Sony NWE394 B 8GB Walkman MP3 Player Black

I don't get the complaints about this product. I owned a previous Sony mp3 player model about five years ago. It lasted years and eventually died because I love my music to death. I am rough on these things. I need to have my music everywhere, especially when working or in the car. I tried a tablet for a couple of years after that but it wasn't nearly portable enough, nor did it have the tactile buttons that are really needed if you are going to navigate music menus in the car safely, So a week ago I bought a real piece of junk trying to go cheap, specifically a Thor MP3 player, and it made me realize that there are some things you can't go cheap on (you can find my one-star review on that page). So I spent a bit more and returned to Sony, this wonderful new version of their old player. It comes with a PC music organizing program page link (Media Go) that helps keep the loading process organized and will keep the music on your PC when you're done, which is handy. My only complaint is that it could not keep up with how fast I dropped my music files on it (transferring from iTunes) so I had to work with it over two sessions to get all the music on it I wanted. I have a considerable collection, and culled it down to my favorites from the 80s through today, Currently listening to Taylor Swift on a portable speaker connected via a wire as I write this. I have now listened to music through headphones, a car cassette adapter, and the speaker in my office, The sound is terrific. I simply don't get the complaints. Turn off the bass boost, set the equalizer, and go. The capacity is considerable, and nothing much has changed as far as the scrolling menus go. Sort through the music alphabetically by artist or album. You can use the control disc to tap through the menus to choose music or the radio, set the equalizer, etc. It has photo and ebook functionality that I don't use. I just know that it is easy to use and sounds great, and it's about $50 cheaper than the iPod Shuffle equivalent. The device had trouble reading the tags on some iTunes music and in some isolated cases, I had to reload it from the account or re-rip some CDs, which corrected the problem. I attribute this to Apple, which does not like to play well with others. Bottom line: I had to work with it a few hours to set it up but now I'm ready to rock.I love it, like I loved the one before it. Read more

It is like the Playstation 3 controller being compared with the Playstation 4 controller. This feels more fragile than the previous model, but it is lighter and brings upgrades that are just as subtle as the PS4 controller's. The plastic is different, hence the different feel, and actually may be the same as the PS4 Controller plastic. The controls are different: Volume and Hold buttons are now individual. The menu navigation has slight changes in a way that would annoy someone who had the previous model, but once you are used to it, or if you have never had one of these, you won't care at all. It runs fairly smoothly so far, but I have not loaded my own music yet(The 5 free tracks were never mentioned on the other reviews). These are preliminary observations mind you, but another thing I like is that there is a simple "Bass Boost" now which is set to "On" out of the box. I suck at Equalizers. I don't really understand what the flip I am doing with them so on the last model I was never able to use the features it had properly. It had different presets which mostly sounded the same, but had the option of saving 3 custom settings. Let me tell you, if all you want is a little more bass for your Miles Davis or Vera Lynn tracks, you won't give a toss about any of this. I am aware that had I not kept my previous one in the car it would still work today and maybe it wouldn't have had the multiple software lockups, which I must say happened with the iPod Nano 3, although much less. Someone stole it. That was the last Apple product I was impressed by....but I digress. This is as simple as you can get while still maintaining quality, and also it comes with 5 free songs, by artists you may not recognize, but free music better than what you would have gotten with your latest Windows Operating System. In summary they may have over reached themselves in some ways with the controls, but in most ways this is less annoying than the previous one, simplifying by giving a button one task. While it is more expensive than the some of the stuff listed it is what it is. A specialist that does specific things, and does them all well. Read more