Sony Walkman NWZ-E354 Black (8 GB) Digital Media Player

When my little RCA Pearl MP3 player went to that big electronics store in the sky, I decided I wanted something with more than 512 MB of space. Also, since I go on a few long trips each year, I wanted something that had video capabilities on top of a good amount of space. I know Sony is an exceptional brand,so I knew I could trust their music devices to be awesome. This one was no exception.

Now, for the likes and the dislikes.

Likes:
- Easy to use controls
- FM radio
- Plenty of space for tons of music and a few movies
- Image storage
- Good price for everything
- Great battery life
- A hold button so it doesn't turn on in your pocket (the buttons are very sensitive)
- Can customize sound output (tweaking the bass and treble to your liking or using presets already on the device)

Dislikes:
- Needed to update my system just to charge the battery. This was only an issue because I have dial-up and it's not easy downloading a 500 MB file.

I understand most people have better internet connections than dial-up and/or up to date software, so that might not be an issue for many. After all is said and done, I would absolutely buy this product again. For everything this little player can do, it's well worth the money. My old MP3 player was about $20 less than this and it didn't do half of what this one can do.

This mp3 player is of very good quality and I highly recommend this. I bought this as a gift for my mom. While testing it to make sure it worked, I was blown away by how quick and responsive this little gadget is. I have a different model Walkman for myself, and I love it, and I was not disappointed in the quality of this model. This player has good sound and is very easy to use. The build quality of the player is also very sturdy. One thing in particular I like about the Walkman is that you can customize the sound of it. They have built in mixers to help the listener tweak the sound to their liking.
One thing I don't care for is that out of the box, when you hook the player up to your computer, it automatically syncs EVERYTHING from your windows media library. This is a nice feature, but I turned it off, because there are some things that I don't want on my mp3 player such as various videos or pictures, certain songs, etc. Also, I had a problem once or twice with the player showing up with 2 copies of the same song. This was a little frustrating, but after tweaking in the settings I fixed this little problem. Also sometimes, the buttons don't always register when first pushed, but that is nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Other than that, this is a solid player.

A couple of things keep me coming back to the E354. The E354's USB-MiniB allows me to charge from standard home, office and mobile sources I use with other equipment without having to lug around the special cable that the newer walkman's require. The battery recharges to a usable level in a very short time and full faster than other devices I've owned(A definite plus) The device also looks like a standard Thumb drive when attached to a computer, which means that I can add and delete music and audio books (it's major use) without special software. The unit is compact and fairly rugged but I've destroyed or travel lost several (I'm rather rough on mobile equipment). The ability to replace the device a reasonable cost is therefore very important. The separately purchased sony earbuds are sufficiently high fedility for my needs as compared to the cheapies. I've purchased high end earbuds for this unit and while slightly better audio quality, they break just as often as all the others (see rough on equipment). If sony ever goes back to an industry standard connector I may upgrade to a newer device.

I would absolutely recommend this to other people, its a cheap brand name MP3 player with great features. It only needs recharging once a week even when using it constantly, and the interface is not that cheapo hard to use interface. Everything is easy to get to, easy to understand, and has great features.

PROS: low priced well rounded MP3 player, great interface, drag and drop technology, 7gb of storage, very crisp screen, plays any resolution video 720p or lower, SensMe channels that will scan your music and create playlists for you, good FM radio, custom equalizer, and absolutely amazing battery life it will play for around 50 hours straight.

CONS: screen scratches relatively easily without a screen protector, and can accidentally be turned on by pressing any button but not really a problem with the sliding hold key. 1gb of storage is already in use by preloaded songs and the OS, 7gb is usable for personal storage.

I bought this product because I wanted an mp3 player not an expensive Ipod. In that this product has met my expectation. The only thing I noticed is that they could have made the storage capacity of the player as close to 8GB as possible instead of barely 7GB it actually is. Secondly they could have made it last more than 31/2 days on a 3 hour charge like say 7 days worth on 3 hour charge. And I know they could make the video play more formats that just MP4 without needing to use the conversion program. I know they have this feature on other model, but just not the one I bought. Apart from the things I listed, the device worked perfectly.