Sony had a major success with the launch of the S-series Walkman NWZ-S639F in 2008. The company stepped up its game with a sleek and compact device that offered loads of useful features along with stellar sound quality and fantastic battery life. As might be expected, when the time came for a second-generation model, we waited with bated breath, expecting something equally impressive or perhaps even better.
Unfortunately, said breath has emerged as a disappointed sigh. Although the second-generation S-series Walkman models still offer top-notch audio and excellent battery life, Sony has hobbled the players by crippling their feature set. This appears to have been done to lower the price. In the US, the 16GB NWZ-S545 and 8GB NWZ-S544, which differ only in storage capacity, are two of the cheapest flash-based players on the market. Although we don't have UK prices yet, we expect a similar price cut to be implemented here. We'll update the review as soon as we know the actual prices.
In the meantime, you can read our review of the Walkman NWZ-S545 to get the lowdown on the NWZ-S544.