Sony Walkman E-340 Series 8 GB Video MP3 Player - Red (NWZ-E344)

I just purchased the Sony E-340 Series 8GB video mp3 player. Two actually one in black as a gift and one in red for my self. This is one of the best purchases I have made in awhile. This little unit is easy to download, works very, very well with my exsisting music stored on my computer. Easy to understand. The sound quality from the little earbuds that come with the player really could use some improvement..but they are just stock headphones, and for the very affordablity of this little player they are adequate. I happened to have an extra set of a little better grade of headphones and once I got the equalizer set up to my liking the sound is beyond belief.I have the Beatles boxed set of the Stereo remixes on my player and WOW!! What an experience it is to hear them in stereo and through headphones...and in my car oh, my!!The FM radio is a nice touch...easy to program. I cannot say enough about how nice it is to be able to have my photos with me on the player, the video quality is super.So, if you are in the market for a nice little mp3 player that is reasonably priced, chocked full of nice little features and easy to use. I cannot recommend this unit enough. Can't wait for walking weather!!

It was easy to use and has surprisingly high volume but looked beat up. I would recomend for the sound.

I love this thing. I really really do. The only MP3 player I've owned before this was an original ipod and while I miss the cool little rotaty-wheel-a-ma-jig-thingy, I'm more than willing to give it up considering the price difference.I've had my unit for about 3 months now. I thought it sounded great out of the box. Unlike some of the other reviews I haven't had to mess with the equalizer settings but then I'm no audiophile so that might be part of it. The headphones are great imo. They fit in my ears fine as did my iPhone ones so assuming you have average sized ears you're going to be OK. Battery life is pretty good. I can go about 3 days without a charge (usually listen 5-6 hrs at work), though radio tends to drain it faster. Reception on the radio is pretty decent too so no complaints there.I haven't really used it much for video. I tried a few formats and didn't have much luck with them even though they are supposedly supported. They worked if I used the walkman's file transfer tool which converts the vids to an appropriate format. This is fine except for the fact it doesn't give you a status on the conversion so you have no idea how long it'll take to convert and then copy over the video. I did find that if you created an avi or wmv clip with windows movie maker that will work without have to convert it.Some other negatives are that the screen and plastic smudge easily. This is minor and pretty much a complaint I have with most new devices. Too many manufacturers going for that high gloss look these days. Anyway forget that bit, and buy this thing if you're in the market for a budget MP3 player. It's definitely a great value.Update: About 7 months in:1. I've started to notice some software bugs lately and they only happen with really long files like podcasts. Happens randomly after a rewind/forward for a long time. Once you hit play the nav buttons stop responding. You can still turn the system off but you can't rewind/forward or pause. No software updates from Sony to fix this. I don't think they give a damn. I'm knocking this baby down to 4 stars because despite that I still like this player and most of the time it works fine.2. If you want to charge it while still using the player I discovered a handy trick. Push the USB connector about halfway in the player and you'll notice the little battery status indicator starts flashing indicating it is charing. But you can continue to use it. Very handy, especially if you forget to charge it overnight. It might impact your battery life or might not. I simply don't know so at your own risk. In my case battery life is still good though it is not as sharp as it used to be. About where I expected after so long.3. I noticed some people complaining about slow forward speed. Hit pause and then hit fwd. It goes much faster.

Bought this for a friend & loading it with their music for them (they're not tech savvy). A good player for non-tech savvy people as the menu / interface is fairly simple & obvious. However:1) Sound is not that great. I had to create my own "equalized" setting (it lets you create & save two equalization curves) in which I boosted the bass and minimized the treble, to get it to sound normal. Probably the ear buds -- my Apple iPod sounds much better when I plug them in -- but even so not quite as good as an iPod. However, if you're willing to fiddle & make your own equalizer setting with the bass up high, the treble down low, and everything a straight line in between, that's okay.2) Poor programming in many ways. They may improve the firmware, but as I write this (end of Dec 2009) the sort of software bug I find is: load up songs of one album that has more than 9 tracks, and track 10 plays immediately after track 1. That is, it ignores the actual track number, and orders the tracks by a simple alphabetical reading of the name. Shouldn't do that!3) FM reception is okay but not superb. (Just so you know, there is no AM). Easy to set presets and flip around the presets, but no way to label the presets (e.g. "WNPR" or "OLDIES"...)Here are the plusses:Looks nice, feels nice, very small (approx business card size, about 1/3" thick), certainly saves $ over an iPod if the recipient will definitely not want to put applications on their device or do anything other than simply listen to music.