Sony Nw-A105 16GB Walkman Hi-Res Portable Digital Music Player with Android 9.0, 3.6" Touch Screen, S-Master Hx, DSEE-Hx, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth and USB Type-C - Black

I bought these due to being unable to use my phone at work, but I need music to help me concentrate. I was very tempted to go for something cheaper and live with worse quality but I'm glad I did not. Overall the device has good sound quality, especially when paired with decent headphones. Of course it's not audiophile sound quality, rather this is more for convenience, so don't go looking for professional audio quality. A friend of mine has a much older version of the same device, and seeing the quality of life improvements sold me on it immediately. There's things I don't like very much though. Battery life is mediocre. This is due to a combination of a few things, it's very small, Android isn't particularly efficient with battery usage and it's very much dependant on what features you're using. Personally I use wires in ear monitors, no WiFi or Bluetooth and on one charge I can get 6-7.5 hours. However I have used wireless headphones, and with using Bluetooth it drops quite a bit. I got around this by using a power bank, making the device's battery redundant, with a 10000mah power I get 4 days of continuous use. In summary; small, well built and very convenient, with a minor let down from its battery life. Don't expect professional level sound, for that you need to spend a lot more money.

I have been looking for Digital Audio Player which can play my Apple Lossless music collection and also have an option for Spotify. I tried a FiiO M9 but it didn’t run Spotify very well at all, so sadly it was returned. This Sony is much better. It runs Spotify just as well as my iPhone and its built in Music Player (Walkman) is also excellent for playing my Apple Lossless files. It is also currently on offer here for £199 which makes it quite good value. The Sound Quality is excellent, it’s a very convenient size, and once you have installed Spotify (and and any other streaming app you might want) from the Google Play Store you can effectively remove every link with Google (including removing your account details) so you are left with a very pure, music only device. Perfect for those of us who don’t want to be tied to a smartphone and all the distractions they run with and just want to listen to music - either from files or streamed from The Internet in the best quality available. A few things prevents this model earning a full 5 stars: 1. Battery Life. It’s not great. Keeping WiFi off and upgrading to the latest firmware helps. Once you’ve downloaded all your music you should also find you don’t have the screen on much - that also helps. It’s not a show stopper but it would have been nice if the battery was longer lasting. 2. Volume controls when using Bluetooth: The volume buttons don’t seem to work if you are listening on a Bluetooth device (headphones or speakers). You can still adjust the volume from within Spotify or, of course, the headphones themselves if they have a volume control - so, once again, not a show stopper but would have been nice if the volume buttons worked for Bluetooth devices. 3. You will need a micro SD card: Forget about the 16GB of internal memory. It’s nearly all gone with operating system and any apps you install. Add a 128GB card (around £20) and you’re sorted. No big deal, but you need to factor this into the cost. Not much more to add - it’s all been said in other reviews. Of the points above, 1&2 could well be fixed in a future firmware upgrade - if so, this would be a sublime player - as it stands it is still excellent and is much, much nicer than using a smartphone for music in terms of sound quality, lack of distractions, size and ergonomics. Nice one Sony! - - - Update - - - I've been using my Sony NW-A105 for a bit now so I thought I would update my review here. The battery life really does vary a lot depending on what you are doing. - Playing downloaded tracks on Spotify (320kbps), so no Wifi through and using wired headphones (no bluetooth) seems to be the most efficient - After 2 hours the battery had dropped about 10%, so potentially 20 hours of playback here. (no use of screen, volume at about 80) - Lossless music files on the built in Walkman app works out with around 8-10 hours total. If you do the same using a third part app (e.g. Rocket) this drops to about 6 hours, so I'd stick with the built in app. (no use of screen, volume at about 80) - Switch on Wifi and Bluetooth and things do go downhill somewhat. 6 hours maybe at most no matter what app you are using. Just Bluetooth is not as bad - I think Wifi is the biggest drain but if you are listening to local files or downloads on Spotify or similar, keeping wifi off most of the time is not an issue. If you are technically minded, I'd also consider replacing the launcher using the Nova Launcher app. This way you can remove the annoying google search bar, the app drawer, the app dock and leave just your audio apps visible - I have also disabled all google apps and android apps, removed my google account (once I downloaded the few apps I wanted from the play store). You can see in the pic how my screen looks now - much neater, much more music orientated and no non-audio apps to distract and potentially drain the battery. I also added a few utilities held in a system folder on my modified main-screen for efficiency - one for quickly tuning on and off wifi, one for quickly turning on and off bluetooth for example. Finally, there is an app you can buy called Tasker. Again, if you are technically minded this can also help save battery life. Tasker automates things depending on the state of your device. So I have it turn automatically turn off bluetooth should I plug in wired headphones for example. It also enables wifi if the device is plugged into power (and off when unplugging).... A lot of work involved admittedly - but for me, worth the effort - I am left with a player which seems to be so much more useable than it was at first.

I have been using Sony walkmans since the A15 2014, the a35 and a45, and now the a105. So far been very impressed, I mainly stream music via Bluetooth, the sound quality when compared to the a45 is a step up , I can notice the difference, the sound seems more detailed and rich. The display and touch screen is very bright, colours seem richer then a45, touch sensitivity is good. I have loaded this with a 128gb sd card, the walkman app is sufficient and works well. The build quality is excellent very sleek design. This player comes with android 9, its fully fledged version allowing you to download apps from the play store. My conclusion is that this offers more then the a45, its adds a few extras, like vinyl procceessor, but more importantly its give you android OS, for me Evan tho I have 70 gb music stored, it's nice to have Spottily, YouTube music, dezzer, and the upcoming amazon HD streaming service available on this device. Overall very Happy, only gripes battery could have been better, to improve this I have switched off WiFi and Bluetooth and activated battery care. Forgot to mention this is charged with USB C making life lot easier compared to the A45 specific cable. Update 16/8/2020 Having had this since January 2020 ,the A105 has improved in certain areas , the most likely and important area is battery life, with recent firmware updates this has allowed extra hours of playback , a auto device switch off is now implemented, when unit is not used . I found by switching WiFi of this also extends battery life, i mainly use this as a Bluetooth streamer and battery life has improved. The problem is this device is not perfect but by god you will not get a Hi Res audio player with the quality like this, if you use LDAC then you cannot beat the audio quality the A105 produces ,its so crisp. I use this as my main daily music player ,from streaming to headphones i am more then happy . This is quality not quantity ,but not perfect its sits in between.

