Product Reviews

Fantastic MP3 player. use it travelling too and from work.

Doesn't download album artwork, and sound quality is not very good.

First MP3 player I've bought so can't compare to others but I'm very pleased with it. It has a good range of features but not too many, which are easy to navigate. Only thing that could be improved is better instruction on playlists and bookmarks. I have been unable to create separate playlist groups on player itself; had to create my chosen categories in the PC Sony software and download them, but once that's done you can add what you like to each group title in player itself.

I had the older NWZ-A865 which was easy to use. This new MP3 player setting up is complicated. The CD/album information is difficult to transfer, the instructions are not a great help. On the plus side the sound is very good. thats it really.

It is a great player to use along side the Sony SRS-XB21. The only issue I do have is that it does not come with earphones.

BIRTHDAY GIFT FROM WIFE. WAS FED UP WITH iPOD, and wanted this.

I was thrilled to buy this product, but was dissappointed when i got home to find there were no headphones in the box. I also wondered why you don't make & sell a carry case for the NW-A45.

Bought this to replace my iPod and was looking forward to sticking 2 fingers up at Apple. The unit itself looks great and the sound quality is also great but when connecting it to my car via USB is where the issues start. Can get it to play, tried everything but no control at all.

I purchased this Walkman after reading many positive reviews. Most of those reviews concentrated on the high resolution music quality and whilst it is superior to anything other music player I have owned it has many other atributes. First off build quality is superb and it has a reassuring weight. It is almost jewel like. Secondly the graphics are remarkable. My first impressions on opening the Walkman was how small it seemed but notwithstanding this the graphics and the art work are crystal clear and the expandable memory is a boon. Oh and by the way the sound quality for the size is one of the best I have heard.

I seriously do not know what Sony is thinking with this product, it claims it is made by and for music lovers but I highly doubt it. I started by adding a portion of my music library to it, but to my surprise when I started to browse on the device most album art was missing when this does NOT happen at all on any of the other players I use. Turns out that music has got to have the album art embedded on the files AND be BASELINE JPG. What? Why? There is an option to convert album art on the Music Center, but it's an absolute nightmare to do so... that software is hideous, it takes an eternity to load files, and you have to convert album art one by one. Music lovers would love to have hundreds of albums on this, but how come that in order to have that properly, I have to do all this? Why do I have to think about BASELINE JPG? I didn't exactly pay a penny for this and yet, cheaper players have no issue with other formats or non-embedded art. I say that their claim that this is done by people who love music is straight up ______. There's no way one could take this. Also, there is literally no support for multi-genre tagging. If you love music you know you can't just box some things into a single genre. Are these things ignorance on their part or just part of the bureaucratic drag that Sony is? Also, what's up with language study. Who does that? Why can't I take it off? People listen to podcasts, not this stuff, why did you think of LANGUAGE STUDY and not of this? Why are there almost no sorting options? Why do choices done for the design of this software look like whims of people who had to come up with half baked ideas? Jesus. This thing sounds amazing but the cons measure strongly against the pros and I am giving it 2 stars because I can't give it 2.5. It has great sound, incredible battery and the product feels sturdy. It's a shame that the software they decided to load on it it's a nightmare to get to work just how you want it.

I love having access to hi Rez files of the music I love in a elegant portable player. I selective about choosing masterings I like and my taste in music is very diverse. Lots of the music I love is not on streaming services. I have over 10,000 songs on my Walkman from my collection. I hated having everything on my phone, especially after it forced me to put my songs on the “cloud.” Once the music is on the cloud the files are replaced with generic masterings that often sound bad. The Sony lets me control my music. When I listen over Bluetooth I like having AptX because it sounds better than standard Bluetooth. It’s a great versatile product.

