Product Reviews

well built and sounds great but takes an age to charge and doesnt seem to last long when using it,needs recharging way to many times for me to give more than 3 stars.also the on screen display,with play ff or rewind etc are not very responsive.

No doubt a capable little player from Sony that has awesome sound and has a long lasting battery. However I expected more from Sony, especially from a niche product that are trying to compete with modern phone music players. Here's of the things you might consider: - EU volume limiter that makes the device sounds quieter than my phone. Luckily there's a mod that removes this. - No support for wired earphones media-controls/remote. - You can't send files to the unit from your phone via Bluetooth. - No option to search/filter songs lists. Want a song, better get used to that slow scrolling. - No option to jump to artist/album from the now playing screen. Want to listen to more from that artist, tough luck, better get used to scrolling through your long lists. - Equalizer settings doesn't apply to Bluetooth headphones. That good sound is only for your wired headphones! - Proprietary cable - better keep that thing safe or you'll wont be able to charge or connect your device. - No firmware updates/support. Buy one of our more expensive product, loser! You buy these overprized music players and it doesn't even come with headphones lol. Luckily Sony is still kind enough to give you one of their own proprietary charging cables. The product is NOT bad, but it's not great either. It's just average. It lacks basic features that can be found on most if not all modern media players. I expected more from Sony and implementing a volume limiter on a music device is just like shooting yourself in the foot. Especially when competition like Fiio are selling devices that will blow your brains out with it's volume loudness. I wouldn't have bought this device if volume limiter hack wasn't available - it's a huge deal breaker. I think it's time for Sony to get down from their high horse and let someone else be the king of music.

I needed a portable music player and after reading the reviews decided on this. The only issue I have is the headphones/earbuds. I can't find the ones recommended anywhere in the UK and feel a little let down because I can't use all the features, I purchased some other Sony buds and they're great sounding so cant wait to get the recommended in the future.

Bought this recently to replace a few different iPods and love it. Wanted something that was purely for music and not apps, pictures, etc which is certainly what I got. Love it.

Having owned several older model Walkmans (Walkmen?), I was attracted by this model's lack of non-audio based features: no battery sapping Android or Wifi, and also by the DAC option. I am not disappointed. There are too many audio options to mention, and I am not an expert, so suffice to say, the simple to use touch screen makes subtle changes to your audio pleasure very easy. The software makes finding your songs and creating playlists on the fly, equally simple. The device itself has a confidence building weight to it, and physical buttons along one side for out of sight control. Bluetooth is simple to activate and quickly connected to my speaker and in ear buds (NFC is possible, but I do not have such audio devices).I have, however tried using the DAC function with my phone and this worked well too. I have the A55l version, which limits the volume and produces warnings and has the radio absent in software (EU laws!?), however a quick look on the internet produces a simple fix for this. All in all, I am very impressed with NW-A55 and would recommend it without hesitation.

I am replacing my ipod and an Old sony MP3 player with this model. Like all new things it took a bit of getting used to but now I am delighted with it.

Great sound, easy to use, seems easier to pair to other devices, but slight disappointment with lack of radio as per A45 - a small matter I understand, but when you purchase up upgrade you expect improvements not leaving something - but as a player the sound really is superb

I love my Sony Walkmsn as it is easy to use and has great sound. Also, the expandable memory is an excellent feature via a Micro SD card (not supplied).

First time I have used anything apart from CDs, easy to use & does the job.

I bought this 2 months ago and have not managed to use it successfully yet. For the older person; the person non conversant with digital storage (i.e. the use of cards etc) the instructions are badly conceived and implemented. The 'hard' (paper) instructions are adequate but I find the online instruction book is disjointed.

I bought this a month ago to enable storage of more music than that offered by my i-Pods. I was also finding i-Tunes more and more fickle as an interface. Knowing that the built-in memory of the Walkman was small, I advance-purchased a 125 GB micro-SD card. Initially, I found operation of the Walkman tricky because of the very limited instructions that accompanied it. The on-line guide is rather cumbersome but helped me get to grips with operations. It also provided the link to the piece of software which has ultimately made a huge difference to my feeling about the player - the Sony Music Player for PC. If only this link was referred to in the accompanying instructions! Operation of the Walkman turns out to be quite intuitive. Linking to Bluetooth devices is easy and signals are stable. The sound generated is of higher quality than anything I've ever got from the same devices using my i-Pods. And that's without resorting to Hi-res MP3s. All in all I'm very satisfied with my purchase and would recommend it without hesitation.

