7 ms·

Regarding the interface: no. I bought one of these and regretted it ever since. It may well be better than the competition currently, but it is still got a shi

Regarding the interface: no. I bought one of these and regretted it ever since. It may well be better than the competition currently, but it is still got a shitty interface that demands your attention for anything. Small example: to switch off you have to press and hold the off button (edit: a few seconds), then it pops up a modal but asks you whether you really want to turn it off. Err, yes please? The 'off' button at the top is actually well engineered you can't hit it by accident, it's hard to hold in and you have to do it for several seconds. I don't want to a confirmation dialog popping up that when I'm getting off a bus. It isn't needed. The damn thing demand your attention all the time. I used to have an Archos, I could navigated using its clunky front-the lever without looking. Not with this you can't. You have to concentrate. The buttons shown on the side are too small to feel unless you concentrate (the smaller ones are ~2mm wide, the volume 'bar' is thankfully usable after a bit of practice). There's other problems with it - turn it on? Pretty animation + almost a minute startup time before it's ready. Unplug it from charging, it remains on despite going blank, on standby, looking like it turned itself off - come to use it in a few days, it's gone flat - "but I just charged it, what happened?". It's beautifully well-made in hardware, sound is really great, the UI... I bloody hate navigating the music on it. It's an absolute pain in the arse. Bring back proper user interfaces, not touch screens. You know, with user testing. It's a lovely bit of kit that I just don't want to use. Rant over.

theodric 4y ago
Beautiful hardware let down by its software? Sounds like every Sony product I've ever bought.
- voxadam 4y ago
  In defense of Sony's software/firmware team I'd argue that we've also been repeatedly burned by Sony's flawed hardware full of their endless NIH proprietary BS (e.g. Memory Stick, UMD, Minidisc, ATRAC, Betamax, to name just a few).
  - layer8 4y ago
    MiniDisc wasn’t proprietary, it was available from many manufacturers: https://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html https://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html And the hardware itself was great, even when it was for a proprietary standard.
    - NonNefarious 4y ago
      But Sony is a champion of undermining industry standards. S/PDIF is a bastardization of AES/EBU. They created a bullshit version of Firewire with a rinky-dink non-standard connector that lacked power. They continued to cripple their products with Memory Stick for years after the rest of the planet settled on SD. Their first Thunderbolt support came crammed into a hacked USB port on one of their laptops. I'm sure I'm forgetting some other examples.
- trollied 4y ago
  SonicStage was a perfect example of this. Amazing (small!) MiniDisc hardware, let down by one of the worst pieces of software I've ever had the misfortune to use.
  - laputan_machine 4y ago
    Yeah this is exactly what I was thinking of, that software was truly awful. I owned 3 MiniDisc players. I thought they were so neat!
noxvilleza 4y ago
Was looking at DAPS in this price range towards the end of 2019 - ended up going with a Fiio X5 III. Many of your Sony concerns are present in it: really poor menu/nav design, slow startup - but excellent sound quality.
alpaca128 4y ago
Also Sony's preinstalled music app is the worst I've ever seen. It cannot create/edit playlists or playback queues. It can only delete playlists, and whenever you do that the app will interrupt music playback for a second. It can only display album cover thumbnails if their resolution is around 80x80 or lower. Thanks to Android it's possible to install alternatives, but a more lightweight system would have been preferrable. It can only charge the battery while switched on. The last time the battery was at 15% when I plugged it in, and the Walkman instantly booted up Android, draining the battery to 7% before it started charging. I do not know what happens if the battery charge isn't enough to boot up the OS and I'm too afraid to try. It's a really neat device and I like using it, but it has so many puzzling quirks.
wvh 4y ago
It would be worthwhile if some companies would just be willing to minimally invest into an open-source version of their interface and a safe way for developers and hardcore users to update their devices without bricking them. It might go nowhere, but if they're lucky, some really good interface ideas might pop up that could then be incorporated into the official product. This Walkman line and its embedded software has a relatively long lifespan, so a lot of people might benefit from improvements.
jacquesm 4y ago
Electronics are getting more 'needy' all the time. Try switching off a modern TV, it requires three or four steps in sequence or you can start all over again. In the good old days you just hit the 'off' button and that was it. Ditto for navigation, in car systems (the designers of non-tactile systems deserve a special place in hell and hopefully their victims don't haunt them in person), phones and so on. They all seem to thrive on your attention instead of just getting the job done and staying out of the way otherwise.
- eropple 4y ago
  > Try switching off a modern TV, it requires three or four steps in sequence or you can start all over again. They do? My LG has a power button and it turns off when I press it. So does the TCL in my studio.
  - kkkgllloo 4y ago
    The Samsung TV in this Airbnb goes into standby when you press the "power" button. To actually turn it off you have to go into the settings and find the real option, or unplug it.
- aceazzameen 4y ago
  I don't even think my Sony Android TV is capable of turning off! Press power on the remote and it goes to sleep. Ok, that's fine. But when an app is unresponsive I have to hold the remote power button for something like 6 seconds and it only reboots the TV. I can't even find a software shutdown button.