I bought this about a month ago, wanted to use for a while before I submit my review. The only reason (in most cases I give a 3 star and not 5 star is because one must be reasonable, this player is dirt cheap for the money. Plus * Fantastic sound quality * Excellent Bluetooth connectivity * Small / Light - Surprised how lightweight it is. Negative * Feels and look cheap compared to iphone quality (but it is cheap so unrealistic comparison) * Android Software - Took several attempts to look the 128Mini SD card and Phone with all my music, need very good Technical knowledge to load/unload music, * Search functionality not good for many songs * Not clear what mini SD card to use, * 128 would be better for memory, I would pay for that, one spend the money anyway on mini SD cards that Sony will not warranty in the player (Nice get out clause)

I have used the Walkman for a few weeks now. Its sound reproduction value is really good. Its menu structure feels out of date and Im still trying to get the playlists to populate on the device, That aside I still give it a thumbs up.

I bought it a week ago and I'm very impressed with the clean sound and strong bass, interface is easy to use and the screen looks smooth, the only downside for me is the EQ only has 6 bands, i would prefer 10 for finer control and the artist section sorts by artist last name instead of the first name, I live in portugal so it took me some time to figure it out, an option to allow me to sort by first or last name would be appreciated, but still, awesome product.

Finally a portable music player covers all the bases.

I've been using the NW-A45 for three or four weeks now and I find it has great features and sound. That it has Bluetooth is what I find most useful. The sound with my Beats is much better, though, than when I use the Sony headphones supplied. No comparisson. I find that the LEARNING features should be also included in the MUSIC features though. I had a NWZ-E580 WALKMAN before and there was no distinction between files in two folders, so if I found one track a bit slow to walk, for example, I just had to adjust the speed to 1.05, 1.10, and so on. Now I cannot do that, unless I place all tracks in the LEARNING folder, which I'm not prepared to do, since they won't be arranged in folders, but alphabetically. I would need to create a different playlist for each album, for example. I find this most annoying.

Bought this Walkman to be able to listen to my music at a higher quality than most players offer. I therefore loaded a number albums as FLAC files - the folders also carried the album art....but the Walkman steadfastly refused to recognise it and i have been left with a screen of 'grey' rather than album covers. I tried a number of way to load files and all but one had the same issue. When 'sync'ing through Windows Media Player - if there was an error in any of the information and you manually edited it the Walkman also frustratingly ignored this edit! The other 'niggle' is on a previous Walkman you could toggle through the alphabet to get close to the album / artist you were looking for - that feature is not on this model and so you have to search all the way through from 'A' every time. That all said the sound is excellent and the Bluetooth easy to set up and reliable but the above software glitches knock at least 1 star off......3,5 really!

Best for blue tooth,I can blue tooth to my hot tub.

Bought this as replacement for my Walkman NWZ-S639F, so I'm assessing it in comparison to that. First the good points , all the reasons why I got this : Stores and plays all my Hi-Res FLAC files. Expandable SD card allows storage of all my music with room to spare. Bluetooth connection to remote speaker is added bonus and works well. Still compact enough size, with tactile well placed buttons and touch screen. Now the bad points for me. Initial sound quality was disappointing. After extensive tweaking of EQ custom setting ( at least it has one ) and some time to burn in, this has improved, but still no better than previous Walkman. The search interface is a step back despite a touch screen. Searching alphabetically is hit and miss. It has lost the ability to select song info from the play screen and jump to that ( ie. select genre or release year to see a instant list of all related files ) you have to use back button and search again. The really useful 'SenseMe' function can no longer be done in the player but instead has to be done using Sony's poor ( compared to WMP ) software before transfer, and is not very intuitive. All in all, once the song is playing, it's fine but for me Sony, on this player, has dropped the ball on software interface.

I looked at a few Hi-Res audio players before purchasing and thought they looked very good, but you still have a leap of faith regarding the sound quality. So I went for an established company and product the "Sony Walkman" and was not disappointed. So glad i did.

I checked reviews before i bought this little gem,so easy to use,nice finish,the quality of playback is excellent,battery charge is quite quick and lasts for ages,it replaces a cheep one i bought some time ago,wish i`d bought this one instead at the time but these are the choises you make sometimes !!!

