat, small device, about 1/2 the size of the smartphone, and fits neatly in the pocket. I purchased the base model (without headphones) with 16GB internal memory and purchased a 128GB memory card to enable me to put the smartphone's existing 256GB card in the NW-A45. The UI on the unit could be simpler, but once you get the hang of it, it's certainly not obstructive. My biggest gripe with it is that there are a lot of "sub-category" menus that could of been consolidated down, to make configuration a bit easier, and there's also a few minor "engrish" translation issues in a few places, but nothing too serious. With regards embedded (or seperate) album art, it going to need to be under about 800k per image, and in 'baseline-JPEG' format. The player won't load 'progressive' format JPG's, and also seems to baulk on files much over 800k in size. YMMV on this issue. Likewise, Sony's 'Music Center' app for this device suffers from the same issue(s), but will (as far as I can tell) correct any imported artwork if nessecary. The fact it plays DSD files as well as all the popular music formats like MP3, AAC/M4A, FLAC, and even WMA and WAV files is really good. Shame it doesn't support OGG format, but again, this is rare in the wild too, so not a massive issue, unless of course your music library is in those formats. It incorporates a traditional FM radio, which is a nice addition, but it would of been better served / nicer to have seen a DAB radio included instead. Where I live, I can get a total of 9 (nine) FM radio stations, whereas DAB radio offers at least double this number, and possibly more. My Cowon D2 which was at least 12 years old when I sold it had DAB functionality built in, so IMHO, Sony missed a trick here. Another minor issue is the charging port / data connector. It looks somewhat like a very skinny HDMI port, but is referred to as a "WM-Port" by Sony (Walkman Port). This is no doubt an effort to tie you in to Sony approved after-market accessories / add-ons / docks and the like. I intensely dislike efforts like this as it limits your options. For example, have a phone charger you carry with you or a data cable for similar use? Your not going to be using it with this device, without an adapter. Said adapter is available only from Japan, and costs approx £68 for a small piece of plastic & metal to convert the proprietry "WM-Port" to USB Micro-A or USB-C for example. Over-complication for sure. Finally, the port itself is unprotected from dust / water ingress. In Japan, you can get dust covers for this port, but anywhere else in the world and your S.O.L. Since the MicroSD card slot has a protective door, would it of increased production costs so much, to include a similar feature for the charging dock? I somehow doubt it. Another opportunity missed here. On the whole, aside from these minor issues, it's a great little unit. Probably not up to the standards of Sony's £500 offering, but that's a lot of money for a PMP device anyway, and probably more geared towards the niche audiophile type anyhow. This unit works well, sounds equally as good as, if not better than the smartphone, and it's battery life will last a lot longer. Not sure it will last up to the "45 hours" quoted by Sony, and that is based on 128Kbps files anyway, and so, again, YMMV. Finally, to allay some fears as posted in other reviews here; It has been quoted here that the SD card is "difficult to remove", and requires "long fingernails or tweezers" to get it out. I'd like to debunk this right now. The SD card slot works in *exactly* the same fashion as on Sony smartphones. i.e: you push the card in (upside-down) with your fingernail more than required until it clicks into place. The slot being spring-loaded will then partially eject the card when you repeat the proceedure to remove it. All you then need to do is hook your fingernail inboard of the lip of the SD card at the edge and hook it out. Easy, simple, my mother could do it blindfolded and she's no tech-wizard. Secondly, the quality of the responsiveness of the touch-screen has also been critisized in some reviews. This is a £150 PMP device, not a £500-600+ smartphone. It's not *quite* as responsive as my XZ1-Compact, but it is better than my £80 Samsung J1-Mini. If you avoid stabbing and jabbing at the touchscreen it will work fine. It may be more awkward for those with bigger fingers, but for those with average-size hands, who also treat the device with some respect during operation, it will be responsive enough. Your expectations need to be tempered somewhat by the price of the device, and it's intended use. So in summary, while not *perfect* in every respect. If your looking for a (relatively) simple to use, no nonsense Music player, you could do far worse than the NW-A45. It also has NFC / Bluetooth, and works well with the SBH-54 bluetooth headset (also by Sony). It's even possible to have said headset connected to this and your phone at the same time, which is nice. Alas the NW-A45 *won't* pair with the XZ1-Compact via bluetooth, which is a shame, but there are ways around that by use of data transfer cables and the like. All-in-all 4 out of 5 stars, and glad I've now taken the pressure off my smartphones for music duties. Reccomended.