The Sony NW-A105 comes with a full Android operating software baked in, it works just like app-heavy Android smartphone. Which is exactly what I wanted to get away from when looking for an iPhone alternative with a dedicated music player. The hardware is very good. The quality of the sound is better than iPhone 14. We can add SD card to the player: we can substantially extend the storage. No need to buy expensive version with more internal storage. The supplied Music Centre software intended to manage the player content is not efficient. It was not possible to create playlist in a normal way: usually we select the tracks. drop it in the list folder. It is not working this way. A way to solve this issue: In iTunes artists are arranged as folders: using Windows Explorer I dropped the files made by iTunes in the SD card Music folder. Or in the internal storage Music folder. When playing ,select a folder you want (artist) from the playing menu, start the first track - it will play all tracks in artist folder , in the sequence made by iTunes. So, no need to create Playlist- arrange a folder, drop inside what you want. Seems Sony limited the charging current to be safer for the device, but it is taking long time to charge. Probably was possible to make the device with larger screen, larger battery, longer playing time. My fingers are normal, but still I need to be very careful how I hit the buttons. The larger screen should be better. As a music player it is really good. I tried with several different high end Hi-Res Audio headphones: works fine. Can adjust the volume and the sound is really good.

Hatte zuvor den FiiO X5 MK3, dieser ist nun in die Jahre gekommen, Android 5.x wurde auch elendiglich langsam. Der NW-A105 macht vieles besser, hat zwar keinen Balanced Ausgang für Kopfhörer, stört mich aber nicht, da der Unterschied nicht wirklich groß ist (zwischen Balanced in-Ear und normalen in-Ear kopfhörern). Klangmäßig kein Abstrich, daher volle Punktzahl. Bedienung und Haptik sehr gut, Sony-Kopfhörer sind dank LDAC im Vorteil. Einziger Nachteil, der Akku. Dieser hält vermutlich maximal 6 Stunden, dies könnte besser sein. Der Player wird beim Betrieb ziemlich warm, für die Wintermonate ideal. Die P/L bezieht sich auf den Aktionspreis vom Black Friday, für 200 € uneingeschränkt empfehlbar, eine gute Powerbank sollte man sich dazu auch gönnen, wenn man länger hören möchte, oder auf Reisen geht.

Possesseur d'un portable Sony XZ3, je me demandais si ça valait le coup de mettre un tel prix dans un Walkman qui a des modes et ampli de son identique à se modèle hormis de pouvoir lire des fichiers DSD, et bien... Quel surprise, la qualité de son est vraiment encore 10 x mieux, quel précision, quel puissance, musicalité, j'étais scotché pourtant la qualité de son de mon XZ3 est déjà vraiment surprenantes sur un casque, mais la c'est un autre monde, en plus ont peu y mettre tout ce qui existe comme type de fichiers de son, les DSD donc en haute résolution c'est juste bluffant, je suis en train de tout numériser mes CD en fichier FLAC, du coup il ne s'abîmeront plus, j'ai prit une carte de 256 go pas cher sur Amazon qui fait le taf et bien sûr la coque transparente qui va bien sur ce même site et adapter à mon modèle le nwa105, indispensable pour le protéger, c'est un vrai bijou, tout en métal, je l'est prit en rouge pour changer, magnifique ! Je l'utilise avec un Sony WH-1000XM3, et un bowers and wilkins P7 une tuerie, contrairement à un autre commentaire, le son avec le WH-1000XM3 est juste merveilleux, il se plaignait de pas pouvoir accéder au réglages du casque sur le Walkman, mais il suffit de mettre l'application du casque sur le nwa105.... qui a le WiFi et l'accès évidement au play store, et ont peu y mettre toutes les appli que vous voudrez, l'alliance de ce Walkman et du casque de Sony donne un résultat absolument fou, si vous le pouvez, foncer !

Bonito, buen tamaño y buena usabilidad. Soporta muchos formatos, y el que sea Android, permite usar también Qobuz y Tidal. Por contra, se calienta bastante, y la calidad del sonido es inferior a la que da un iPhone con el adaptador estándar lightning-jack. Le falta potencia. Mucha. Incluso con auriculares de alta sensibilidad se queda corto (en volumen, y, sobre todo, en control)

The build quality and the ergonomic are fantastic. To the point you'd just wonder why to pay more when this one does the trick. Of course, there are major known cons such a the battery life (4 to 5 hours at best if you leave the bluetooth or wifi on), or the Android OS which hasn't been customized for Audio. I guess (YMMV) it is possible to cope with them with workarounds and habit. Unfortunately I have found another major flaw when you listen to streaming services. This device won't be able to sound that great unless you use something like UAPP. This is something you only realize if you have good iem by the way. UAPP is great but do have all the bells and whistles of the service app (Tidal, Qobuz,...). For instance you can't view the lyrics or listen to downloaded content. If you only use local files from your SD card then I believe this walkman is a great value at the current discount price if you don't mind the poor battery life and the average UI Android experience.