Sounds for swimming

The ultimate personal music player for those with an active lifestyle, the Sony NWZ-W273 Walkman will soon have you doing the breaststroke to The Beatles.

An MP3 player designed to be wearable without the need of a headphone cord, the Walkman is completely waterproof, meaning you can stick the phones in your ear and submerge yourself in the water all while listening to your favourite songs. Sony says the MP3 player can be used under water to a depth of 2 metres but should never be used in  seawater and mustn’t come into direct contact with sand.

Weighing in at just 29 grams, you can comfortably wear the MP3 player while running or doing other exercises to the rhythm of your favourite tunes.

The W273 has 4 gigabytes of storage. The player supports MP3 files of up to 320 kbps bit rate and also supports WMA files of up to 192 kbps bit rate.

It comes with a USB cradle that functions as both a charger and music file transfer. Simply attach the player to the cradle and connect the USB cable to your desktop or notebook computer to recharge the W273’s built-in lithium battery. It supports a quick 3-minute charge that allows the player to play 60 minutes of songs. The full-charge takes about 90 minutes.

When connected to your computer, the W273 appears as a drive and you can drag and drop MP3 files to the Music folder on the drive. You can also create your favourite playlists in iTunes for Windows or Windows Media Player and drag them along with the songs to the W273.

Since the W273 has no display, you need to control and interact with it by using the provided control buttons and listening to audio responses from the player to inform you of the function performed by what you have pressed.

The controls include the power button, the Shuffle/Playlists button, Play/Pause button and volume control.

Press the Play button and the player will say “Play” and start playing the music. Press the Shuffle button and the player will alert you with a shuffling sound to tell you that you have entered the shuffle play mode. Press it again and it will tell you the shuffle is off. Press and hold it down for a while and the player will start playing songs according to your playlist. When you press and hold the Shuffle again, the player will say “all songs” to enter all songs play mode.

The player also allows you to search for your favourite song by pressing and hold the play button to enter the Zapping mode. In this mode, the player will preview the chorus of each track for 4 to 15 seconds. Once you hear your song, you must press the play button again to start playing the song from the beginning.

The W273 has good sound quality. Its earphones use 13.5mm drives to deliver deep enough bass and dynamic audio reproduction. I enjoyed listening to rock music with good bass and details.

I also tested it in a swimming pool. While swimming, I could the song loud and clear and had no problem hearing even when I went underwater.

Sony NWZ-W273 Walkman retails for Bt2,990 and is available in pink, white, black and blue.

 

Key specs

 

_ Memory: 4GB

_ Input / Output Terminals: Hi-Speed USB (USB 2.0 compliant)

_ Power Source: Built-in Rechargeable lithium-ion Battery / USB power

_ Recharge Time: Approx. 1.5 hrs (full charge) (Quick Charge - 3 min charge for up to 60 min Playback)

_ File Formats Supported: MP3 Audio 32 to 320kbps (Supports variable bit rate (VBR)), WMA Audio: 32 to 192kbps (Supports variable bit rate (VBR)); Linear-PCM _ Audio: 1411kbps

_ Weight: Approx. 29g