This is an amazing MP3 player and has taken me right back to where I started with portable music devices - the first one I had was a Sony Walkman stereo cassette player in a very similar shade of blue many, many years ago! Over recent years myself and members of my family have owned Creative MP3 players. Sadly mine stopped working recently. I am a little old-fashioned and like to keep my devices separate rather than having everything on my mobile phone, so the hunt was on for a new MP3 player to replace the Creative Zen that no longer worked. There is now a limited choice of MP3 players on the market, but I liked the fact that Sony, a trusted name in this field, was still producing them and that they were getting good reviews from other customers. I finally settled on the Sony NW-A45 because of the reviews I had read. The NW A-45 is a well built player, sturdy and feels good in the hand. The screen is a good size and the buttons are easily accessible on the right-hand side, with on/off button, volume up and down, play/pause/fast forward/fast rewind. On the left-hand side is the slot for extra memory, which I would recommend as the player itself only holds 16 GB. At the bottom of the player is the socket for the headphones, socket for the charger and somewhere to attach a wrist strap if required. The charging wire is Sony's own, rather than a universal USB connection, so another wire to take on holiday with you, but that's not a big problem. The screen is bright and easy to read. Loading music on to the player is easy and each track is stored in the correct order that you find on the album (some players seem to only store and play-back alphabetically, which is really annoying, but not so this player). You can access your music by album or artist in alphabetical order and using the touchscreen to scroll down to your required album or artist is easy and quick. The touchscreen seems to be quite responsive and quick to respond, even with a screen protector on it. The sound quality of the NW-A45 is impressive and very clear, not that I am much of an expert. The battery seems to last very well and certainly would be able to last on a long-haul flight and into the first few days of the holiday. The NW-A45 also has bluetooth, so if you have a bluetooth speaker you can easily attach the player to that and attach it to the car if you have bluetooth there as well. I am very pleased with my new MP3 player and look forward to many years of happy listening with it.

I loved my Apple products when I got them; Classic (x2), Micro, Touch, iPad and iPad 'something else' but what let them down was the software interface. iTunes has a problem. Enter the device that is better, the Sony NW-A45, or A40 series. It talks to grown-ups who know their way around a computer and doesn't rely upon a proprietary application for every transaction. When I want to put my radio plays and recordings from CD onto this device, I can and put them where I want. I now control directories and how they are displayed. I dictate the folders and can enter each one at my choosing. This is across 128g and I intend to create a library of all other files on other micro SD's. Then there's the quality, functionality, size and control. Control is better than iPod as it has buttons. Anything wrong? Nothing so far. Anything that could be better? Their proprietary software is quite good but seems to be of a totally different build to the device and I think this is where I came in. UPDATE: 19/5/2018. I absolutely love this device. I've got a nice Inorlo cover for it (not easy as I live in the Canaries which is an Amazon delivery dead spot) and a pair of MEE IEMs. External buttons are excellent and to me prove that Apple and others are daft to exclude them. I also got a 256gb card for it which now confines my much loved ipods to 'in car' duties and playing the audiobooks I bought on itunes Apple hasn't lost (so far). The Sony Music Centre Software is actually very good. Unlike iTunes, you can tame it to do what you want. It uses Gracenote to fulfill the details when ripping and has a charming obsession with anything under a directory on your PC called 'Music' coupled with, bizarrely, language learning tapes. I have Audiobooks and BBC radio shows so it can be a bit tricky but all are easily corrected, unlike in iTunes. I've built the file structure completely how I want it and it works very well for me. There is also MediaMonkey should you want to play more with the file properties. The flexibility and speed of doing this compared to being faced with greyed out references and the word 'cloud' on your PC is the one of the reasons I bought this but the device is good in it's own right. Bluetooth very impressive and has a quick connection. Volume is also controlled from the device. Is there a fault? Well when I pick it up after last having played it 7 hours previously (time between dog walks) and press the play button, the player needs to have 2-3 seconds to wake up. It does sound a tone to indicate that it is ready and recognises therefore that Toby is indeed in need of another walk and I want to listen to 'Cabin Pressure' but it is feint and not up to the rest of the high standard this device has set. The whole thing reminds me of an iRiver device that I have in a box somewhere and how good I thought it was at the time. It was and this is better. Highly recommended. PS: My 256 is nearly full. I think it was all those Andy Hamilton radio boxsets.

This is not an audiophile review, more from the point of someone who has been into hi-fi for years and has owned a number of players. Firstly, this is smaller than I imagined, even after looking at youtube reviews - bear that in mind. Despite being plastic, it's solid and well made. However, at this price point I feel it should be an aluminium chassis tbh. The screen is incredibly clear. Not sure why some say it's a fingerprint magnet, it's no worse than any other touch screen device? The UI takes no more than a couple of minutes to get used to, and transferring files is a simple drag & drop, or copy / paste. Despite the EU volume cap, it drives my Audio Technica MT50X cans quite well. You will be toward the upper volume level though. Radio works well enough and easy to use. If you need something light, fairly priced with excellent sound - this is for you. However, if you're feeling spendy and want a far more complete player, go for the Pioneer XDP-100R-K. Yes, it's a good bit more money, but imo unsurpassed at the price point. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pioneer-XDP-100R-K-Resolution-Digital-Player-x/dp/B018VONFEE

