sony walkman a845

If you hate iTunes and apps and just want a portable media player that simply does its job, then you’re reading the right review. The latest Sony Walkman PMP to be launched with OLED is the Sony NWZ-A845 and over the last week, given an opportunity to have a play with the new skinny Walkman and see what its like.

Design

We’ve reviewed a few Sony Walkmans in the past, so we sort of knew what qualities to look for in the new A845. The overall candybar design hasn’t really changed very much from other Walkmans, but you’ll probably have read plenty of headlines saying how slim the A845 is – 7.2mm to be exact. Not only is it slim, its also small, measuring in at just over 10cm long and and approximately 4.6cm in width. Its lightweight too, just 62g but it doesn’t feel that light, because it is quite comfortable to hold in the hand and feels solid just like the X1050 and not plastic-ky at all. The reason we often stress this is because some PMPs (like the Walkman S540) feel like they would crack open when under pressure (for example, when you leave it in your pocket), the A845 definitely doesn’t give any indication of this.



So its pretty slim (not as slim as the iPod Nano I’m afraid), similar in size to an iPod Nano and doesn’t feel as though Sony’s been cutting down on their budget. Another obvious design / feature you’ll notice worth mentioning is that it boasts a vibrant shiny 2.8-inch OLED, it isn’t the first Walkman from Sony to have OLED, that title went to the X1050, but nevertheless its been just as well exceptionally equipped on the A845. The keys / buttons are found on its front surface as well as to its left.









The premium EX in-ear style earphones that come with the Sony A845 Walkman were probably one of the most stylish earphones we’ve seen in a while, and this is including those not made from Sony. If you decide to buy the A845, you probably won’t have the urge to replace them and feel that “these earphones that came with the PMP were crap”, like you do sometimes when buying mp3 players.



Features

The Sony A845 Walkman boasts 16GB of internal memory and from what we know, this seems to be the only choice of memory capacity if you’re in the UK. As for those of you in the far east, the device itself will be known as A840 and will in fact be available in 64GB. Of course with 16GB (which is still not too bad) and a nice widescreen OLED, you’re going to start popping in films, movies and videos into the A845, that’s perfectly reasonable and the experience we’ve had so far definitely recommends that you do that.




If you  are in the market for a small and thin portable music player... look no further than this