Sony Walkman NW-A105 Hi-Res 16GB MP3 Player, Black

Battery life is kind of a mixed bag depending on if you are streaming over wifi and using bluetooth headphones or speakers. They both essentially half the battery life but, if I remember to download podcasts, audiobooks, and music to a micro SD card when I am charging in the evening I can get a couple days out of it. I also adjusted settings so it'll power off completely if there is no use for a few hours so it conserves battery that way as well. I really like it and while it isn't like some of my old music players at least it is modern enough to work with how music tends to be distributed and I am not having to rely as much on my phone as do everything device. If you don't like Android you'll probably not like this Walkman but, if you are familiar with Android and comfortable taking time to adjust settings you can definitely get a great deal of use. The physical buttons are super useful, as is the hold switch to lock all buttons except the power button. It charges pretty quickly so that's also nice. Some of the special audio features I can't test very well because I know I can't hear certain things well enough but, things sound good enough for me and my use cases. If you want a mini ipod touch running android this is a great choice. The touchscreen is very small but, very responsive I have small hands so unless using the keyboard to type something it's very workable. Typing can be a bit of a chore though. The screen looks good enough it's not like you'll be needing to look at it too much but it'll work. I haven't used it outdoors in strong light yet so I can't say whether it's going to be very viewable and it probably won't so I don't know if that is a problem for you. If you use headphones with a built in microphone you can use this for recording audio but, there is no built in microphone so you will have to use an external. I don't know if this needs saying but, this device also doesn't have speakers either so you will need an audio output device be that headphones or a speaker be they wired or bluetooth. I have Google Home/Nest smart speakers that I can output to just fine as well so it'll probably work fine with Sonos and Alexa devices as remote too. Hope this all helps someone with their purchasing decision.

Many moons ago, I had a Creative Labs Jukebox. When it died, I replaced it with a iPod touch. When that died, I wanted a new player so I began my search. After several cheaper attempts (and returns), I think I have found my player. One thing I love is that it runs Android. I have an Android phone so the learning curve was almost flattened. It has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-C connection and you can plug in headphones. Mostly, it sounds great too. I don't use the HiRes feature but will probably start looking into that as well. (My library is almost all MP3). It connects with my car, my computer, and my Bluetooth headphones. It sounds particularly good on my Bose QC15 headset though. Everyone complains about the battery life but I will be using it mostly in the car where I can charge as I go so no worries there from me. For now, I have had it a few days and the battery seems to be doing OK. Time will tell. Here is my breakdown. Pros: - Android, if you are familiar with that OS, you will like this unit. - Sound quality, amazing. - Search and browse functions. Really good, search on song, artist, or album. - Shuffle mode for when I am feeling random. - Pairs with everything so far. - Transferring files is easy breezy. Make sure you have your ID3 tags up to date for maximum functionality. - Buttons on the side for when the screen is off, and you can lock so you don't accidentally hit a butting fishing it out of your pocket. - Cassette player screen saver so us old guys can reminisce. Cons: - When I bought this, it was $348. That is a bit pricey to me but I love my music. - It is small, which is fine for your pocket, but not good if you have large fingers. I am managing but it is harder to use the smaller screen. Unknowns: - Complaints about battery life seem rampant here. I don't know but I don't think it will be an issue for the way I want to use it. Again, time will tell. Conclusion: This unit reminds me of my iPod Touch which was basically an iPhone without the phone part. This is an Android phone without the phone but with a really good DAC.

With all the phones going without headphone jack nowadays I decided to put down the money for a good old mp3 player. Been using this for 5 months and I'm a happy customer. Pros: build quality: like all sony premium product the build quality on this is superb, it's small, feel nice in the hand and extremely solid. I wish my phone feel this good in the hand sound quality: the most important aspect of an mp3 player, it supports all the codec you could think of and the sound quality is very good. It also drive iem and headphone better than the brt-5 that I had. overall nothing to complain about on the sound quality front. Con: android: this is both a pro and con, with android you can do a lot of things with it but it comes with all the drawback on android, slow startup, poor battery life etc. Overall I just treat this like an ipod, I load up my music collection on an sd card, turn off wifi, bluetooth, don't use any android app and I'm very happy with it. If you're looking to use spotify/bluetooth functionality maybe look somewhere else, the battery life is atroucious if you use the smart features. When they are all turned off, battery life is perectly adequate to get through a work week worth of listening for me (3-4 hrs a day)

I have been using Sony Walkmans for a very long time. I have four (4) besides this one that I've been neglecting. I use this one everyday. The only thing that it has got negative about it is the Short battery life. This one has Sublime Sound that I've Never experienced in My Lifetime. I Love it Very Much. Another noteworthy aspect is the fact that it has the ability to access the internet with Android. I would recommend this to anyone who doesn't mind an approximate wait of 4 hours to fully charge from 25% or so. ( I, as of approximately, Feb-26-2021 tried using a direct A/C connection with what is known as a "Wall-Wart" and the Charge time Was Accelerated Immensely). After it is fully charged, it lasts a very long time for just music playing. Video will diminish the charge Way faster. One final thing, You should use a Micro SD card because this only has approximately 6 gigs free from first start-up. I installed a 64 GB chip and there is over 48 GBs even after I loaded 2173 song files. I hope this helps.

