Sony Walkman NWZ-S639F 16GB Comments

hey stuart did i just see an FM radio on one of the screenshots of the player? might be handy to put that in your review. i actually own one of the previous series (A828) the one thing i missed on that player was an FM radio.

This is gonna be my new player, IF the S9 doesnt get the reviews i'm hoping for..

Couldnt agree more with the review. I picked this player up last week and im amazed at just how good it is. I find the GUI really easy. It all makes sense and is very easy to get to grips with. The sound quality is just astonishing and the supplied headphones are not half bad.
I was also pretty sceptical about the aesthetics, however the design is definitely a "grower". Design is just about the only area where the nano beats it.
Genius on the nano is also more accurate. I found that the sensme feature on the sony can sometimes be way off. ie skatman in the relaxed section lol.
The radio is actually suprisingly gd. It has a fairly strong signal most of the time.

All in all i would also recommend it.

does it support file/folder or ID3 browsng?

Thanks for the review. I was waiting for TR to review this player before i bought it.
Now i can safely take the dive ;)

'...but on this Sony/Denon combo it just makes you want to get up and go get that hot chick on the dancefloor.'
Haha classic :)
another great review.

Glad I read this review!
I was just about to buy the A829 as am fed up with the flat sound from my 2G Nano.
How does the S639F compare to the A829 with regards to sound quality? The latter has had good reviews in that respect and just wanted to check whether this newer model offers the same quality!
Thanks!

@jackstraxx, users over at head-fi.org rate this player as good or better sounding than the A82* series. The A829 costs atleast £50 more isn't bundled with wireless BT headphones, but you do get a larger 2.4" screen at the same resolution. It doesn't have FM radio and I'm not sure if it can playback iPlayer download which I believe are WMV (DRM).

I found a A828 online for £100, same price as this player, so for me it was a case of do I want wireless BT or the extra 8GB, I chose the A828.

Thanks for the info!
Where did you see the A828 for 100 notes?

Just brought an 8 gb iriver l-player for £71. It is constantly freezing,hard to navigate. Will be sending it back with the denon headphones, to get sony player 16gb for £99

Great review, glad I read the comments too to see this player has a radio. I am torn, I have read some reviews for the Samsung YP-Q1 Diamond which is just being released and it also sounds great, nice (larger) screen, same price and sexy to boot. Have you had a chance to look at this player yet? How does it compare with the Sony? Which should I buy????? Chees.

The review on this site says that "the Sony NWZ-639F has a slight edge when it comes to audio."

Picked up the 4GB version of this today, a little disappointed as it does not come with the fancy headphones shown in this review! I figured 4GB would be enough for me and so saved £40 but not I have to buy some better headphones!

Keldon,

are you sure you have not bought the E436?

Accepting the fact that there is no on-the-fly playlist creation, can anyone tell me if selecting tracks for a playlist within the player causes the now-playing track to briefly pause (small half-second blip) like it does on my aged NWA3000? And since we're on the subject, does anyone have any ideas on how to persuade Sony to issue a firmware update that enables on-the-fly playlist creation?

That is a great review Stuart, thanks. I now own a S639. However, I was wondering if you did any data transfer speed tests? Lovely though the S639 is, I can only get mine to transfer at 18.4 Mbits/sec which seems a little slow for High Speed USB. Did you manage to get much faster speeds? Cheers, Tim

I used to own a Sony NWA-3000, looked gorgeous,though you couldn't read the screen in direct sunlight. My main gripe was the looooong time it took to go search through the music library if you had a decent number of songs on it. If you searched for a song beginning with C and you had to scroll from the first one, it took forever.... Does anyone know if this S369F has similar issues?

I starting with the Samsung YP-Q1 and really tried to justify keeping that unit due to the larger screen, true drag&drop, and better codec support. My dissapointment with GUI, FM radio, player sound quality and lack of tactile feedback on the keys lead to my purchase of the Sony S639 for comparison.

