The Sony Walkman Z is all about the music, man. This Android-powered, big-screen rival to the Apple iPod touch offers a great experience for the ears -- but can it match up to the iPod, or more importantly, to other Android devices?
Audio quality
Audio is definitely the focus in the Walkman Z. A dedicated Walkman button launches and hides the music app, so your tunes are always a mere moment away.
It features Sony's S-Master MX Digital Amplifier and 5 Clear Audio technologies built-in to ensure that sound quality is crystal clear. And it comes with a decent pair of earphones, which are often left out with many MP3 players. If you're listening to your music on the white Apple earphones that came with your iPod or iPhone, you might as well be spitting in your favourite singer's face. Throw them out right now and invest in a decent pair. We'll wait.
Those decent quality earphones are a welcome change from tinny tosh included with devices from that bastion of the perfect user experience, Apple.
Listen to MP3s from Windows Media Player or iTunes, whichever you prefer to use on your computer. Or you can stream music from apps like Spotify. Sony has its own online streaming service, Music Unlimited, to listen to songs sent wirelessly from the web to your Walkman, as long as you have a Wi-Fi connection.
We're certainly impressed by the audio quality. The rest of the device is less notable.
No phone
The Z is built by Sony, but everything you see on the screen and the way you control it is run by Google's Android software for mobile phones. Android is great because it's based around home screens you fill with shortcuts to your favourite stuff, and it's endlessly customisable to give you the experience you want.
The Z runs Android version 2.3, known as Gingerbread. It's not the latest but it's far from being out-of-date.
You can download apps from Android Market to do anything from showing you the weather to accessing Facebook or changing the way the player looks and behaves. You can browse the web, check your email or see what your friends are up to, all while listening to your tunes.
In fact, you can do anything you would on an Android phone except make phone calls.
The problem is, why would you bother? The Walkman Z joins the Samsung Galaxy Player 50, Galaxy S WiFi 4.0, and Galaxy S WiFi 5.0 in direct competition with Apple's iPod touch. People are still buying iPods, even though sales are in decline, but we can't help feeling these devices are a bit pointless -- why carry around a phone and an MP3 player when a phone does everything?
The screen is bigger than the iPod touch, which is great for displaying all those Android apps, but there's no 3G for browsing the web away from a Wi-Fi connection.
The Z boasts Wi-Fi to browse the web or download new apps, so you need to be in a Wi-Fi hotspot to connect to the Internet. But there's no 3G, like on a phone, so you can't go on the Internet, update an app or find where you are on a map when you're out and about.
The Walkman Z, the Galaxy Players and the iPod touch don't do anything that Sony Ericsson, Samsung Galaxy and iPhone smart phones don't offer. Sure, they're cheaper than their smart phone equivalents, but there are plenty of budget Android phones that play music and movies and browse the web and use apps but don't cost the earth.
The 4.3-inch screen is bigger than that of the iPod touch. But it's not really competing with the touch. It's up against other Android phones that do the same stuff, only cheaper.
It's also thicker than the iPod touch, and is at the upper end of the size you could comfortably fit in a pocket. And where's the camera?
Chunkier than your average mobile, but with no phone or camera to speak of -- the paunchy Walkman Z clearly hasn't been hitting its 10,000 walking steps a day.
Even worse, there's a non-standard charging port. The adoption of one type of charging cable for all phones in the last couple of years is one of the best things that ever happened to mobiles, so ditching micro-USB for a proprietary cable is a real step backwards by the Z.
Inside there's a powerful 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor to keep things moving fast and make sure web browsing, gaming and watching videos is smooth. You can choose from 8GB, 16GB or 32GB of storage built-in for your music, movies and photos, but there's no option for a microSD memory card. Again, that's something most phones offer. Battery life is also disappointing.
Outlook
The Sony Walkman Z offers impressive sound quality for the devoted music lover. But you have to be one serious audiophile to carry around this bulky device alongside your phone, which does all the same things and more, for less money.
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jab024 30 January 2012
Comment: I have been longing for Sony to make a flagship follow up to the X series which was and still is one of the better daps out there under £300.
Got to say though once again the journalistic reporting on here recently is of sub standard quality and like a certain piece entitled Blackberry (five things the new ceo needs to do" by a certain Cnet writer despite this sony Z just been a preview is very poor in understanding what the product is about and totally misses the point of it's objectives and anyone who is really into high quality personal music players would understand this.
Unlike the recent poor Blackberry report by Natasha Lomas this does have some valid points but is still so short sighted it becomes a narrow minded and misunderstood view in such a naive ignorant way that it beggars believe.
For example here is a quote from this report;
"The 4.3-inch screen is bigger than that of the iPod touch. But it's not really competing with the touch. It's up against other Android phones that do the same stuff, only cheaper"
The above statement is so miss conceived, it actually is still in direct competition with the Touch, it is not trying to be a smart phone without the phone, Sony have made this foremost the best sounding Walkman they can with the added benefit of having android which still comes second for the Walkman is just what the Touch has had and the reason it has been such a mass selling music player for the last four years which is where the misconception is because it has android it is trying to be like a phone, well the Touch is basically the i-phone without the phone but people still want just a dedicated music player.
Which leads me to this unbelievable obsession from everyone at Cnet that a music player has to have a camera just because the Touch has.
This is where the total misunderstanding comes in with every one obsessed with the Apple blueprints @ Cnet that everything else has to be exactly like a Apple in every sense to be accepted and this is where the line is drawn comparison's.
Apple may have a camera built into the Touch and sell more undeniably than the Walkman now days but here's the punch line, and again I reiterate the Sony foremost concentrates on Sound Quality first with this Z series and the market they target are audiophiles that want more than a sub standard Mp3 format that today's generation are brain washed into accepting as an acceptable standard.
