Sony NWZ-A866 (32GB)

Zitat: If you’re in the market for a diminutive MP3 player, the Sony Walkman NWZ-A866 is a solid choice. Bluetooth, FM radio and the excellent screen for video viewing make it an unobtrusive but nattily-featured portable entertainer.

Zitat: Pro: + Excels for music playback + excellent headphones. Contra: - Expensive - not a multi-tasker. It´s hard to imagine a more elegant MP3 player, and the A866 beats the iPod Touch for sound quality and fuss-free music transfers. However, Sony is making a bold statement by charging just as much as the 32GB iPod touch - and we´re not completely convinced it pulls off the coup.

Zitat: If you´re keen on video, then you might be better off paying an extra £20 and settling for an iPod Touch . But as many will argue, Apple´s media players could sound better. Indeed, the Sony NWZ-A866 delivers a quality output, along with a user-friendly design and, overall, is is a great little music player. Although some will bemoan its incomplete format support, as pocket PMPs go, it has a lot going for it.

Zitat: The good: + For a start, the Sony NWZ-A866 sounds better than its Apple rival. Most of this is because of the earphones, and although they´re not the best in-ear solutions we´ve tried, they´re much better than those bundled with MP3 players, and easily good enough to live with while you save up the pennies. + Another way the Sony betters Apple´s iPod Touch, and indeed lots of older Sony MP3 players, is the fact that you can simply drag and drop files. No need to use clunky software, no need to use iTunes – simply open the folders you want to copy, and move them all across to the NWZ-A866. + Build quality on the NWZ-A866 is impressive, with a mixture of metal and plastic used. The result is high quality, looks fantastic, and is surprisingly small and compact. + You´ll get a choice of 16GB of 32GB options for storage, but there´s no microSD card reader, or any other form of expandable memory. + The screen on the Sony NWZ-A866 is a 2.8-inch panel, proving smaller than most of the current high-end smartphones. It boasts a resolution of 400 x 249 pixels, which is reasonably clear, but could be sharper. The bad: - The biggest problem with the NWZ-A866 is its small screen and price. Costing the same as an iPod Touch, we were hoping it would have a broader range of abilities. It misses out on some vital audio codecs – so you may have to change the formats in your existing music collection – and the compact screen stops it from being the perfect media player. The Sony NWZ-A866 is a neat solution, and looks great. It´s not quite the portable media player we were hoping for, however, with the iPod Touch – and even most smartphones – proving better options when it comes to video playback. If you just want a gadget for music playback – well again there are better options.

Zitat: Pro: + Small and light + nice build quality + fast, intuitive interface + sounds great Contra: - Low on frills – and storage – which makes it look expensive