I've had my NWZ-E443 for years. Love it but with its limited capacity I wanted to upgrade & the NW-A55L seemed the ideal solution. A Sony Walkman with the ability to add a micro SD card to expand the memory & bluetooth connectivity. Easy purchase really. It's a great looking & feeling piece of kit. Solid build, great touch screen, monster sound. So why am I frustrated with it. Connectivity. I have two laptops. Syncing to both was easy. Laptop 1, using cable connection, will transfer music but the Walkman won't accept the cover art. Laptop 2, by cable again, will transfer music but the Walkman won't read the files so I can't play them. We have four mobile phones in the house. Three Samsung of different models & an iPhone. None will connect to the Walkman via bluetooth. Laptop 2 has bluetooth & will also not connect to the Walkman. I have Enacfire F1 earphones, which connect to everything. The Walkman will locate them but won't connect to them. NFC is a waste of time aswell. I've tried everything going, read every idea, every article put up online to get this Walkman working to it potential but to no avail. So the 128gb micro SD I bought for the Walkman is now in my phone. The Walkman is back in its box & up for sale.

This device has good features and easy to use. Music can be transferred straight from I tunes which is great. I think the device is too heavy and it has capacity limitation. Depending on how you want to download, you might need to buy a external card.

easy to down load music .great bit of kit and looks good

The hardware is superb. The look and feel is excellent and using it is brilliant. However, Media Center is slow, even on a high end Win10 PC. Keyboard entry is not slick and many more keyboard shortcuts would help. I have over 1,000 CD's to enter and find that about 25/hour from a stored database is about top speed.

Really pleased. Does what I want and gives good sounds.

I had to return the MP3 player for a refund so I cannot leave a full review - just the reasons I had to return it. On the positive side, I liked the look of it and the music transferred easily and quickly. However, it was only when I started transferring the music that I realized there was only 12gb memory, not 16gb. I could have lived with that by using a memory card if there were no other issues, but after checking the music on my MP3 player, I noticed several files were missing (not under artists, album or playlist. I also noticed there were random tracks missing from some albums (1 or 2 tracks). I eventually managed to find them under unknown (by now a very long list of individual tracks), so there was no way for me to listen the files I had created (or full albums if there were any tracks in unknown). I could create my own playlists on the MP3 player but this would be very time consuming. The albums and files were all showing as I wanted them to on the MP3 player in File Explorer, Windows Media Player and Music Centre For PC. However, they were not on the physical MP3 player. I tried several suggested solutions (on Sony website), but nothing worked. I have had several much cheaper MP3 players in the past (under £30 on Amazon), and this has never been a problem on any of them (though they all had their issues which is why I brought the Sony). The MP3 player had received overwhelming positive reviews everywhere, so I don't know if it was just a faulty player, but it was no good for what I wanted so after a couple of days of trying to fix the problems, I sent it back for a refund.

I am told the listening experience is fantastic; but as yet have not heard anything on it; as setting up is very hard. I was hoping I could use already set up playlists, built up over several years to listen to along with podcasts already held. This is not possible. I have to set them all up again manually apparently. Which I don’t have time for. Disappointed so far and gone back to an old iPod instead.

Very pleased with Walkman just read the instructions and away you go easy to put music on and the controls at your finger

Highly recommended. Very portable,good battery stamina,bulit in aptx,aptx HD,perfect for WH-1000XM3 headphone.

Received this as a Christmas present and very pleased with the sound from this great little piece of gear. Used the Sony software to add music and this proved to be reasonably straightforwards, you can also just drag and drop using windows. The highlight fr me was the ability to play lossless music, wav, flac and more - this abilty combined with good headphones realy brought music back to life for me. It's not perfect the interphase but its not bad, the sound tweaks possible sometimes help and sometimes dont. But for the price it's a great piece of equipment and once you use it you wont happily go back to lesser sound quality.

Bought this as my 11yr old samsung player had finally died,very pleased with the structural quality and features on the sony,but found it hard to transfer music from PC having downloaded the sony music center,only 2 out of 320 songs transferred then it said player was fulI but wasn't showing them in the library I tried numerous times deleting the 2 songs and repeating the transfer but still wouldn't work in the end I had to format the system storage which then showed the player was empty,I then transferred music again and finally it worked,like the player but wouldn't buy another,also think for £180 it should come with a hard case or wallet

This is a nice product with easy to access controls. Unfortunately, I had to return it as it wasn't compatible with my Bluetooth ear buds. Worked fine with plug in headphones but not with my ear buds. Couldn't control the volume.