This is where the Touch falls down as it is a hand held phone without the phone that has the camera foremost and a music player second or lastly in my experience because no Touch to date has come even close to matching the Sony A, X or Z series for sound quality unless possibly amped with a portable amplifier which cost £150-300 which then defeats the object in a quality portable music player.
So please everyone at Cnet, please educate yourself's in understanding not all company's have to follow the sheep syndrome and cut from the exactly same cloth as Apple as there is still enough of a mass market for high quality products that actually do the intended purpose of it's needs first for those who hold sound quality as priority in a MUSIC player above all the other stuff that blurs the boundary's that a music player should be phone because it's not!?
A smart phone does not do ALL the same things as a Walkman because none of them can even match the sound quality of a dedicated Sony Walkman, and it won't happen to soon either as they will never invest in the extra for the chips and class amps that are used in Walkmans. Do you see even the Xperia packing a S master MX amp - NO. Penny dropped?
Until smart phones can sound as good as a flagship Sony Walkman or a Cowon and have 3-4 days battery life with playing music, videos and lets not forget phone calls will Cnet please get more educated on market targets and what some of these products aim to do before trying to hold it to the Apple candle that sits on the window ledge in those Cnet offices.
The irony after that dissection is I am just as angry with Sony as with the miss- interpretations of products on Cnet with their new Z series Walkman.
Sony have got it right again concentrating on making a fine sounding Walkman firstly for those who care about high quality music files for use with reference iem's or even headphones but they seem to have this annoying habit of losing consistency across the generations of players they release like having tactile hard buttons along the top of Walkman like the X series did which was perfect which made it a joy to use blindly whilst in trouser/ jacket pocket when on the go.
Not like the new A series which is down the side in a awkward place and now the Z series has no tactile buttons at all! which is just unforgivable as to why they do not use their common sense, all touch screen Walkmans should have tactile buttons across the top of player through every generation far as I am concerned. If they are going to do that at least bring back the in line remotes Sony where so famous for with their older Walkmans.
The biggest omission from Sony is denying the UK (Europe & US essentially) the 64gb model which is like shooting yourself in the foot with a shotgun and this is where Sony really fail in their marketing if they really want to start with really trying to compete to get back a market share from Apple. This is just unacceptable from Sony ignoring these market's, their official response on Facebook site when question posed to them was there is not enough demand for the 64gb version!
This is where I agree with Rich Trenholm portable music players like phones should also be offering a micro sd card slot also especially at this price, there is no reason why they can't. It would not been so bad if Sony had offered this.
Also agree it would also be nice to have micro usb now days just as long as Sony keep the line out on their Walkmans. And regardless of technology involved with it's screen size Sony need to ensure the battery stamina for music playback stays around the 35 hours like previous gen models and not 20 hours if we are lucky one year down the line of constant use listening to say wav files.
Despite android been able to provide a software player now that could do this it would also be nice to see Sony have on the go playlist's like their old HDD Walkmans had, have missed that feature sorely.
Could of used a bit more imagination and not just used the Xperia phone casing essentially for their first android Walkman, does nothing to distinguish it self in that respect from the Xperia phones, should of had a different design that was uniquely a Walkman classic design in the making. Why they included a speaker on the back of case that is powerful as a ant passing wind is beyond me.
Ideally and I know Sony are targeting this equally as a media player with it's 4.3 screen but this is a tad to big really to be called a true portable Walkman and should of ideally been 3.7 screen at most which would of still been plenty of real estate for a Walkman screen even for casual video watching.
So for me this Sony Z is far from perfect and the degrading treatment of excluding the 64gb version from the UK market make it a deal breaker. I had the X series two years ago now and you think they would of all made the natural progression to 64gb. How anyone would be satisfied with 8 or 16gb on a player like this is strange.
Even the 32gb would not cut it if you used high quality music files with video content combined with the new addition of having app's galore.
Don't Sony sit down and think about how the end user will fill it up over life period of a year or two later. Another sign of short sightedness from the design team @ Sony.
All in all this is a step in the right direction by Sony with the Z in been what a flagship Walkman can be with the new addition of android possibility's but is far from been the perfect player to make it in the Walkman hall of fame.
So bottom line should of been from Cnet even with it just been a review "if you take your music seriously and will use higher codecs than mp3 and will invest in top flight iem's later on to further that experience then buy the Walkman and enjoy the new added bonus of having android app's built in like your phone.
If you are happy with mp3 files and will only ever spend £20 at most on a pair of earphones then look elsewhere please.
Morale of story just to remind Cnet, The Z series is not trying to be a phone with out the phone or is it a handicap to not have a camera as that money is invested into making the Z sound far superior than the touch which is a lifeless music player without soul when you take into consideration it's main task is to play music and then factor in the price for that sub standard SQ, but does have a camera which I do believe has Sony sensors inside?
Despite it's negatives I may still give in to principles and import the 64gb from Japan if the price is right when the dust settles on these Walkmans.
Unless another brand can seriously make a top end dap for under £300??
TheXperia 30 January 2012
Good: Everything: Design,Sound Quality,Screen Size...
Bad: Nothing whatsoever
Comment: What is wrong with you CNET? Not everyone wants a camera in an mp3 player. Besides walkmans are known for their sound quality and the camera in the ipod touch isn't exactly a work of art is it? I would far rather have this over the ipod touch as it has a bigger screen and the sound quality is second to none.
Morphic 27 January 2012
Good: Features, looks etc - love it
Bad: Price!
Comment: My phone's for communication - I want it always to work - no 'damn the battery's outta juice cos I watched that film/lsiteed to those tunes' for me.
My MP4 player's for entertainment.
So I'm OK with 2 devices.
But maybe not at any price...
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