I am very pleased with my new sony walkman. Easy to setup (for a 92 year old) and very easy to use with an intuitive touch screen.

Really please with my purchase, easy to use, great sound quality. Transferring music to device is very easy indeed. Recommend buying an additional memory card as it did not take long to fill up internal memory “although I do have a large music collection”. My one and only problem is that some album artwork is missing even after you have added them manually via supplied software. That besides a great product.

It loooks smart and useful, and I am only just starting to get it set up for serious use.

The audio is very good, the Walkman is light and attractive. But I have had great difficulty transferring music and particularly playlists from Windows media player and not yet succeeded from iTunes. The battery life is nowhere near the 35 hours claimed but sometimes that sorts itself out.

I've only had the product a few days but I'm beginning to find my way around it and i'm impressed with its capabilities

Pros: Better than Ipods etc because you don't need additional software. Just plug it in as a USB device to your PC and transfer the tunes over. Bluetooth works well with external speakers so great for music in your room when travelling. Sound quality is good. Doesn't alter your music files as Apple Music does. Cons: Can't create playlists on the device. You have to download Sony Music Centre to create playlists and then transfer them to the device. It's not an intuitive process and you duplicate the tunes. Come on Sony! Add the ability to create simple playlists on the device as a stand alone system.

Along with my Sony wireless headphones the A45 produces an amazing sound. I use them whenever I am traveling and when I am in the gym.

I have just purchased the a45 together with Sony wh-1000xm2 headphones and only mention these because my main aim was portability and the blue tooth connection which is no problem and the two together sound fantastic but there’s a but and a big one. (Only when connected using a lead). I initially connected via Bluetooth and the sound was thin and lacking. So I looked for equaliser and tried to add bass etc and couldn’t.looking at help file online stated it sound cannot be altered in Bluetooth mode WHAT? Unless I am doing something wrong. Tried with wired connection no much better. Rang tech support upgraded firmware on headphones 2 pairs and factory resets on all. Walkman is up to date. Sound still the same wirelessly no way to alter equaliser. Much better on a wired connection in fact fantastic. Albeit u have to have volume high to hear anything. Ps no volume limiter on. Was about to return for a refund in view of flat sound on Bluetooth but having listened extensively on a wired connection it’s quality on custom settings with lifted base mids and flat highs is breathtaking .i am prepared to keep the player hoping that a future firmware will allow the equaliser or a better one to be used when connected wirelessly unless there’s a good reason why it cannot be done. My iPad Mac other devices when using headphones allow u to alter equaliser in fact on my iPad it doesn’t sound far sort of the wired connection on the a45 but the Sony audio is better in all regards. So please can u get a firmware update to sort out what is a major problem for me and other reviewers who have mentioned the same problem and restricting this unit from being even better sounding. I don’t want to walk around with a wire dangling unless I absolutely have to. Otherwise a fantastic product Sorry for the long review Many thanks

Very convenient and powerful. I really like this device

I considered my options for a long time, did my research and I'm very pleased with my Sony NW-A45. Fantastic battery life (around 30 hours depending on the file format), amazing audio quality, with great clarity, space and solidity, simple drag and drop' file operation, and expandability via MicroSD card.

I love this device. The sound quality is great. The build quality is fantastic. The UI is solid. There's just one problem: NO PODCAST SUPPORT I was so excited when I bought this device to replace my 2007 ipod Classic. You can imagine my dismay when I discovered that this device didn't support the main thing I use MP3 players for: Podcasts and Audiobooks. I am hoping this issue will be fixed in a future firmware update but, until then I cannot recommend this Walkman.

Very disappointed, was hoping for so much more from Sony. Doesn't shuffle all properly

I bought the Walkman a couple of weeks ago in order to be able to back up songs I play live so this would, in case of a sound issue feed into a mixer and speakers. I chose the Walkman as it handles Wave files which are cd quality rather than mp3 which is compressed. Sound quality is very good, the touch screen is a little fiddly in that it’s easy to flick from the screen you want (a screen lock would be great). I tend to use the side controls to cue the songs which is less fiddly than suing the touchscreen. Other than that it is a great little player with good battery performance.

