Amusingly, the A300-series isn’t listed in the software’s own “Supported Devices” list. According to the manual, you need to download Sony’s Music Center software and install the Sony USB driver. I couldn’t get the A306 to work as a USB DAC. If you have older Bluetooth headphones that don’t have great range, pairing them with the A306 might give you issues. Don’t expect to leave the player on your desk while you walk around your house. The biggest issue I’ve found, usability-wise, is the Bluetooth transmitter isn’t great. Sony claims the A306 can handle up to 20,000 songs. I bought a name-brand 512GB card for $40 and spent the better part of an hour transferring all my audio files. I don’t think this is a big deal, since microSD cards are cheap. Only about 18GB are available for music and downloads. I wish this screen saver worked with streaming apps too. Amusingly, the entire Walkman is smaller than a cassette. The name of the song is on the cassette, and changing tracks changes the colors and design of the cassette. If you play songs via the internal player, i.e., not streaming, the screen saver is a cassette that slowly spins its reels. From a battery-life standpoint, having the screen activate only when you press the power button is good. I wish I could tap the screen and have it wake up, even if just to skip through a few songs and see what they are without having to wait until they start playing. The screen is so small, though, that I don’t know why you’d want to use it in this way. I even installed a mobile game I play, and it worked. You could technically do these things, mind you. You’re not (I hope) going to be using this like you use your phone, as in checking email and watching TikTok videos, so the speed probably won’t be an issue. The majority of my interaction was with the physical volume and track buttons on the side, so the touchscreen interface never bothered me. If you have an older or less expensive phone, it won’t seem slow. Opening apps and switching between them take an extra moment. I wouldn’t call it sluggish, but if you’re used to recent, top-end phones, things take a bit longer. Not a huge deal, but not as seamless an experience as most modern phones. The screen size (3.6″/9.1cm diagonal) and resolution (1280×720) are occasionally an issue, making notifications hard to see and causing some menus to overlap. You can move apps around, download new ones, and so on. Once the setup is complete, the main interface is typical Android. It’s a little strange because Android thinks of the A306 as a phone, so there are some odd questions. The setup process is very standard Android 12, which isn’t a surprise. The aluminum body is great, as it doesn’t feel delicate. Generally, this is a good thing, letting it easily fit in any pocket. It’s smaller than an iPod Touch and maybe 40 percent of my Pixel 7’s size. All the photos make it seem far bigger than it actually is. The A306 is significantly smaller than I was expecting, smaller than a deck of cards. They could take a cue from Campfire Audio for how to do cool paper packaging. I appreciate Sony trying to reduce its carbon footprint by minimizing packaging and plastic, but for something that is unquestionably a luxury item, it would have been nice for the unboxing to be a bit more special. I was expecting a bit more flair than plain white cardboard. There’s not much in the box: a USB-A-to-USB-C cable and the instruction manual. While the internal storage is only 32GB, there’s a microSD card slot. It even has a headphone jack, and you can use it as a USB DAC when it’s connected to your computer (theoretically). It runs on Android 12, so you can install pretty much any app you’d be able to install on an Android-based phone or tablet. It plays back pretty much all audio file formats, including high-resolution FLAC files up to 24-bit/384kHz, and has a claimed 36-hour battery life. The NW-A306 has a lovely design featuring a diminutive aluminum frame. I decided to test the lower end of those waters, for reasons I’ll discuss below, and bought myself a Sony NW-A306 ($349.99, all prices USD). Of more interest to us are the ones aimed at the audiophile market. At one end of the price spectrum are no-name players of various capacities and dubious quality that litter the likes of Amazon and eBay. Enter portable media players, which were once colloquially called “iPods.”Īpple stopped making iPods in 2022, but the category lives on in two fairly disparate categories. Namely, not having access to music without a data connection if you don’t want to take up space on your phone. For a very small niche, there are a few issues with that. Generally, and for most people, their phones will suffice. A few weeks ago I laid out the challenges to listening to music while traveling internationally.
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