Sony NW-A306 Walkman 32GB Hi-Res Portable Digital Music Player (Renewed)

CARO pero lo mejor en audio

Before I say anything about the player itself, I want to say that the seller, Secondipity, was a pleasure to buy from. There was an issue with shipping that caused a delay, and they immediately refunded the extra cost I'd paid for expedited shipping. No questions, no hassles, just good customer service. The Walkman and earbuds I purchased separately from them were in immaculate condition.As for the Walkman, it really does sound fantastic. I've owned several Sony audio products over the years, and I'm still impressed with how full the sound is with each new version, even at factory settings. I decided to buy the NW-A306 mainly because it seems tailor-made for lossless audio, and with 32gb of onboard storage, you can carry a pretty decent collection of lossless music with you. And if that's still not enough storage, you can always install a microSD card. All in all, a pretty versatile device with impressive sound that you can further adjust to suit your tastes.Where things go kind of wrong is in Sony's decision to implement a basically full version of Android OS. This, and the other pre-installed Google apps (most of which cannot be deleted) take up about 14gb of that onboard storage, which means you'll inevitably need to add a microSD card. That's not so bad by itself, but the interface with all of these apps is painfully sluggish on initial startup (which means EVERY time you power the device on) and you'll frequently find yourself tapping in your passcode (which is required, BTW - if you forget your passcode, you're sunk) multiple times because the screen just didn't react to the 3rd or 4th digit you entered. There's just too much unnecessary software on board for the system to sort through without a noticeable effort & it gets tiring when you just want to listen to music.And with all of this Android software taking up space & resources, you still cannot type anything other than your lock screen passcode. Everything you want to search for, whether it's in your music library, your settings, the Google Play Store, or just Google itself, has to be done via voice. Yes, the display screen is small, but I'd rather struggle with a stylus than repeatedly try to get the device to recognize names of artists, etc.I believe Sony went with Android with the thought that users could access their favorite streaming services and install whatever music player apps they prefer, and I applaud them for that. Personally, I don't really stream music very often, I prefer to carry the full quality recordings with me & not have to rely on a solid wifi or cellular connection. But I do like that I'm able to install the same music apps that I've used on my phones. The thing is, Sony's Walkman Music Player app is significantly better to my ears than any of the others, so I don't really need to use anything else.Unfortunately, that app seems to have trouble remembering the volume level I last used. When I play any song, it's always at max volume, even if I had it at 65% when I last used it a half hour ago. It doesn't help that the app's volume is independent of the System volume, and it certainly doesn't help that the 65% I listed is a complete guess on my part because the onscreen volume volume display doesn't show any numbers. Basically, every time I start up the app I need to press the volume down button three times so the music's not distorted.But when everything's lined up right, wow does it sound good. And that's really the bottom line. If Sony had just released this as purely a music player with the ability to use streaming services, it'd be gloriously perfect. It's still absolutely worth the purchase, but be prepared to struggle with a handful of relatively minor issues.

Since it uses Android and almost to the full degree it would have been nice if the there was a better processor on it. Sometimes app gets stuck in that's not something you expect coming from a flagship phone perhaps a budget phone.

Much better than some of the lower cost DAPs on here. Much less expensive than some of the higher end DAPs. Well worth the cost