Got this wee beauty for Xmas from my wife..she knew I needed a new MP3 player after my Ipod nano went in the wash. I have a Sony phone & cans, so we know Sony do the job. Love this beautiful wee piece of kit..

I just bought it as a personal recommendation. I love to listen music on with the best possible quality and this device works fantastic. I use to pair with my Bose airbuds and the combination is just perfect.

I bought this to replace my old Sony mp3, and I have not been disappointed with it. Great sound quality, easy to use and upload music. You can expand its storage capacity with a micro SD card. I would recommend this player.

This was a requested Christmas present to replace my ageing iPod Classic and it did not disappoint. Very straightforward to copy my Itunes music collection on to the Walkman and the improvement in sound quality compared to my iPod is quite remarkable. Whilst I do not have any high resolution music in my collection yet, the quality produced by the Walkman, presumably due to the upscaling to high resolution equivalent is just brilliant. I have a decent Cambridge Audio system but with the Walkman quite simply, it's like having a new Hi Fi.

Received this as a Christmas gift after years of ipod. Simple to set up and use great quality can't fault it.

I bought this online following a recommendation in the 2020 What Hifi awards issue.I am somewhat disappointed with it.The maximum volume is rather low and certainly much lower than my old iPod.I am also unable to connect it to my Pioneer N70-A streamer for some reason.

Bought this mp3 in Dec 2020 sound Clarity-very good. Have difficulty in organising song folders, my older Sony MP3 player was better. Satisfied with purchase.

Had this for a couple of weeks now and love it, easy to operate and good value Would have given 5 stars but new sd card was formatted and after a few days a message of not mounted means the tracks on it can't be played..... Tried to get it mounted but every time I edit off the laptop its gone again!

I deliberated for a long time before buying, because of the reviews about the volume level, but I found it not a problem. Really great sound quality even when played through my cheap jlab bluetooth ear buds. Great internal memory, plus with the extra memory card, I have all my albums loaded. I'm very happy, only wished that I bought it sooner.

Bought to replace my broken iPod Classic. I am not disappointed.

I bought this to replace a NWZ-E464 (8Gb) because I needed more memory space. I find it difficult to transfer the album art to the NW-A55L along with the album tracks. Only 32 albums display the album art out of over 100 albums. This was not a problem with the other mp3. It seems odd that the older technology works better than the new. If I had known about this, I probably would not have bought it.

Well constructed. The set up cold be made easier by reorganizing the order of some of the instructions. Such as the need not to let the PC sleep during transfer. The s/n on the product is tiny and it is not obvious from the package which number is the serial number? The initial configuration is rather slow on each loading. The menus are excellent and easy to master.

I haven't explored the functions much yet but it is easy to load MP3 files and link to a bluetooth speaker. Main challenge was converting Apple music files to MP3 which just made me glad to be shot of my ipod.

This is really nice. I am only just getting to grips with its menu, but it is not a particularly complex one, and will fall into place with more use. I have had various walkmans in their different guises over the years, and it seems that Sony has continued the style and innovation with this model. Shame about the volume restrictions, but that's not down to Sony. It's fine on my Bose ear buds, but not so good on my PSYC speaker unit which won't go loud enough. Other than that, the walkman is a real beauty and at a decent price; I bought it for £130 which was a recent drop in price.

joint birthday and Christmas gift and so worth the wait! The sound quality is excellent and it has so many features I am still getting to grips with it all

I give it 3 stars as it does not appear to be an intuitive device to use but that is the same with many devices and you are working with a small area - the reviews say it plays anything but only recorded at 192kbs (I think) and at a certain mhz - it just says cannot play this file which is the reason I bought as my ages old Olympus says same - it will play anything thru something else say car media play same as my Olympus - it doesn't seem to very good at all at picking up blue tooth devices - on my laptop I got some wireless earphones up and running in seconds but on the A55L took an age to sort and haven't yet got it to talk to player in the car. Also - will probably find the answer as I keep wading thru the manual but its a touch screen but it blacks out and then touching the screen does not 'wake' this player up, say like your phone, you have to press on off button - I will keep working at it though.

somehow the bluetooth seems not working. Unable to connect it to any devices including my Sony sound bar or my mobile phone via Bluetooth. I copied the folders with mp3 into the walkman via the apps, but the mp3 endedup all over the places in the walkman and not by the folders assignned. I wish to bring it to Sony to see what happens

Bought it initially because it had Bluetooth and for use in the gym. Transferring music from Itunes was a bit fiddly at first but now very pleased with it. It's small and unobtrusive and the sound is excellent especially with my Sony wireless ear buds.