theodric 4y ago

Beautiful hardware let down by its software? Sounds like every Sony product I've ever bought.

voxadam 4y ago
In defense of Sony's software/firmware team I'd argue that we've also been repeatedly burned by Sony's flawed hardware full of their endless NIH proprietary BS (e.g. Memory Stick, UMD, Minidisc, ATRAC, Betamax, to name just a few).
- layer8 4y ago
  MiniDisc wasn’t proprietary, it was available from many manufacturers: https://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html https://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html And the hardware itself was great, even when it was for a proprietary standard.
  - NonNefarious 4y ago
    But Sony is a champion of undermining industry standards. S/PDIF is a bastardization of AES/EBU. They created a bullshit version of Firewire with a rinky-dink non-standard connector that lacked power. They continued to cripple their products with Memory Stick for years after the rest of the planet settled on SD. Their first Thunderbolt support came crammed into a hacked USB port on one of their laptops. I'm sure I'm forgetting some other examples.
trollied 4y ago
SonicStage was a perfect example of this. Amazing (small!) MiniDisc hardware, let down by one of the worst pieces of software I've ever had the misfortune to use.
- laputan_machine 4y ago
  Yeah this is exactly what I was thinking of, that software was truly awful. I owned 3 MiniDisc players. I thought they were so neat!

noxvilleza 4y ago

Was looking at DAPS in this price range towards the end of 2019 - ended up going with a Fiio X5 III. Many of your Sony concerns are present in it: really poor menu/nav design, slow startup - but excellent sound quality.

alpaca128 4y ago

Also Sony's preinstalled music app is the worst I've ever seen. It cannot create/edit playlists or playback queues. It can only delete playlists, and whenever you do that the app will interrupt music playback for a second. It can only display album cover thumbnails if their resolution is around 80x80 or lower. Thanks to Android it's possible to install alternatives, but a more lightweight system would have been preferrable. It can only charge the battery while switched on. The last time the battery was at 15% when I plugged it in, and the Walkman instantly booted up Android, draining the battery to 7% before it started charging. I do not know what happens if the battery charge isn't enough to boot up the OS and I'm too afraid to try. It's a really neat device and I like using it, but it has so many puzzling quirks.

wvh 4y ago

It would be worthwhile if some companies would just be willing to minimally invest into an open-source version of their interface and a safe way for developers and hardcore users to update their devices without bricking them. It might go nowhere, but if they're lucky, some really good interface ideas might pop up that could then be incorporated into the official product. This Walkman line and its embedded software has a relatively long lifespan, so a lot of people might benefit from improvements.

jacquesm 4y ago

Electronics are getting more 'needy' all the time. Try switching off a modern TV, it requires three or four steps in sequence or you can start all over again. In the good old days you just hit the 'off' button and that was it. Ditto for navigation, in car systems (the designers of non-tactile systems deserve a special place in hell and hopefully their victims don't haunt them in person), phones and so on. They all seem to thrive on your attention instead of just getting the job done and staying out of the way otherwise.

eropple 4y ago
> Try switching off a modern TV, it requires three or four steps in sequence or you can start all over again. They do? My LG has a power button and it turns off when I press it. So does the TCL in my studio.
- kkkgllloo 4y ago
  The Samsung TV in this Airbnb goes into standby when you press the "power" button. To actually turn it off you have to go into the settings and find the real option, or unplug it.
aceazzameen 4y ago
I don't even think my Sony Android TV is capable of turning off! Press power on the remote and it goes to sleep. Ok, that's fine. But when an app is unresponsive I have to hold the remote power button for something like 6 seconds and it only reboots the TV. I can't even find a software shutdown button.