This is the first review I have ever written so this says something. I am essentially warning potential IPod users who are looking to replace their IPod with a Sony Walkman for primarily vehicle use, to steer clear of this particular Sony product. I will start by saying that I like Sony and am biased towards them in that all of their products I have owned in the past have been superior and built to last. I will also state that I not a fan of Apple and Android equally so that I can be sure to be objective. Finally, I am somewhat of an audiophile so I like the best version of any song that I can listen to when I am driving here and there and that requires a cable connection, NOT Bluetooth, which is where my review will begin. These things being stated, I replaced my IPod with this Sony Walkman for primarily one purpose and that is to listen to my music library in my vehicle and that is about it. This may not apply to those who simply want to strictly use the device sparingly by listening to headphone music while lying around or exercising, with the exception of the battery life, which is very weak. This being stated I will give a list of the pro's and con's of each as they apply to a direct line hookup inside my Toyota Tundra truck with a factory installed Entune radio system and customized amp and speakers. The IPod Con's and Pros are: IPod Con's: 1. You cannot download music any longer through the ITunes store as it no longer exists 2. Since the store no longer exist, you cannot use the app to upload your music any longer, nor burned mp4's into the app 2. You cannot transfer FLAC formatted files to an IPod player 3. Your IPod is essentially useless now Ipod Pro's: 1. One USB connection not only charged the system, but played your music. 2. The Entune system recognized the IPod, and as such gave you album cover and song information. 3. You could use the steering wheel controls and unit controls to manipulate songs. 4. The Ipod continually stayed charged whether the truck was running or not, if charging was needed 5. By turning off your vehicle, your music didn't continue to play on the unit itself until the vehicle was restarted. 6. The boot up time was quick 7. Battery stayed at full charge over a period of years just through normal driving and listening. Now, I will discuss the pro's and Con's of the new Sony Walkman as it portends to Entune and probably a number of other factory installed head unit systems: Sony Walkman Pro's: 1. Sound quality is superb, and probably due to many of my files being recorded in the FLAC mode. Sony Walkman Con's: 1. Requires two separate cables, a 3.5 mm male to male and C-USB to USB to play and charge the Walkman with the Entune simultaneously and respectively. 2. The Entune does not recognize the Walkman accept as AUX as in auxillary. 3. Since the system is not formally recognized, you have no control of the Sony Walkman through either the steering wheel controls or the Entune system itself. You have to manually manipulate the IPod while in your car to change songs. 4. There is no ability to select random shuffle as you could with the IPod system on the Entune screen, which is a favorite of mine with the approximately 2,000 songs that I have. 5. You get no album covers or song information transmitted to the Entune unit from the Sony Walkman. 6. The Walkman only charges while the vehicle is on and in operation. 7. The Walkman does not stop playing internally and does not charge when the vehicle is off, leading to continual, though silent, playing and a very quickly dissipating battery. 8. The Sony Walkman battery life, as mentioned previously, is its weakest link and recharging times are not good. I believe it took me about 4 hours to go from 25% to 100% and that was with continual USB cable charging from my laptop which is pretty unacceptable. 9. What can I say, the Android operating system is a bad setup for a music platform, with boot up times probably 4 times or more longer than it took the IPod to boot up. 10. Since this is an Android based system, they include all of the junk apps and files typically contained on an Android phone that really have nothing to do with playing music. I have a separate phone just for that purpose and this unit was to strictly be for music. 11. Referring to number 9, you get repetitive and super annoying pop-ups every time the system boots up which have to be acknowledged before music starts playing. If your like me, and your IPod stays underneath the seat in your vehicle, this would require manually pulling it out each and every time you start the vehicle to manually turn it on and then manually turning the Sony Walkman off every time you finish your drive. Having said all this, the solution might be a new $1,000 plus head unit but that is not why I bought the Walkman. Installation fees for a new unit are not cheap either. Add in the time researching a possible unit that may be able to utilize the Sony Walkman with all the perks that were automatically included with the IPod-Entune connection would be a total waste of hours and hours of research and would still not answer the question about the Android unit pop-ups being a complete and total nuisance. I will stick with Sony products in general but essentially threw away $375 on a unit that does not even come close to the IPod with respect to functionality. At 3-4 times the price of an IPod touch, Sony has a long way to go to improve the Walkman for current and conventional use, that is unless you are a one dimensional person planning to use it only sparingly and for short periods of time at the gym, pool, or lying around the house with headphones. UPDATE: After doing copious amounts of research, the Sony Walkman NW-A105 will not even allow you to install Android Auto, apparently the app that gives it functionality with after market head units if you have an older factory unit. I contacted Sony and let them know in a firm way that I believe this to be a non-starter in the way of sales. Seems they all, Apple and Google, want you to do all this stuff on your phone, which I will certainly never do as the music quality is not there.