I brought this last week. Loaded all my music from I Tunes easily and very quickly. All music stored on SD card so far 2500 Sounds fantastic deep rich sounds easy to find Great product

Purchased this item to replace a dead ipod classic. The sound quality is good, though no better, I thought, than the ipod. An advantage is the player's bluetooth connectivity which is a major plus. On the downside, the music library software is dated and not a lot of use. Getting third party music library playlists onto the Walkman was, initially, a pain and Sony help wasn't much use

Cannot adjust any audio settings with Bluetooth headphones, also cannot create playlists on device, needs to use a pc to do this. Very limiting indeed...

Have only had it a short while but do like the touch screen once I got accustomed to the new software settings. Like the idea of a 45 hour battery life. Only recharged it one and it didn’t seem to need 4 hours to recharge but I will time it at the next recharge. Good that I could insert my SD card full of music and listen to the Walkman within minutes. Had to download Sony drivers onto my old Sony laptop with Windows 10 and after a few hiccups Windows 10 recognised the new Walkman. When downloading albums from Sony Music Center to the new Walkman, the process seems speedier than with previous Walkman models. Finally, whether the songs are MP3 or FLAC downloads, the sound through my noise cancelling over ear headphones using Bluetooth is top quality.

Great sound,great size lovely ui,my only grip is a problem adding album artwork,it didn’t pick up all album artwork,so I had to use “Yate”for mac and that programme worked a dream.im not sure how it works for windows.

PROS: Excellent sound quality; very light; CONS: Takes way too long, 1-2 mins, to start up (always has to "create database"); Volume always resets to very low setting instead of staying at same level as when switched off; Equaliser levels impossible to control individually to desired levels per column, but connect in a stupid wavy line.

I bought this recently and transferred all my digitised music on to it very easily. It's very easy to access all the menus, looks and sounds fantastic. I wish I'd done it much sooner!!!

bought this for an upcoming trip abroad and so far it suits my needs

I have had my walkman three weeks and enjoy the great sound it delivers

Bought this to Replace My old Creative Labs 32gb mp3 player quicker to start and easier to access music.

I bought it few weeks ago to use it with my Tivoli stereo Bluetooth system and it satisfied my expectations.

I purchased this product about 4 months ago and have some issues in which I have not been able to solve. Firstly, having created a playlist folder, it keeps saying 'no playlists available" when I try to transfer some tracks to a playlist. Secondly, although I have the "sort by song artist" highlighted, it randomly sorts tracks by song title, so the "all songs' list is all over the place. With these issues, I cannot give this product more than two stars.

Small, light and packed full of features. The first Walkman I have purchased since a TPS-L2 back in the day and just as happy.

I got the NW-A45 seeking a replacement to my 160GB iPod Classic (now that I have left the Apple ecosystem). Putting music on my phone just wasn't cutting it. I'll get the negative out of the way because there's not much. The boot-up time from Power Off can be quite long especially with a large library, and some power-user features aren't present, such as ratings or play count metadata. However for my review I skew towards sound quality, and boy this player is top-notch in this regard. As someone who doesn't have much Hi-Res audio, the DSEE HX upscaling isn't just a bullet point, it actually makes a substantial difference. The same 320kbps MP3s on the same speakers with the same connection had an audible difference in quality that blew me away compared to my phone. All of the basics are there for organizing your music library and is flexible with multiple import workflows. The unit itself is designed nicely with nice tactile buttons on the side and expandable memory with microSD. If you're looking for a "back to basics" portable music player that prioritizes sound quality and gets the job done features and design wise, this is a phenomenal choice.

I was planning to purchase a higher value Sony / alternative brand player. But I discovered this Sony model did much of what I wanted for a much lower cost. It plays many of file types I use, sounds good with my earphones (Bowers & Wilkins P7s) and is easy to use.