I'd been using Apple for many years, first with a Nano and then the Touch and I'd been very happy until about six months ago when everything started going haywire. Songs I knew I'd bought from the Apple store would disappear from my account, and tracks I'd dragged over from CD would suddenly be 'unavailable' to play. It all started around the time I tried a subscription to Apple Music, so I think it might be to do with copywrite issues (who knows?). Anyway, as a dance teacher, having tracks disappear is not an ideal situation so I decided it was time to leave Apple behind and move onto something more reliable. After a lot of review reading, I settled on the Sony NW-A45 and I couldn't be happier with it. It took me a little while to get my head around how to build playlists but once you know how it's simple. There is no option to create a playlist on the device, which is a little annoying, but I've got round it by creating several playlists on the PC with just one song in, and dragging them over to the device so they're waiting when I need them. You can add and remove songs and change the order on the device, so that's all good. I was able to drag across my entire music library from iTunes, which was great, but some of my songs were only in Media Player and couldn't be dragged (at least not by me!) That was solved by downloading the Sony programme that comes with the player (Music Centre for PC), which then synced my Windows Media Player library into itself without me even asking and from there it took literally seconds to move all the tracks to the player. I really wish I'd made the change months ago when I first started having problems with Apple as I could have saved myself a lot of stress. I would recommend this product to anyone looking for a simple to use and efficient music player.

Ever since Apple stopped making the iPod classic I have been after a good alternative. I have been using an iPod Touch for a little while, where all that was used was the music app with music I added. All apps I could remove were. Wi-Fi was never used as all I wanted was a music player with blue tooth. I am not sure if any of the 3 classics I previously owned had bluetooth as I never had anything to stream to. However as I buy my music on CD and import in Apple Lossless (ALAC) whatever I got now had to play these files. On paper this little sony NW-A45 did everything I needed. Played Apple Lossless, had Bluetooth that I though would do for the car as my Pioneer in car Hi-Fi only has aux through bluetooth. I don't have bluetooth headphones as I prefer wired, so for me bluetooth is to connect to the car for streaming. As bluetooth speakers never seem to be good quality in pairs for good stereo these have never appealed. So I though this little device would be great. I will come back to the bluetooth side and it's not good! Sound through headphones though is excellent. I have some Sony MDR10's and some Sennheiser Urbanites through both the sound is awesome, head and shoulders above any Apple device. Space is for storage is as good as the SD card fitted and as I have already more than doubled the space my ipod has it is on a winner already. Importing playlists from my itunes library has been easy on my mac using Sony software, however Albums display in an interesting manner in that some show on the Sony as two or more, especially if guest artists are dueting with the main album version. I have single cd compilations split into 3 sections! However I am mainly using the playlist part and songs on shuffle. Playlists will show as the playlist was done in my itunes library I am just modifying the title slightly. In ituness have all playlists by one artist such as Elbow under a playlist folder so it keeps them grouped togetether. These folders do not show on the Sony. If you drag the whole folder over this is created as one huge playlist, so if you want the separate playlist as you did it drag it on its own. I then find the playlist file on the sd card and rename with artist name in front to keep the albums grouped together by one artist. So far so good, all of my artwork for album covers has come across as has titling etc. Bluetooth connecting in car was main thing I wanted as two thirds of my listening is done in the car connected through bluetooth with only a third usually at work or when traveling on trains etc through headphones. I would say if like me you want it this way forget it! Bluetooth connecting in my car to the in car Pioneer system is pants! The ipod touch I have with worse sound than the sony has excellent bluetooth and autoconnects as soon as the car starts. Bluetooth just works. The Sony does not. If I'd known this I would not have bought it. I'd have have stumped up extra for the £300 pioneer. To make the Sony connect you have to go hunting through the settings each time and manually click on the device it has paired with. In theory it then just connects. In paractice it depends on how it feels. Sometimes it connects perfectly. Other times you get an error on the device saying it failed. If you are lucky and it has connected if you have to stop for anything, petrol, shopping etc you may as well forget listening again when you go back to the car as it will fail connection again. A friend has the £300 pioneer which seemed like an android version of the touch but connects to his car perfectly. However as the Sony is very hit and miss with bluetooth I wish I'd gone for the piuoneer. Bluetooth never autoconnects as the ipod touch does, or my friends Pioneer does. You never know from one time to the next if you can get the Sony to connect at all. I am now left with a few choices keep using the ipod just for the car or buy a separate bluetooth device to connect through the headphone socket. I don't like music on my phone as I look forward to times I can ignore the phone which is why I like separate devices. So my samsung device with a hi-res app on will not be used. At some point I feel I will go for the Pioneer XDP-30 which annoyingly I see today is even cheaper on Amazon at £229. So my advice to anyone reading this far. If all you want is personal music through headphones the Sony is great, buy it. If you like me want it for use in the car don't! I feel I wasted my money and have to now look at other options. Don't take the chance that you will have the same issues as me.