Brought this August 2020. Was looking specifically for a DAP that hosted Android, and this fit the bill. I have no regrets about this purchase. I love my Walkman! Audio quality is phenomenal, especially when used with my Sony headphones. Finding a case for the device was easy too, which is important to me because I take care of my electronics. I wish the device's battery life was better though. After a full charge, I can get a solid 8 hours of continuous play out of the device, no WiFi or bluetooth. With bluetooth, it's a little less. With WiFi, it's quite a bit less. WiFi gobbles up the battery life on this device unfortunately. Despite this, I still have no regrets about this purchase and if something ever happens to this Walkman, I will most likely purchase another one. Note: I don't use the in-house music player. That may be contributing to the decreased battery life. The in-house music player doesn't have all the features that I want, so I purchased Poweramp Pro (highly recommend, btw, even if it does reduce battery life).

People talk about the battery life being atrocious, but it's not that insanely bad. You do have to turn off the wifi cause that is a battery hog. But as long as you're using it as a DAP, it'll last for 20-30 hours with nonstop playing. Bluetooth and wired use about the same amount. The audio quality is great and I can totally hear the difference between this and my nw45. Much clearer and more options to tweak the eq to your liking. The player uses an app now, and the only cons I'd say about that is that it takes a while to boot up and that there's no more sense me channels to play around with. But it works well enough for me and the interface is great as usual. Love the form factor and versitality of the Android interface and if you liked the aw45 and 55, you'll enjoy this one.

Look I'm going to start this by saying that this is NOT a device for everyone in my opinion. If you are not used to Android, you won't find the experience of this device enjoyable (unless you are willing to go through the customization and tweaks Android offers, which is to me is the fun part.) Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: Battery. Android is a battery hog, it's always been, and it'll always be that way unless Google somehow can make more money off better batteries. If you are annoyed by having to charge your DAP at least once a day or so if you're a heavy user then this isn't your device. Hell, it may drain too fast for the average user, too! I personally use this on my hour long commute to work every morning for a week now, whether I'm playing offline Spotify tracks or straight up streaming through a hotspot...well...guess what my car has? A charger! Who would've thought! Sure it may not be an convenience for everyone, but it's an option for most nonetheless. I get to work, and I use this pretty much all during all of my working day. Whether it's connected to my Bluetooth speaker, or my Sony MDR-1AM2 it sounds amazing! It drives my headphones better than my Pixel 3 does. If I lost a lot of juice during the day, no worries, I have like 2 Type C chargers in my office. Neat. By the time I leave work at 5 I can easily either charge it in the car or do so when I get home. Charging this device is not and will never be an issue for me. Now, having Android 9 in the size and the weight of this device is an incredible feat. Good job on that, Sony. I've been wanting an affordable Android Sony DAP for a really long time and I'm so glad they finally delivered this little fella. This may not replace your high-end DAPs in terms of sound or functionality, but to me and to my kind of usage it is simply perfect. I wanted to give this 4 stars due to the lack of accessories, they could've easily included a case or something. Oh well. Not big of a deal. I just couldn't give it any less than five stars due to how convenient this been in my life in the last few days. Spotify, Deezer HiFi, and FLAC all play smoothly and sound incredible on my headphones. I am not an Audiophile, so keep that in mind. I'll say this though, under the influence of the devil's grass this walkman has provided a very enjoyable experience and I believe it'll continue to prove that it's a worthy companion in my sweatpants or shirt pocket. Yeah. It's that small and light. All in all, if you're familiar with Android, and you want a small, portable, dedicated device that will allow you to enjoy music without the distractions of your phone notifications, won't break the bank, and with such a customization interface then you should at least give it a week to test it and see how you feel about it. Oh, I almost forgot, get a memory card, trust me. 16GB might as well be nonexistent whatsoever. Lol. Like come on Sony. Japan has a 32gb and 64gb models, but this one so far doesn't. I shoved a 256gb Samsung memory card and so far haven't had issues with it whatsoever. I published this review on Kurt Cobain's birthday, and I've been using this Walkman all day to listen to Nirvana and Christian Death. Sometimes it's the small things in life that make the biggest difference on our lives. Six months later update: I had given this 5 stars originally, but I decided to update this and give it a 3 instead. Two problems: battery. Wow. This was not improved by the updates whatsoever. It only got worse. It just became very annoying. Also, Spotify takes FOREVER to load from the memory card. And I do mean forever. Whether I'm trying to load an artist or a playlist. Often than not I'd have to restart the device to be able to get Spotify to work properly and it doesn't work for long before I have to do it again. I like this device, don't get me wrong, but I expected to get my money's worth and I simply didn't. This DAP definitely needs to be babied.