Bottom line is that the Samsung YP-Q1 is going to be returned, and I am keeping the S639. This despite the Sony having crude PC software and no FLAC/OGG support.

Best features of the Sony are its sound quality, GUI, and SensMe playlists. All of these combined make for a very enjoyable MP3 player. Smaller screen size does not impact me using this device without my +1.75 reading glasses. It helps that the keys can be operated accurately without having to look at the MP3 player.
Truth is that the Q1's larger 2.4" screen is still a small screen with same 320x240 resolution as the crisp sony 2.0" screen. I rather use a smaller ligher Mp3 player day-to-day then the larger Q1 which wieghs 50% more. (60g vs 90g).

I have yet to load my own videos onto the Sony with success, but this is a secondary use for me. The supplied demo videos play well on both Samsung & Sony players. It appears that the supplied [Sony] PC SW does not perform any transcoding and use of upgraded ($) software may be required. I have Handbrake, so will give this a try first.

Cheers! Time to go buy some cheap case covers from ebay for the S639.

Update to my prior comments.
Sony S639 does support drag & drop for loading files.
Sony does not support voice or FM recording. (Samsung Q1 does)
Sony does not display song information on FM stations (where available) (Samsung Q1 does).
Handbrake (free!) works very well for transcoding and video file into format that Sony accepts. I did have to update the settings using "5G ipod" as the starting point. Resolution=320x240, audio bitrate=128kbps dolby, advanced tab replace the following; level=13:bframes=0:cabac=0

Still very much in honeymoon phase with the Sony. Would not consider any other MP3 player.

This is a great little mp3 player The reasons why are as follows
I love the drag and drop technology
Love the "Sense me"Copyright song tech
Love the fact that you can download programmes on the bbc (via Iplayer)
The supplied headphones are fantastic
The operating system is so easy to use with one hand
FM Radio
The podcast library is fantastic

For those reasons GO BUY IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello. Im looking at getting a new mp3 player. Im more interested in sound quality than anything else. This SOny walkman looks great and from this review and your comments sounds like what im after. My only question is, do i hold out for the new Sony x series or go for this? If the sound quality is going to be the same on both id ratehr get this (abit impatient and not too fussed about touch screen).
Thanks Krish.

@Krish, it really comes down to what purpose are you buying the player for.

The new walkman with its 3 inch amoled screen will be great for watching videos but I dont expect Sony to be able to improve a lot on the current generation of A/S series when it comes to sound quality.

Keep in mind the new walkman will retail for over 250GBP where this one is going for about 100GBP, so it really in the end is your decision keeping these things in mind.

Personally I think this offers tremendous value at that price for 16GB and with that awesome sound quality. Since I only wanted a great MP3 player in a small form factor and not necessarily a video player, this would be my choice.

Will cost more than SGD350 when it touches down here and rape the hell out of my wallet.

Guess I'd have to stick with getting an E436, which is more than SGD170.

Ok. I bought this mp3 player about a month ago and all i can say is wow. Sound quality is awsome. Lightweight, easy to navigate and overall very impressed. My only issues is You have to make playlists before you put the songs onto the player. Is there anyway round this? I already have 2000 songs on my player and when i connect to my laptop it won't let me create playlists using the songs on the player. If i do this it syncs the songs from the player to WMP.
Also will i lose the songs on my player if i sync to different media players? I sync'd my player to media player on my pc and then when i wanted to do it to my laptop it said the player was already syncd to another device so i just cancelled. Any ideas?

P.S I really don't want to put anyone off this player it is honestly brilliant. If you listen to the same song on the ipod and then on the player you will be blown away at the better sound quality from the sony player.

I bought this player to replace my (antique) iPod mini. I'm very dissappointed and I'm probably going to buy a Nano sometime in the future. I'm not an iPod fanboy at all, I bought the Sony due to its superior SQ, and I expected it to be mostly equivalent in terms of other features. It's not.