Dopo aver posseduto molti lettori mp3 Ho voluto acquistare un lettore ad alta risoluzione, ed ho trovato questo. Dopo più di un mese di utilizzo intenso praticando sport sono contentissimo dell’acquisto!! Il lettore e’ molto bello costruito bene ed i controlli laterali sono comodissimi in ogni situazione! I menù di gestione sono facili ed intuitivi e ricchi di impostazioni audio veramente ben fatte! Il comparto audio e’ il punto di forza del Sony!! Ho utilizzato il lettore con diverse cuffie tutte di qualita’ alta sia wireless che a filo e sono rimasto sorpreso dalla qualità audio percepita! Audio ben bilanciato con bassi molto profondi e precisi ma mai invasivi i medio alti con delle buone cuffie sono nitidi e ben calibrati! Per le cuffie bluetooth vi sono diverse modalità di trasmissione audio ad alta fedelta’ !! Con i brani DSD va benissimo così come per i FLAC ed i classici MP3!! La durata della batteria rispetto ad altri lettori non Hi-Res che posseggo e’ molto buona!! Rapporto qualità prezzo ottimo!! Per chi ama la musica, e la qualità audio acquisto consigliatissimo!! Complimenti ad Amazon per l'imballaggio perfetto e la rapidità di consegna!!

Ho acquistato questo lettore mp3 Sony da oltre un anno ormai e posso darne un'opinione ben fondata. Il prodotto è contenuto in una scatola non proprio bellissima né completa: mancano infatti gli auricolari [esiste, se non erro, una versione che li comprende]. È presente, invece, il cavo di ricarica, purtroppo di tipo proprietario [mentre dal lato del caricatore ha una porta USB tipo A], che però personalmente già avevo avendo anni fa posseduto un precedente lettore mp3 Sony, poi rubatomi. La qualità dei materiali è ottima: il corpo è in alluminio spazzolato e colorato mentre lo schermo è in vetro. Il lettore è piuttosto compatto ma sufficientemente grande da ospitare uno schermo effettivamente utilizzabile con le dita: a scanso di paure sono comunque presenti tutti i tasti fisici del caso sul lato sinistro del lettore [destro per chi lo guarda]. La qualità del segnale veicolato dal jack da 3,5 mm è ottima, se si usano auricolari o cuffie di alta qualità, e sono disponibili diversi profili di miglioramento della qualità del suono oltre che di equalizzazione. Il lettore funziona anche con cuffiette o altoparlanti bluetooth ed è dotato di NFC per la connessione rapida senza fili con dispositivi compatibili, nonché di ricevitore radio FM [con auricolari con filo]. La batteria dura parecchio, oltre 30 ore e la memoria - da 16 GB - è espandibile con schede MicoSD [all'inizio è libera, non vengono precaricati file d'esempio se non tre musicali]. Il lettore dispone di tutte le classiche funzioni [casuale, o shuffle, ripetizione di seguito, ecc.], compresa quella di visualizzazione del testo delle canzoni in caaso di file compatibili. Insomma, è un ottimo prodotto per chi desidera [ancora] un lettore di musica estremamente portatile capace di buone prestazioni, tecnologicamente al passo e, specialmente, indipendente dal telefono cellulare.

ES JUSTO LO QUE NECESITABA, PUEDES CREAR LISTAS DE REPRODUCCIÓN Y MUCHO MÁS. ES PERFECTO PARA ESCUCHAR TUS CANCIONES Y ORDENARLAS

ses kalitesi oldukça iyi. inear monitörlerde daha başarılı. çeşitli ses gelistirme ozellikleri var. hiçbiri istediğim sesi duyuramadi. equalizer algoritması oldukça iyi. custom olarak kendiniz ayarlarsaniz ses kalitesi nefis oluyor. bluetooth kulaklikta dinlerken ses geliştirme özellikleri aktif olmuyor kaydi olduğu gibi aktarıyor. yalniz bir ayrintiyi belirteyim taktığınız sd kartin icindeki muzikleri görmüyor sony karti takinca kendisi folderlar olusturuyor. sd karttaki müzikleri music folderina tasirsaniz problemsiz görüyor ve en ust desteklenen 400gb. indirimli fiyat icin de amazona teşekkürler

I had a Apple nano but it only had 16 but with my Sony l can added 128gb card and it was so easy to add all my music from my computer the sound is great and I can personalise it to my liking I had to buy different headphones as my others didn’t sync with the Sony but that was ok the Sony picked up my Samsung sound bar ,The Sony is easy to put into my pocket love it.