SONY NW-A105 : Hi-res Walkman — mini review
Built for musics lover.
I used to have Sony walkman NW A30 in 2017 for a while, it’s good for music listening but still lack many functions. Cut to 2020, and we live in a world where the smartphone changed everything. For example, big storage space on our phones, plenty of mobile data on our hands and streaming services likes of Spotify, Apple Music and more.
It could be a niche, Sony walkman like NW A100 still hasn’t lost any of its charisma. There is something that music lovers want. It has not too big or too small screen at 3.5-inch display with sufficient pixels to keep things sharp. And now it runs on Android 9, instead of their own OS, so you’d be immediately familiar with it from the onset. And another good thing of Android OS is you can change language coz if you buy in in Japan with old model that run Sony OS, you can use only Japanese.
Honestly when I saw the Walkman interface looks, it is similar to what it did with the NW-A35 in year 2017 (here). Okay, it may be sleeker now, and looks like it’s had a neat makeover. Nothing much fancy, you can now swipe left from the central player screen to bring up the presently playing list, swipe down to bring up your library, swipe up to reveal the audio settings, and swipe right to access your favourites.
Nothing much change in physical, you still have those bottom on the side. 3.5 standard port. And now you can charge with USB Type C which it’s really great. Somehow charging this walkman take a bit long, even it has a small battery, it takes like 3–4 hrs to full charge. So there is no quick charge at all. Additional there’s NFC here which you can use to pair your wireless speakers or headphones and there is noise cancellation and ambient sound sourced from the device, it is required Sony headphone/earphone that support to this function.
Sound quality is hard to explain, since it is up to your headphone/earphone. You can play anything on this, up to 320kbps HBR mp3 files, FLAC, WAV, HE-AAC, DSD, just put it in 16 GB internal storage or plug in micro sd card. The effect is momentous, and not to stop at this, Sony actually gives you plenty of tools to play around with. And for wireless audio, it support bluetooth codec, Aptx, Aptx HD, LDAC which are really great for premium true wireless earphone. A main drawback of this machine is battery, if you use bluetooth and wifi, it will dramatically drain its energy.
Musics gadget
To wrap up, the Sony A105’s audio is a fun walkman device for audio hobbyist, enthusiast and audiophile. For beginner I think you can easily enjoy listening musics for both wire and wireless. Andriod OS make you easy to adjust thing but the chipset and RAM is nothing close to your present smartphone. Pricing is ok for second hand, I got this one for 200 bucks in Yahoo Japan. It’s not cheap and the price for new one is over 300 USD, so second hand with good condition seems to be good choice.
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