The product itself is exactly as you would expect from a portable device, Its lightweight, and does the job. However I strongly this product could get 5 Stars if Sony would be prepared to update the device. Coming from someone who has used Ipods for a long time, i decided to upgrade to this purely for the memory increase. If you want a device that will only play music and nothing else, no apps or unnecessary clutter in the way this is for you. The comparison between the UI of the Ipod (the older models and this walkman) are quite different and to tell the truth Sony might find it beneficial to tweak the UI (User Interface) and some of the functions to make it more ease of use. Pros: Music has outstanding Quality, I would honestly recommend going into a store like PC world take your headphones and give it a try you can get a feel for how the device functions. The buttons on the side allow quick use and their is a hold button that you slide, which disables the ability to use buttons or touch screen including volume, which is nice if you have a playlist or album you just want to listen too if your travelling or working out etc. The touch screen is really good, but due to the screen size and UI designs that I will mention again it can make operating the device a little awkward at times. It has an option to move songs to a language study which is really handy when separating audio studies from track lists, especially if you plan on listening to albums on shuffle. No Apps or other junk in the way on the UI it's just your categories settings and fairly straight forward just some more user friendly tweaks could make it less overwhelming and easier to use. Can use an SD card to increase the memory, something which outweighed the decision to purchase another Ipod. Cons: For example You can't create a Playlist on the Walkman device but can do on the Music software they recommend, however you can add songs to a play list you have on your device. (make the playlist on the computer then from device can add album to existing playlist.) also if you accidentally add songs to a playlist you would have to either delete the playlist entirely or delete the songs one by one. I also had an issue where some albums duplicated, so i would have the first song twice followed by the second song twice, I ended up deleting it all and restarting the process. This could of easily been avoided if the device allowed you to select multiple songs at once, instead you have to do it all manually 1 by 1. (which is a big time consumer for someone like me, i listen to a lot of video game soundtracks some of these albums have up to 100+ songs so deleting them one by one is a pain). Another annoyance is not being able to re-order songs in an album for instance number 53 in an album was at the top followed by the rest of the soundtrack (I have no idea why) but i couldn't drag it down and reorder it to its rightful place on either the software or the device itself. Another thing with apple's layout is albums are separated into Alphabetical categories so you have a list as you would, you would have A then followed by the albums that start with A then B and so on, with the walkman its still alphabetical but its a big big list with no real spacing its very easy to miss-click. Another minor issue is when you click and play a song then come off that song to your album list it takes it all the way back to the top, rather than leave you on the album you last clicked on. There is no speaker if you wan't to play a song without headphones a speaker is needed (separately) not a problem for me but other individuals may have wanted this. Looking at what i have written it seems the product is quite negative on the contrary, the product is well designed (physically) the device is responsive and its functionality i.e. touch screen, portability, buttons have all been thought out extremely well, whilst the UI is a bit rough not terrible but there are definitely more cleaner options that Sony could consider (a mere update could fix all the technical issues iv'e mentioned and it would be 5 stars all the way). I really hope Sony takes note at the things iv'e mentioned. i own a lot of sony products from Playstation ones to ps4, and all of them had clean UI even the old phones did. That's just the biggest issue for me, the ease of use and more convenience when managing songs on the device is all.

A very nice substitute for players that aren't available any more. You know who they are. Takes a 64 or 128GB MicroSD chip, has reg. EQ's and (2) user adj. EQ settings. Uncompresses Mp3 formats for HD sound. Has FM Radio w/ search. Can create playlist's and can play 3 Apple formats!!! along with multiple PC formats.

Very happy with my recent purchase. Battery life is excellent and sound quality is superb. Very easy to transfer files to the device via Windows Media Player. Would have been nice if headphones were included for the price but otherwise very pleased

I bought this equipment to be used with an Omni Adapt + from Harman Kardon, but for some reason the bluetooth never paired to each otherm then I tried with and older NWZ-A25 and the same, all other devices (android based) work fine.

