Nostalgia brings alongside each consolation and craving. But it surely’s additionally a difficult street to go down. There’s at all times this trepidation about how one would really feel now, about stuff you as soon as noticed with rose-tinted glasses!
Whereas unpacking the brand new Sony Walkman A-306, I couldn’t shake off this actual feeling. I questioned if it’ll convey alive a way of romantic nostalgia for the ‘90s or whether or not it could fall wanting any modern-day expectations I might need of the machine.
Design
Opening the field, I noticed a small machine, nearly 3.6 inches throughout. Given its tiny type issue, the Walkman A-306 weighs nearly 113 grams. The aluminium body has a matte end on the rear with pronounced ridges all through.
All of the bodily buttons on the machine relaxation on the left bezel. Positioned on high is the facility button, with the quantity buttons slightly below. There are bodily controls for observe navigation, too – play/pause, ahead, and rewind. A small tactile bump helps establish the quantity up and play buttons once I’m not wanting on the machine. There’s additionally a Maintain button, which, when enabled, disables the opposite bodily buttons. This feels redundant, as all of the bodily buttons want a agency press to activate. There’s additionally a microSD card slot and a 3.5 mm jack on the backside.
Powering up takes a while, and I set it up like an Android cellphone. The machine jogs my memory of smartphones from about 12-13 years in the past that might have displayed this measurement. I can’t make any calls on the Walkman, after all, however the whole lot else seems like utilizing a decade-old cellphone.
Effective-tuning music
I paired the machine with TWS earbuds, and the acoustic expertise was immersive. The Dynamic Normaliser is without doubt one of the best- preset equalisers I’ve skilled on a playback machine. You possibly can select to have the ‘Direct Supply’ on, which streams the file’s authentic sound high quality straight with out making use of any sound results. However the second I faucet it off and swap to the Dynamic Normaliser, the music turns into even deeper and extra resonant. The identical goes for once I activate ClearAudio+. Though the tracks I performed got here via with readability already, this function selects the most effective sound area to ship every soundtrack I’m listening to and does an exquisite job of it.
There’s additionally DSEE Final, which I might activate or off, which upscales compressed audio recordsdata, however it wanted me to restart the machine once I wished to make use of the function.
Apps
Operating on Android 12, the machine comes pre-loaded with the standard suite of Google apps. Completed usually or for extended durations, checking mail and looking the net on the Walkman seems like an excessive amount of of a pressure on the tiny display. Typing will get a bit tough, too, given the house constraint.
The machine itself shouldn’t be with out glitches. For starters, the whole lot appears to take longer than I’m used to on devices now. Powering on the machine takes a very good minute every time. Firing up the Walkman app to hearken to some music and even logging in to test my mail – all features appear to take a few seconds too lengthy.
There’s 32 GB of storage on the music participant, of which the system takes up a giant chunk – 14 GB. The remaining 18 GB would possibly match about 700 FLAC recordsdata (Free Lossless Audio Codec) or nearly 1,600 MP3 recordsdata.
Battery life is one factor I don’t have to fret about. With a few hours of utilization day by day, nearly 3-4 days go by earlier than I’ve to plug it again in. If you happen to’re primarily going to load and play lossless recordsdata, the battery life will likely be shorter.
Verdict
Whereas the Sony Walkman A-306 shines via with all issues music and acoustics, it must meet up with quicker efficiency total. And I wouldn’t thoughts a sleeker, fancier-looking machine whereas they’re at it!
Worth – ₹25,990
Professionals – Wonderful music streaming capabilities, helps lossless codecs
Cons – Laggy efficiency, restricted storage for high-res recordsdata
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