Sony NWA S639 Review

Unless you have been living on mars there is no doubting you'll know what the BBC iPlayer is, what you may not know is that its spreading like a popular virus and infecting all sorts of devices and services. First iPlayer was web only, then Virgin TV took it and some handheld devices and now we see it on the Sony NWA-S639. Well when we say "see it" we mean it works running on the 16gb MP3 and MP4 player from Sony, not that Sony has any amazing deal with the BBC.

Back to the device up for review the Sony NWA-S639, this is a 16gb MP3 player pitched squarely at the iPod Nano market and that's quite an intense battle ground. measuring 42 x 89 x 7.5mm and styled a bit like a mobile phone (not accidentally) the Sony fits nicely in the hand, weighing 46grams it wont dent your top pocket as its around half the weight of a candybar mobile phone.

Sony have this strange way of building a base MP3 player and the adding features and styling to differentiate the upper models, the same is true here as the New S630 series looks not dissimilar to the S600 but you do get a much nicer brushed aluminium front panel and not plastic. At just over 7mm thick the 630 series is also a lot slimmer than previous models and is now not out of place amongst its competitors and in no way needing of a visit to fat fighters.

Inside its sturdy and yet seductive shell lies 16gb of storage good for 3,800 MP3 tracks and this being the most open Sony player yet it handles MP3, WMA and ACC audio without needing conversion or locking you into the old Sony Atrac formats. The S630 goes beyond being a mere MP3 player and claims to bull a fill DAP (digital audio player) supporting a few video formats including WM9, MPEG-4, MPEG-4/AVC and MP4, which is where the iPlayer comes in but more on that later.



We started by loading up the S630 series via USB, which was both quick and efficient. Gone are the days of having to load the bloated sonic stage software Sony used to push and now if you choose you can just drag and drop onto the device folders. Or our chosen approach which was to use windows media player 11, which many of you will already have and is also included on the disk supplied in the packaging. This simply detects the player and shows it as a portable device allowing you to sync all or part of the collection from your PC.

One we had a collection of files on the S639 it was time to fire up and being some serious testing. First impressions are good, the user interface is intuitive but weirdly we found it had a marmite effect in the office (you either love it or hate it), quite why was unclear but those with iPods hated the buttons and missed the click wheel interface, those who had avoided the Apple liked the Sony and thought it easy to use like a mobile. The menu system is quick to navigate and is a mixture of icon driven and lists which we soon got the hang of, our only gripe is why the settings are buried so deep in the menu system, its best to go down there and set everything 1st or you'll be in and out continually.

So onto some listening tests, we have to say that Sony keeps getting better and this latest evolution of their network walkman sounds great. testing with 192kbps MP3 tracks and our trusty Shure E2C earphones (not the ones supplied) music of all genres sounded great, punchy and yet balanced. Right up to the upper limits of volume and of course within what EU laws permit the Sony NWA-S639 delivers. Sony do packs the S630 series with an array of toys that while fashionable in Japan may not translate as well here, if you use the Top Gear cool wall rule explaining the magic of DSEE and the dynamic normaliser to a girl is sure to send her running. Plus in our tests these features made no noticeable difference to a well encoded MP3 file. Again we see Sony has not provided gapless playback which is a shame and will upset all those who listen to mixes and mashups as you will get a gap between each file.

One feature worth a mention is the SenseMe this lets the S639 sort out your music into categories such as Pop Ballad, Relax, Extreme, Energetic, Classical, Electronic, Acoustic, Daytime and Lounge. Nothing new as its been on the Sony Ericsson walkman phones for a while and seems to take ages to do its processing (several hours if you have the full amount of tracks) but it is quite accurate and a nice way to browse music.

New to this series is podcast support and this is accessed from the UI via a new podcast icon, its taken Sony a while to catch on to podcasts but we are placed they have now and you can easily find those that you have transferred to your network walkman in one place. If you run out of music and podcasts there is an FM radio which seems to have ok reception.

Video is the big seller for the NW-S630 series and the perhaps overblown iPlayer inegration. Now we though that iPlayer being stamped all over the adverts would mean you could connect to the BBC servers and watch TV. However with no WiFi or Bluetooth this was not on the cards. In fact what we are talking about here is downloading for a "mobile device" from iPlayer which gives you a 7 day license to watch the video on your Sony player. It is fairly manual but again you can use windows media player to sync over the iPlayer videos to the Sony and this works well.

Soon we were watching spooks on the 2.0" QVGA LCD screen in landscape mode, while its not a TV the 2" screen does its best and would easily help pass the time on a train journey or in the car (providing that you are not driving). Also another plus point for the Sony not immediately apparent is that it works well while inside a protective case, something you may want to consider if you use it a lot out and about. The buttons operate just fine through a sleeve or covering unlike the iPod.

Sony claim an audio only battery life of over 40 hours, but you should be aware this is with all the features switched off and with low bit rate MP3 files as well, so we'd doubt real life operation would see 40 hours, that said around 15 hours of playback over 3 days saw us at 50% battery usage. Also worth noting that the battery is non replaceable and while lithium Ion it will eventually die and lime the iPod you will need a new device if you don't want to send it on holiday for a new battery.

For those eco warriors dropping in to Lordpercy.com turn away from the screen now, there is a nifty feature for instant on, instead of waiting for it to boot up the Sony just goes into a sleep mode for 24hrs and leaps into life at the press of a button. this does consume some battery power (like standby mode) but it saves waiting all those extra seconds when you switch on.

Overall Sony have done a great job with the NWA-S639 or the Sony NWZ-S639FB to give it the exact title, perhaps this is Sony biggest failing when pitched against the iPod, but while style and marketing may not be up to the Apple standard the player is more than a match.

Plus the 16gb version is available right now (December 08) for just £88 and at that price its a steal.

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