Product Reviews

The A805 comes from Sony's new range of video-capable MP3 players. Sony has abandoned hard disks entirely in its Walkman range, and its MP3 players now use solid-state memory, which is surprising. The A805's 2GB capacity is miserly, but the A806 (£140) is the same player with a 4GB capacity, while the A808 (£180) has an 8GB capacity. The advantage of solid-state memory is compactness. At just 9mm thick and weighing 53g, the NW-A805 disappears inside pockets. The design isn't as iconic as the iPod's but it looks just as luxurious, and its 2in screen is around twice the size of the iPod nano's 1.5in screen. If the pink finish doesn't appeal, you can opt for white or black.

You transfer music to the player using the bundled SonicStage software, which is slightly irritating compared with iTunes or Windows Media Player, but bearable. The Image Converter software for transferring photos and videos is excellent, automatically converting a wide variety of formats

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to the native JPEG and MPEG4 formats at the optimal settings for high image quality without wasting capacity. USB transfers are slow, though, averaging 1.19MB/s.

The controls and menus are straightforward and, despite the lack of a rotary control, extremely quick for navigating large music collections. Having such a large screen with room for 11 lines of text helps. The display's vibrant colours make videos and photos look great, but two inches is still too small to warrant watching anything more than short video clips.

The best thing about the A805 is its sound quality. The player itself sounded detailed and focused, and unlike many players, its EQ settings didn't cause distortion. However, it's the headphones that really make the difference. Even at flat EQ settings they sounded remarkably full-bodied and clear, making other sets we once admired sound weak. The plug-shaped design cuts down on background noise, but they're not the most comfortable set we've used.

The A800-series players are the best MP3 players we have seen. However, they cost almost double the price of equivalent-capacity Sandisk Sansa e200-series players. Sony's player is thinner, its screen is bigger and its controls and sound quality are a little better, but overall it's not twice as good, and £110 is too much to pay for any 2GB player. Moving up to an 8GB model shouldn't add £70 to the price, either, as flash memory isn't that expensive. However, if getting a great MP3 player is more important than getting great value, this is the one to buy.