Sony NW-A1200 (8GB) review

Sony attempts to differentiate itself from other brands with features such as Intelligent Shuffle, which gets further broken down into My Favorite Shuffle, Artist Link Shuffle and Time Machine Shuffle (which magically pulls together music from a random year). The idea is that the technology helps pinpoint music out of your immense library on the fly.

While these intelligent features certainly come in handy, they depend on SonicStage software, which has a reputation for being unintuitive and having sluggish transcode and transfer times. In other words, it's no iTunes. Our experience with the latest build (SonicStage CP 4.0) was marginally better with some new features designed for the A1200 -- our transfers of MP3, WMA and AAC files to our A1200 were smooth. Still, SonicStage would not be our first choice for a jukebox. SonicStage CP collects your usage/ratings data, then populates lists such as your top 100 songs or favourite playlists. The Artist Link feature works fairly well and becomes more useful the more songs you have. While we played Boards of Canada, a push of the Artist Link brought up a list of similar ambient electronic songs as well as the artist Orbital. There is no algorithm or wave analysis involved -- the links are based on genre tags.

Performance
While all this 'intelligence' may come off as overkill, the A1200's sound quality rates near the top. The brightness and fullness of the sound (using Grado SRR80) reminds us of the late Sony NW-HD5, which we consider to be one of the all-time best-sounding players. Sound options include six EQ settings, with two custom six-band EQ -- the device also employs Sony's AVLS sound limiter. Battery life is rated for 20 hours when playing back ATRAC files at 48Kbps. Our initial tests of MP3s showed a lower battery life of 14 hours -- still not bad, but far from 20 hours. It's a good thing you can charge the A1200 via USB since the AC adaptor, which uses the same USB cable, is unwieldy.

The A1200 is no doubt a looker, with feminine appeal. But it's also a solid playback device. Outside of the obvious, such as outdoor glare and a scratch-prone screen, the A1200's weakness lies with its dependence on SonicStage software. But if you're a Sony/ATRAC3 fan with a soft spot for pink or purple things and no need for multimedia or FM, this pretty player is for you.

Those looking for more features at the 8GB capacity should check out Creative's older but proven Zen Micro Photo. Also note that sleeker and more feature-filled 8GB flash-based players are just on the horizon.

Edited by James Kim
Additional editing by Kate Macefield