I bought this to transfer my CDs to. Before my purchase I carried out lots of research which suggested this was a really good MP3 player and in many ways I agree, the quality of play back is good and it has lots of features. However, this model does not come with headphones or earphones as the advert on some sites suggest (not Sony's fault that it is mis advertised) but disappointing that something this expensive does not come with any. The second disappointment is that the Bluetooth does not fully work with Bluetooth speakers. They connect and playback, but the volume control buttons on the Walkman do not work with Bluetooth, so it is not possible to change the volume using the Walkman while connected to a Bluetooth speaker, which is a real shame and kind of the point of a wireless connection. I have tried all different settings and advanced settings, which recognise this problem, but still cannot get it to work. The volume control buttons do work with a physical wired connection and very strangely, wirelessly with Bluetooth headphones. I got mine in the pre-Christmas sales so did not pay the recommended £180, mine was £130. Would I have bought it at full price given the lack of headphones and as the Bluetooth does not work as expected? No, probably not.

Sturdy case, large memory. Great sound. Lovely device for everyone who loves music.

Bought this to replace my damaged I pod classic. Obviously had to use an sd card to fit more music but the sound is great is easy to operate and good value for money

I am delighted with this product I wish I'd bought bit sooner. Can't think of one fault and would definitely recommend it.

I’ve been looking for a solution to take my large digital audio collection on the go with me. I’d been looking for a non smartphone option for a while, as I use it as a portable hard drive for DJ purposes also. The A50 along with a 1tb micro-sd has finally provided me with decent solution to my requirements. As well as allowing me to use both wired and wireless headphones for general listening, the addition of a portable DAC and Bluetooth receiver has done away with my need for my Chord Mojo, overall I’m very happy with my purchase. My reason for not giving a full 5 star review is due to some quirks of the interface. I’ve found properly tagged wav files don’t display their track/album details. It’s possible to view the files via the folder view but it’s less than ideal if you’re searching via artist or album view. The other interface issue that I have is with files not displaying embedded artwork unless the image is saved as a baseline jpeg, again, I’ve put a lot of time into properly organising my files so having to redo a lot of album art in this format is time consuming and could be easily rectified with a firmware update from Sony, fingers crossed that happens! Finally, allowing the radio function for UK models would be fantastic without the need to rewrite the firmware with another regions settings, a process that will void your warranty. While I understand this is due to certain regions having stricter guidelines regarding this functionality it would be a nice feature to have. I expect I’ll wait until my warranty has expired before attempting this, just in case. However, apart from the few minor issues I’ve mentioned, I would still happily recommend this Walkman to anyone looking for a decent standalone audio player with an excellent feature set.

Bought this 3 weeks ago , fantastic player . Sound is amazing . Would definately recommend

I'd been using a smartphone and online music service for many years. When that service was recently closed down it prompted me to return to having a dedicated audio device - chiefly to give me a reason to go back to using my Er4P high quality earphones which were wasted on a smartphone, as well as having full access to my songs without worrying about connectivity or subscriptions. In having a look for something to buy this player quickly became the one I would eventually choose - it seemed like it would be able to drive the earphones well, get the most out of the song files in my library, and hold all my music. Found it nice using a dedicated device, without distractions or pings from apps and messages, as well as tactile control with buttons. Would be nice if it had a search feature, though the screen would probably be too small for a keyboard to be fair. The sound quality was great (and there are guides for how to change it to suit your tastes/get the most out of the device - I followed them and it was even better) Overall I'm happy to have bought it and am enjoying a return to a slightly nostalgic way of life - listening to music using quality earphones and not being distracted with anything else.

I brought this Sony Walkman about 1 months ago. It has many features and can play back at high resolution. The radio reception is very clear too. Sound is fantastic even playing back at MP3 quality. Highly recommended.