I got this as a birthday gift to replace my defunded MP3 player and am absolutely delighted with it.

The Sony NW-A45 is a good value for the dollar PROs 1. Very responsive & quick to scroll and locate artists and albums 2. Easy to transfer music over via the software or windows IMPROVEMENTS: However there are some organizational issues with the player that I would like Sony to improve in the software on the device: 1. ORGANIZE BY SONG TITLE In Song Title View, it organizes songs by the File name instead of by the Song Title name. So, if when ripping a CD, the software added the track title to the file name, when you alpha sort by song title, and the song name is "Worthy is the Lamb" but the file name is "01 Worthy is the Lamb" the song will sort under 01 instead of W. 2. AUTOMATICALLY STOP PLAYING WHEN NOT CONNECTED BY LINE-IN/HEADPHONE/OR BLUETOOTH The song will not automatically stop playing if a headset is not plugged in or it is not plugged into a line, even with the Bluetooth off. So each time you select a song it starts playing. Even if you are just purusing your device, the song will start playing with nothing connected to it. That eats at the battery. 3. Music sounds distant and not as loud. I typically play the Walkman connected to speakers and I have to turn the volume up quite high to hear it comfortably in the room. I play the same song on my iPod Nano and I don't have to turn the volume up as high. 4. Better explain how SensMe Channels work. When I select it, it states: "Some songs have not been analyzed. To use SensMe Channels, use the recommended computer application to analyze the songs". But it doesn't tell you what that application is. I chose Relax and thought it would select all of my spa & relaxation CDs. It didn't it selected some spa songs, but the other songs it mixed it weren't really relaxing songs. So this feature is a bust. 5. No search feature on the device. I would like to search for a song instead of scrolling through thousands of songs on my device. For instance if I want to play all of the "Carol of the Bells" songs by different artists, I can't search for it on the device. And scrolling to Carol of the bells doesn't guarantee they are all organized by the letter C (see #1 above). 6. It has clock settings, but it doesn't display the time. It only uses the clock to manage the library. Pretty silly. 7. No way to check battery life. It claims you can get 45 hours worth of play time, but I barely got 8 hours before having to charge the battery. The battery will discharge in stand-by mode. You must turn off the device to preserve the battery. The Sony Music Center Software is a decent start, but has some bugs in it. When I called customer support I was told by 1st level support and 2nd level support not to use Sony Music Center, because the ability to edit the metadata of a song wasn't built into the software. Even though in the help files it says you can edit the metadata and download missing song and album data from 12 note/gracenotes. 1. EDITING METADATA The instructions for the software states that you can edit metadata for songs, artists, and albums. However, the changes you make in Music Center are not always updated to the file. It works sometimes, not all of the time. Second Level support told me to use Windows Media Player. https://musiccenter.sony.net/en/instruction/06_edit_01.php Windows Media Player is clunky and not as streamlined as Music Center 2. RIPPING CDS You can change the genre and album name, but you cannot change the file name. So if the file name has the track number in front of it, it will rip the song with the Song Title correct, but the file name will have the track number, and thus will mess up how you sort by song title. You have to go into Windows to update the file names and then delete the songs in Music Center and copy back over. NOTE: In Windows Media Player you can determine the file name when ripping the CD, but you can't change the album name and genre before ripping the CD. So either way you have tons of editing to do, to fix simple things that can be resolved simply by allowing you to determine them BEFORE you rip the CD. 3. PLAYLISTS: You can import playlists in the .m3u format, but you can't export playlists. You can only copy playlists to the device. 2nd level support at Sony did not know where the software saved playlists. The only way to get playlists you create on to the computer onto the device is via Sony Music Center.

Pleases for next year please add support for flac 640kbps at 64bit depth And the Walkman needs more storage like 1or 5 tb of storage And I think the Walkman should be thinner with a bigger a Touch screen.