Beyond the sound barrier

Weighing about 50 grams, the S616F is aptly sized, which makes it easy to carry around. It comes with a 1.8 inch QVGA (320 by 240 pixels) LCD screen that offers a bright screen as well as sharp clarity for its size. Viewing short videos or trailers of films is, therefore, a good experience, but watching full-length movies may not be. For its size, the resolution of the screen is very good.

Below the screen lies the only two function keys marked “options” and “back” to access more details/ power or return to the main menu respectively. But it’s the five-way, touch-based navigation buttons—which at first glance look like like direction buttons for the central key—that are used to go forward or to the previous menu feature. Overall the keys are easy to manoeuvre, which being the most important part of using the player, makes the S616F simple to understand and use.

The user interface is not overtly chic but, with its dark colour scheme with a white exterior, is decent looking. The home screen consists of nine grid-styled icons to access the various functions of the player, which again mean easy routing to the main menu and hence the accessibility to the required feature on the player. And charmingly enough, when you put it off, the device fades with a message: See you later.

It’s the sound quality that matters the most in media players, and S616F is outstanding on this count, even on default ear phones. The bass is particularly good and can be enhanced with the extra sound-shaping options like Clear Stereo and DSEE—the usage of which won’t make much difference to a casual listener.

Sound quality is complemented by a storage of 4 GB, enough for over 900 songs—categorised by artist, album and genre. One can also browse according to the folders the songs are saved in or use the feature of “Initial Search” to search for artist, album or the song by their names. While the supported audio format is MP3, WMA and AAC, the player also supports the .mp4 and .m4v video playback formats and JPEG formats for photographs. Although the S616F doesn’t have a voice recorder, a feature that most music devices have today, it does come with an FM radio.

The data transfer on this Sony device is satisfyingly fast and easy. Another plus of this player is its battery life (I recharged it from zero battery for a mere half hour, it played for over six hours). It provides 33 hours of continuous audio playtime and about 9.5 hours of continuous video playtime.

The Sony walkman NWZ-S616F comes with Sony earphones, USB cable, software CD and a quick start guide.

Conclusion: Priced at Rs 7,990, the 4 GB player is worth the buying although some might believe it is overpriced in comparison to other media players like Creative or iPod. But it’s a good buy for music more than video and the battery life makes it better than the others.