Sony Walkman NWZ-S544 (8GB)

By Kelvin Low, CNET Asia
Aug 31, 2009

Sony lost much of the portable digital audio market share with its earlier portable audio players that did not support the MP3 codec, partially because consumers did not accept the idea that they had to convert their songs into the ATRAC3 format. Also another nail in the coffin for Sony's early portable digital music players was the SonicStage software which was difficult to use.

However, the branding was saved when Sony started to incorporate features from the Walkman range into the Sony Ericsson phones, giving rise to its range of music-centric handsets. How successful is Sony Ericsson's Walkman phone marketing? Answer: We spent more time telling people that the S-540 series is not a phone.

The new S-540 series consists of the NWZ-S544 and NWZ-S545. These come in 8GB and 16GB capacities, respectively. Memory capacity is the only difference between these three players.

Design

The S-540 series sports a rather unique style that consists of a perforated texture. While these little indents in the body picked up dirt and dust over our test period, at least Sony has been brave with the design.

The bulk of the player is covered in plastic with a matte finish. The cover of the screen, however, is made of what seems to be the same sort of plastic that endows the cheaper E-440 series. In fact, the matte finish of the S-540 withstood light scrapes better than glossy finishes, a good thing we like to see, especially when players are usually used outdoors more often than indoors. The rear of the unit is where the speakers are located, hidden behind the perforated plastic areas.

The S-540 series control layout is exactly like the E-440 series we reviewed earlier, except that the five-way D-pad is given a ribbed feel which we liked more than the smooth finish on the latter.


The function lock slider and proper volume control rocker are on the right edge of the player. Nestled between these switches is the slider to select the audio output through headphones or the onboard speakers. All the switches and buttons feel chunky and tactile to touch, a trait which we like to see more of in portable devices.

The bottom of the player is where we find the 3.5mm headphone jack, mic and proprietary Sony WM-Port. The company also includes a small plastic stand to prop the player at a 45-degree angle on a flat surface, presumably to put the screen in a more comfortable viewing angle. While it does the job well, it's not integrated with the player, and chances of misplacing it are rather high.

The S-540 series measures 99.3 x 49.8 × 10.4mm. Not exactly a svelte design, but what device with a 2.4-inch screen and a pair of speakers is?

Features

The QVGA screen offers a 320 x 240-pixel resolution which is surprisingly sharp. Still, the limited color range mars the otherwise excellent display. The screen sits beneath a glossy plastic cover which is highly reflective and causes glares. In bright environments, the screen was still readable at certain angles, but we were annoyed at seeing our reflection in the display.

Navigation remains unchanged from recent Walkmans. Browsing the music library after loading the player with songs is relatively simple as the player will group the albums into alphabetical groups: A-I, J-R, S-Z, 0-9, etc. It only got tedious when we chose to browse by song level. Scrolling is quick enough and the player also offers folder browsing as an option, which is a nice addition.

We still had the same annoying MTP mode with Windows PCs, but switching to another OS forces the player to connect in UMS mode. In Windows, we could choose between the Content Transfer software and the drag-and-drop method to transfer files onto the player. We prefered to be able to select the USB connection method ourselves, like for the Philips GoGear Opus.

The player lacks an expansion card slot and the battery is built-in, taking 2.5 hours to fully charge via USB. Sony claims a 42-hour audio playback and 6.5 hours with video. Switching on the speakers reduced the battery life considerably, with the player producing 17 hours of audio playback and 5 hours of video.

The audio format support includes MP3, AAC-LC, WAV and WMA. In addition to that media, AVC, MPEG-4 and WMV videos are playable as well. Just like the E-440 series, the video size is restricted to 320 x 240, which is a small niggle as the players don't feature TV-output.

The FM tuner features auto scanning, 30 station presets, and FM recording. There's a built-in microphone at the bottom of the player for making voice recordings, and the Sony accepts JPEG images as well. Again, there is no on-the-go playlist creation on the device itself and deleting music files off the player is not possible.

Tags: Player, Sony Walkman, S-540, S-540 Series, Sony Corp.

• Most Popular

• Upcoming

What's Hot