Sony Walkman NW-A306 review: A homage to the classic with a dose of modernity

How does the Sony NW-A306 Walkman look?

The first thing you should know about the Sony NW-A306 Walkman is that it is much smaller than you might think. The compact device fits easily into even my hands — it measures 56.5 mm x 98.4 mm x 11.8 mm — and weighs just 113 grams. The music player looks tiny in front of my iPhone 14, like an ultra-mini smartphone. As you might have guessed by now, the music player has a smaller touchscreen at 3.6 inches but is surprisingly bright and colourful. However, you are not going to be watching YouTube videos or scrolling through websites for hours on this tiny music player.

Sony NW-A306’s screensaver displays a cassette tape. Pure Nostalgia. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

On the plus side, build quality is exactly what you would expect from a top-of-the-line Sony product. It has a sleek and streamlined look, like a premium quality device. The aluminium alloy frame is black, with a small “W” Walkman logo on the backside. It’s a rounded design, with sharp edges. The new Walkman feels solid to hold and becomes invisible when slid inside the pocket. I would recommend going on long walks with the new Walkman. I carried the Walkman on my daily walks to the park and back, leaving my iPhone at home. I want a calm space in the morning wherein I immerse myself in music with no notifications or calls infiltrating my zone. The Walkman does that, beautifully.

On the right side of the player are the power button, volume controls, playback controls, and hold switch. On the bottom is your USB-C port, a headphone jack, and a hole designed to accommodate a lanyard (Sony does not provide a lanyard with the ‌Walkman). There’s also a microSD card slot for memory expansion since the device only has 32GB internal memory.

How does the Sony NW-A306 Walkman feel?

Using the A306 is like using an Android smartphone, it requires zero learning. The user interface feels familiar since the device runs on Android 12, so operating the Walkman is pretty easy. But, honestly, it can take some getting used to the small screen size. The speed and performance of the device were satisfactory. I mostly installed music apps such as Apple Music and Spotify from the Google Play Store and they ran smoothly.

The only thing that made it a little unwieldy was typing on the keyboard. The keyboard is perfectly usable, but much smaller than what we are used to.
In some ways, the A306 Walkman is a breath of fresh air. You get a modern-day music player with full Android support that can run any app. This is critical for Sony to reach out to a wider audience who have not used a Walkman in the past.

Users can only stream music through apps such as Spotify and Apple Music. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

At the same time, its limitations are severe and immediately apparent. The tiny form factor keeps you limited to a few things that the Walkman is very good at. Frankly, the A306 is not a replacement for your smartphone and it isn’t trying to be one either.

How is the audio quality on the Sony NW-A306 Walkman?

As far as I remember, Sony’s Walkman pretty much set the standard by which all music players were judged, catering to a different type of music lovers who appreciate distraction-free music experience. With advancements in technology, Sony has been able to bring features like HighRes Audio and High Res Audio Wireless (the Bluetooth-supported Qualcomm aptX HD and LDAC) to the Walkman alongside the brilliant S-Master HX, which the company claims amplifies digital signals directly without converting to analogue first to maintain the purity in sound.

I tested the A306 with WH-CH720N (Review coming soon) and Sennheiser Momentum On-ear 2 headphones. The “Walkman sound” is a major differentiating factor between the audio coming from the smartphone and the new Walkman. Listening to music (I natively put music on the Walkman vs streaming music via Apple Music and Spotify) gives you a warm signature sound. You will feel the openness in the sound and the audio playback is rich and warm, very Sony-like. Songs have a feeling to them, especially classical music. The treble is smooth, thumps and strings are more distinct. Bass is full and well-rounded but not overpowering. You feel the pain of Amy Winehouse when listening to her songs on the Walkman.

Sony’s NW-A306 is a modern music player running Android. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

I usually stick to the default sound but this time I tried different settings to tune the music. That’s a telling difference between listening to music on the smartphone and the Walkman. With the ‘sound adjustment’ app, you can set a direct source (which essentially bypasses all the enhancement and disables sound enhancement), then there is an Equaliser that you can either set to manual or select from the eight presets. There is a DSEE HX which upscales the original compressed or CD-quality audio to the equivalent of High-Resolution audio), Vinyl Processor which adds warmth to the music and Clear Audio+, which applies advanced digital signal processing in a single-step operation.

The NW-A306 is compact and tiny. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

How long does the battery last on the Sony NW-A306 Walkman?

When I used the Sony Walkman NW-A105 Walkman two years back, I wasn’t impressed with the battery life. I heard from a lot of my readers who also complained about the battery life on the Walkman. The new version has a longer battery life, I can say confidently after using it for days. Sony advertises up to 26 hours of listening time with a music service app on the Walkman and up to 36 hours of 44.1KHz FLAC playback. Not bad for a device this tiny.

Sony’s new Walkman support for major formats like MP3, WMA, FLAC, AAC, DSD, AIFF and Apple Lossless. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

Will you buy the Sony NW-A306 Walkman?

I know Sony is eyeing purists and audiophiles who want a sense of openness and more control over how the music sounds. To me, buying the A306 Walkman is a very personal choice. I have always appreciated devices that do one single thing brilliantly – be it the Nintendo Switch or iPod and the Walkman also echoes that thought. The A306 is for those who see a tech product beyond what is intended to be, a device that brings a little joy when you hold it or listen to music. At Rs 25,990, it may not appeal to everyone but I think the new Walkman will surely delight and surprise you to create an experience but with a fresh twist that is still quintessentially a Walkman at its core.