Sony Walkman S2 Sports NW-S203F (1GB)

Everyone knows Walkman but at the same time hardly does anyone realize that it’s a trademark range of players from Sony. The old Sony Walkman line-up consisted of just cassette players and CD-Players. It’s been sometime now since Sony launched their flash based Walkman players. But unfortunately for the masses, though they sounded the best, most disliked them because they were able to play only Sony Audio Formats like AAC, AAC+, etc.

Now the Walkman line-up has been revamped to support MP3 and WMA as well. But it has made it pretty late as all the glory these days for portable audio has been taken-up by the iPod. Nevertheless Sony will always remain Sony and those loyal will surely opt for it, because of its top-notch excellence products.

Today, we have the Sony Walkman S2 Sports, which is a flash-based DAP. It is no ordinary player, the name states that it’s sporty and destined for athletes or for the physique conscious. The player have sport features like calorie counter, etc. previous we had seen a similar player from Genius by means of the sport features; Genius MP3-DJ Sport. But then that’s Genius and this is Sony the old gold quality kings.

The Sony Walkman S2 Sports comes with a lot of accessories. Not just to make it a good deal, but because it sports an MP3 player. These accessories are meant to make it easy to keep in tune with your favorite songs while performing tiring activities. A similar kind of bundle was seen by means of the Genius. Let’s have a run through with the bundle before we go for a complete workout through the rest of the review.

The Sony Walkman S2 Player is a flash-based DAPS and is available in 1GB and 2GB variants. The 1GB variant is black in color while the 2GB is silver. The black looks simply stunning especially with the unique design that the player flaunts. The player is cylindrical in shape. The player reminded me of a digital thermometer with a display just

That it was way thicker. I’ll explain why a thermometer later. The player’s size and shape can be easily compared to that of a cigar. The player has a display at one end followed by a tiny Disp key, then a quantity UP/Down control, Play/Stop button, and a knob at the end. All of the controls are placed along the length of the player.

The earphone jack is placed on one side and a USB port on the other side. The USB port has a cover, which locks neatly and doesn’t come off easily. The player has an amazing build quality. Even though the portion of the player that houses the display and the surface for the buttons is glass; it feels all sturdy and there is no doubt of fragility. The only problem faced with the glass was that the paint used to name the tiny button and a Walkman logo eventually will find its way off the glass. The rest of the player is made from brushed aluminum.

The player is Water Resistant and that means you can do your jogging in the rain as well without bothering about the player going dead. The water just slips off the body of the player and there is no sign of irrigate holding in. For example I got it wet under a wash basin tap and then just flicked it a couple of times to notice hardly any water on it. This adds completely to the sportyness of the player.

The Interface

The S2 Sports has a neat interface. The interface is made very simple-to-use with the knob. The knob has 3 levels; at one level it’s “hold”; at the second level, it lets you scroll through the songs, and in the third level you can browse through Albums (or which ever sorting method you choose.) The reason why I earlier called the player a thermometer was because of the G-Sensor feature. This feature enables you turn shuffle ON/OFF by just shacking/flicking the player to and fro 3 times (each.) Remember the times when your doc used to flick the thermometer to get the mercury down before taking a reading?

Anyways, this is a neat feature and comes in very handy while jogging keeping in mind the player is strapped to your arm. So instead of actually reaching out to the player to change the track all you have to do is hammer the air 3 times and the song will change with the shuffle turning ON. If Shuffle is already ON then you’d have to hammer the air 6 times; 3 to turn it Off and then 3 again to turn it ON (considering you have enough strength to do that.)

The player controls are towards the right of the player, but S2 Sports doesn’t discriminate between leftties and righties. A rotation of the display under Settings, Advanced Options makes it possible for the left-oriented to use the player with utmost ease though the button naming in paint/impression doesn’t rotate.

The tiny Disp button lets you switch between different displays, like you can get info on the song, check the number of steps you took, calories burnt, the time/date, and even keep a visualization running. On keeping the Disp pressed, you can see the list of modes offered by the player. First up is the search mode. You can search for tracks by Artist, Song, and Album. This is apart from the browsing mode by the knob. Next up is the Sports Mode, which I’ll take up separately. Then there is Stopwatch mode that is a stopwatch, should I even explain further? The only thing worth mentioning is that the music still continues to play even with in the Stopwatch mode. Next is the Music mode followed by an FM. Then there is a Playlist mode to browse playlists or make a Playlist. Last in the mode list is the Settings option. Play mode, track sorting, Equalizer, etc, is under Settings; the options under Settings change with the mode you’re using the player in.

Sport style

The Sport mode just lets you keep track of a particular workout for example something like you plan on top of burning a couple of calories before you go back home. Then you can set the amount of calories or the amount of time you wish to workout or for that matter how many Km/miles you wish to run/stroll make sure to set the values like your height, weight, avg. footstep, and avg. run/jog step under Settings, Advanced Options; else you’ll have misguiding results.

The Sony Walkman S2 Sports sells for a retail price of Rs. 8,999 with a one-year warranty. The price is steep, but for all that is there at the contribution and impending from a brand like Sony, it’s quite expected. At this price you could most likely get DAPs that have a higher capacity. There is a sea of DAPs to decide from and this player is not the best choice especially if not for the Sport features. The audio quality is superb, but there are other players which offer at-par audio dominance like the iAudio’s.

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