The sound is superb and it brings out aspects of my music that I've never noticed with my older CD player. The use of removable, standard storage (micro SD card) that can be read by Windows etc is so much better than the iTunes/Apple approach. On the downside, it's a small device, almost too small for easy handling, and the text size is minute. And because it creates its database anew on each power-up, it can be a frustrating wait when you simply want to hear a track.

So good to have this dedicated music player...love the crisp sound and the array of options for getting the sound to suit your needs..must add that the battery life is extremely important to me and this player does not disappoint..very pleased

I have only 2 drawbacks for the Sony NW-A55L, the 1st is the charging cable is very very short, 2nd, you cannot buy a tempered Glass protector in case you accidentally drop it. Those aside, I love it.

Having read many reviews on the A-55, I decided to buy this to replace my A-27 which gave up on me recently. Really pleased that I did. All those 5 star reviews were accurate. The build quality is obviously good, for a small unit there is reassuring amount of weight to it but still comfortable to use in the hand. Once you have learned to navigate the touchscreen it is easy to find your way round, moving between the many features and settings that are built into it. I like the fact that it is possible to customise the sound to suit your own unique choice. I’m using the A-55 with a pair of Shure SE425’s, and having the Clear Audio+ setting on with them I have a great sound reproduction. This combo handles Judas Priest’s “Painkiller” with ease, and that is a challenge for most of today’s portable sound gear. Not sure about the battery life at the moment, but this could be because my 425’s take a bit of “driving” and I do navigate between albums and artist’s a lot, so I’ll see how this goes. 16GB system may seem a bit small for some, adding an SD card sorts that out. Good price as well for what you get. Well done Sony, all the high praise reviews are right.

Sound is fine, but so far only my iPhone will connect through Bluetooth. Tried my Sony SRS-XB41 speaker and Panasonic ear-buds.

Bought the Sony Walkman NW-A55L to replace my old Apple iPod. I had originally shopped around and compared the latest iPod models with various other MP3 players. The Sony Walkman sounded like it could do, at least, everything that any iPod could do. And for a much more reasonable price. I've had it for nearly a fortnight now and can honestly say I definitely made the right decision. The Sony Walkman is so easy to use and its associated app, 'Music Center for PC' (Sony equivalent of iTunes) is also very easy to use. Transferred all my albums over from iTunes and it also managed to retrieve the Album Art that iTunes had failed to. The Sony Walkman paired successfully to my Bose bluetooth speaker without a problem and the sound is perfect. All-in-all I would say the Sony Walkman NW-A55L is every bit as good as an iPod and is, in fact, MUCH better value for money!! I couldn't recommend it highly enough. Buy one and you won't be disappointed.

Pairing with my xm4 , wow great soundstage with DSD128 format, watch out for the battery they drain fast with this file, worth the price paid .

Early days but have found the software for importing easy to use. Sound quality good and easy to use. Have not used any of the more advanced functions or options as I need to work my way through the instruction manual before I do so.

I bought this model at a good price and have been impressed with the sound quality pretty much straight out of the box (although tweaking the equaliser settings improves things). Coupled with my new Sony noise cancelling headphones, well, it's a match made in heaven! Very pleased.

I purchased this dap player a couple of weeks ago. So far, pretty good. 1st thing is battery life-as advertised. It lasts a long time. Though Idk about the 45hr thing? But, it does last about 3days, before I have to charge. 2nd, it does play via bluetooth. As far as volume control. Pry some of the features, you wont notice. Like some the settings for sound, eq, surround etc. For some reason, it doesnt play various features via bluetooth earphones. But it will play it loud. Like, if you travel alot by airplane? A great device. 3rd, when you connect corded head phones to this? It will spring to life. All of the sound features are availible, and its magnificent. Great sound, and allegedly. It will last a little longer-(battery) 4th, Sd card, pending your Library. Works flawlessly. The A55, you can format on the device. Which is cool. Then its drag and drop. Playlists? you pry should make a list via pen an paper. Because you really cant tweek or alter song order from the device. To my knowledge. Ive played with it and doesnt seem to be able to. The radio feature? I have not tried. I dont plan to, unless I run out of my own downloads. Finally, it is alittle small. I wasnt prepared for tht havn came from an iphone 11 max. Overall? I think its a great device, if you just want to go off grid and just play your music. No social networking. No movies-video, no textn-phone calls. Just think of it as a mp3/dap player that has great sound, both corded and bluetooth. Ihope you wont be disappointed? Different likes and all. Good luck and stay safe. ColoDJ