Sony has gone ahead and made a very sexy Walkman -- the titanium bodied Network Walkman NWMS70D. When seated in its dock, it appears as a light phaser from Star Wars ready to set your eyes ablaze. Looks are stupefyingly deceiving, these days.
Sony has gone ahead and made a very sexy Walkman -- the titanium bodied Network Walkman NWMS70D. When seated in its dock, it appears as a light phaser from Star Wars ready to set your eyes ablaze. Looks are stupefyingly deceiving, these days.Hardwar- wise it is small, strong and well designed, containing a neat 256MB of internal memory and also taking Memory Stick Duo memory sticks. The controls are interestingly laid out, with one end sporting the play/track selectors, and the other being the volume/sound controls. A sizable lever is attached around the top and this is the hold switch, which, when activated, disables all buttons preventing any accidental button pushing. There is one major problem though, and that's the lack of a USB port -- opting instead for a proprietary dock design. This leaves us in the dark as to why it's called the 'Network' Walkman, as it won't be interfacing with anyone else's machine other than yours. You could carry the bulky dock around, perhaps.
Where this thing really takes a huge dip is with its software -- truly fear-provoking. You can't just copy your music onto this like a USB key and expect it to play. Terrific, a Walkman that can't play music. Well, not entirely. Music must go through the ridiculous 'check-in/check-out' system Sony has designed -- all music must be imported into the software, marked for 'checking out' to the player, and then re-encoded to get there. Having to convert all your music to Sony's proprietary ATRAC3 format is absolute idiocy -- blame that on the Digital Rights Management (DRM). Through this software, if you copy music to memory stick or CD you must be verified through the Internet via a digital ID in order to listen to the music. Oh yay...
Lack of music quality isn't a worry, though, as this Walkman’s primary perk is the insane sound. Until this day we never knew earphones could give your eyes such a kick from behind. With three levels of bass, it can be set to ultra eye booting -- and damn it feels good.
Its major slap in the pants –- the software-- however, overrides anything good about this device. It's shameful, and reading the manuals are a must if you're to know what you're doing. A great example of poor usability being if you wish to delete a song within a group on the player, it will kindly nuke the entire playlist for you. Surprise!
If the software/firmware were to receive a complete overhaul and it was given a USB port, this would be the beast to have.
Otherwise it's just a superbly expensive anti-portable drive with excellent sound and the pestering addition of DRM. As it stands, steer clear of the cow this device is.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012