River Lover

While on the road I am a huge fan of having music at hand. From classical music helping me fall asleep while camping to drowning out the Mariachi music while driving around Mexico, mp3 players are the obvious choice.

Of course the most obvious choice here by most is ipod, but I went away from that route for two reasons. #1 is that ipods are, in my opinion, overpriced because they are trendy. Apple has done a great job marketing a mediocre product, and it has been gobbled up. #2 against ipods is that to be large enough they use a true hard disk, which in the course of travel amounts to a 1 year lifespan. Guaranteed to be less if you like music snowboarding or skiing. #3 is that fact that every time I let itunes manage my music, I end up with 2-3 copies of a lot of my music. #4 is bad battery life, generally much lower than the already low advertised life.

So while shopping in Costco for my Mexico trip I walked past the 16gb Phillips GoGear Aria and was intrigued. 16gb of tough solid state memory, 26 hour battery life and only $90. I had to try it since my ipod’s battery life is about 3 hours, just enough to almost get me onto my second flight.

The good: One of the best things about the Aria is the ability to delete songs from the player, quite frankly I can’t believe nearly every other player on the market lacks this feature.

Second is the ability to create on the go playlists, an ipod strength. Nice feature.

It comes with an ok set of headphones, better than the ipod ones.

The button layout and design are simple, it’s easy to navigate though. Sound quality is just ok, very similar to an ipod.

It uses a standard usb to mini usb cord, big thumbs up for this.

In use the battery life was quite good, probably around 20 hours.

Downsides: Just ok sound quality. The minimum time for the screen to black out is 15 seconds, way too long for a battery miser like myself. If you have music playing and browse to another artist, and in that process let the screen go to it’s screensaver while waiting for a song title to roll across, when you wake it up again you are back at the playing song and have to scroll back through to where you were. Annoying to say the least, and something that the ipod does a good job with.

Startup time is surprisingly slow, because it insists on displaying Phillips, GoGear, and Aria, all on three separate loading screens. Lets cut to the chase here gentlemen!

On the whole it has a cheap, plastic feel, and a few annoying quirks, but you can drag and drop music onto it, battery life is good and for the price it’s a nice little mp3 player. It can do video but who would want to watch it on a 2″ screen, which in this case is also “blah”.

The Sony Walkman NWZ-S639F

First off, Sony, simplify the names of your Mp3 players, it’s worse than trying to keep track of Pyranhas’ M, H and I series!

This was bought as a gift for me at nearly the same time, but while I was gone so I have spent some time with both players. The Sony is considerably more expensive for the same amount of memory, and also comes with a set of (far superior) headphones. Out of the box the build quality of the Sony is apparent with an alumnium case, and thin compact design. The Aria is not large, but the Sony is considerably smaller although about the same weight, if not a touch more due to things like screws holding the unit together instead of plastic snaps.

When I turn the Sony on I am still amazed at how fast it is. If you’ve made the move from a compact digital camera to a dSLR, it’s a similar feel. Hit the power button and the unit is on, quite impressive.

Sony has pushed sound quality as their largest selling factor, and it shines through, this little player has great sound quality compared to the Aria or an ipod. I am not the most picky listiner, but it’s obvious that this player has better sound with more depth, which is quite nice, unless of course you are drowning out the all night show in Tayoltita, where volume plays more of a role than quality. Which this also has more of than the Aria.

The “Content Transfer” program included is quite nice provided you are running itunes prior to version 8. If so you can drag and drop both music and playlists to the player. If you are using itunes 8, no playlist transfer which is a shame. You can also drag and drop from windows explorer.

The screen very sharp and colors are bright. I’m still not watching vidoes on a 2″ screen.

Battery life, at an advertised 40 hours this player is killing it, I have not been able to wear it down yet.

The downsides. First off the unit is considerably higher priced, and sorely lacking the ability to delete songs from the player. Second, I find the buttons are too easy to press, and if the player is in a pocket the Hold mode needs to be on. The Aria wins out on this, the buttons are just resistant enough to avoid accidental bumps while in pocket. I like this so I can throw it in a pocket and still skip songs without removing the unit to turn hold off.

No on the fly playlist creation. Bohoo Sony, this should be a standard feature at this point!

The Sony unit connects via a proprietary cord. I’d much rather have a mini-usb cord that could be used for my external hard drive, camera and cf card reader. These are so standard and convenient!

If you combined the top features of each you might just have the best player on the market. As is both have their week points, the Aria’s being sound quality and overall cheap “feel” while the Sony needs on the go playlist creation and the ability to delete from the player. Which will see the most use? Time will tell, but my guess right now is the Sony due to high quality sound, quick navigation, instant startup and slim profile.