The Sony interface is TERRIBLE compared to the mini. Selecting songs is all right, but volume control and scrolling within a song is INCREDIBLY awkward without an "analogue" control like the scroll wheel. I listen to a lot of audio lectures, and skipping to the half-way point takes forever, it's quite simply not usable for this purpose. The same is true for DJ mixes: don't like a song within a mix? Enjoy holding down the FWD button for 20 seconds. The same thing takes a flick of the wrist on an iPod.

Janking out the headphones pauses iPods, and eventually shuts them down, this is an easy way to shut down an iPod even when the player is locked; on the Sony, the music goes on playing (forever, depending on the play mode) and wears down the battery, turning the player off requires you to disable the lock. There also does not seem to be a way to set the player to shut down in 15/30/60 minutes, which is such a stunning oversight that I still hope to find it buried in some sub menu.

The whole interface isn't streamlined, the selection of options available in the "context" menu seem fairly random: why are some audio "enhancement" options available but not others? And more isn't always better: you've got a complex equaliser and three (I think) sound enhancers; you need a manual to know which is which (no context help is available on the player itself). And instead of just offering a single "auto play" function, there is intelligent shuffle AND sense me. The latter points are incidental though, easily overlooked if the core functionality wasn't hampered by the lack of an analogue control of any kind.

Awesome piece of kit! quite simply, puts an ipod touch to a shame with its sound quality totally amazing. originally ear phones may not be as effective but try alternative. the hardest part is taking off the ear phone once you are listening to the music!

Light weight, superb sound, very good music settings, i.e pop etc. fm radio, handy. software comes this is very also. simple and easy to use

I actually have the 739 model, this is almost identical appart from gold logo instead of red, and it has a noise cancelling function, which in my opinion, doesnt do much. Like previously said, I also am very disapointed by not being able to make playlists within the player its self, and also lack of a sleep timer to switch it off. I found that the easiest way to make playlists was to sync the player with my laptop, but using guest account, so that what is on the player is exactly the same as what is on the music library (WMP). Its a bit long winded and takes up more of your laptop memory, but seemed the only way.
These two minus points really spoil, what would otherwise be a faultless Mp3 player, and far better than any ipod, but I have to say now, that if I had known it was lacking these functions (i assumed too much of it) i would have opted to by the ipod instead, although the music sound quality is very good.

Okay, I'm very confused here - I'm on the brink of buying this player (£90 at Tesco/Amazon), but I have one question that needs answering. With my old Creative Zen I would play a track from a band, say a new song, and then I'd maybe add another track from a different artist, or a whole album all while still listening - sort of like a playlist, but I wouldn't care about saving it. That's how I listen to music, so my question is; can I do this with the Sony S639? I don't care about saving playlists (I know this player won't do that), but I really care about lining up a bunch of tracks from lots of artists and playing through them - is that possible? Hope someone can help!

Anyone help me out here? I know I'm a bit late to the party and all, but this seems like a good player at a great price - maybe I'll just give in and go for an ipod like everyone else....

Not sure about the ipod, but with my old (now lost) Creative Zen Vision M, you could add as many songs as you wanted to 'now playing' and they could be from any artist and played in random order, removing and adding more songs as you listened. Like with Winamp's media library. Maybe only creative do this, but I assumed every mp3 player did this as standard. It seems the only way to find out is to buy it....

Yes - I bought one. Many benefits spoken of are true - drag and drop, intuitive controls, good playlife however the sould quality is not all its hyoed up to be. It has nloated bass and pepped up treble leaving a flaccid mid frequency response. Unfortunately while the response can be tailored this aspect cannot be reduced and I have to say that the sound of the dreaded 'iplayer' is better overall.
Please - I'd dont want to watch movies on my watch, carry my family history or my photographic entry to the RA I just want good sounds - is this too much to ask?