Sony Walkman NWZ-S639FBLK - Digital player / radio - flash 16 GB - WMA MP3 AAC-LC LPCM - video playback - display: 2" - black

An iPod Killer - No more iTunes...YES!!!!!

I got my first Mp3 player about 4 years ago...it was an iPod 2GB Nano. I loved it so much I shortly thereafter upgraded to a 4GB Nano. Kept that one a couple years but didn't upgrade again because I was frustrated with the iTunes interface having to "upload" all my music to iTunes and ending up with two sets of music on my hard drive ; 19GB of wmv/mp3 format and an additional 19GB of the same music in Apple's iTunes format (M4P).



I was fed up with being an "iTunes slave" so I went looking for an alternative.



I went with a Sansa 8GB player and liked it well enough but it had problems. It was heavier than I liked the display's resolution wasn't all that great and you had to use Windows Media Player to transfer music to the player. Fortunately 8GB of music represents so many tracks of music I didn't have to fiddle with Media Player that much.



After another year I started getting antsy again for what I really wanted...a true "drag and drop" mp3 player so I could fine tune tracks on the player without having to mess with clumsy Media Player or the ridiculous iTunes system.



So after doing some research I went with an 8GB Sony player (NWZ-E438). Awesome!! I was in mp3 nirvana. True Windows Explorer drag and drop slick styling great display convenient controls and did videos and FM radio and well!! Then about a month ago someone swiped it while I was in the shower in the gym. I was near heartbroken as I dug up the old Sanza and started using it again. But the good news is that I could get another one and upgrade to 16GB and be HAPPY again.



So I got the one I am reviewing: the Sony NWZ-S639F. This one is fundamentally the same and the other Sony I owned but with greater memory (actually a little less than 15GB - not 16GB as advertised) LONG lasting battery "themed " displays easier video transfer and other features that I don't really use. The sound is spectacular. I personally can't guarantee that it is better than the iPod or Sanza because I never did a side-by-side audio comparison - but I can't imagine sound through earbuds being better than this. Oh and the volume is louder. I used to listen on the older Sony at volume setting 28 (1-30 scale). On the S639 I rarely listed above setting 20.



All that said because iPod came out first with mp3 players they still have a huge lock on the market. Because of that they are able to keep people locked in as iTunes slaves especially those who are afraid to change to something better because they just "don't get it"! I cannot tell you how easy it is to just drag and drop files in Windows Explorer. This is the way life should be - EASY!!!

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