Sony Vaio Pocket VGF-AP1 Review

Overall Rating

-Great Display
-Compatible with many formats (MP3 fully compatible, no need to convert now)
-Fantastic "G-sense" pad
-Very Easy to use
-Create own playlists and custom aswell as preset equalisations.
-Very long battery life
-Looks great
-Good accessories
-USB 2.0

-Hold and power button on same slide could lead to some unwanted switching off.
-ipod is arguably better looking
-Have to convert WMAs to ATRAC
-Only slighly bigger than an iPod

I got a Sony Vaio Pocket VGF-AP1 the other day and I am completely in love with it! The features are great and I have easily transfered all my CD collection over to this, keeping it all in MP3 format. A great move for Sony to finally support MP3 (if you receive one of these with the 2.1 Sonic Stage, a quick download from the sony site will update the the software and your player).

I was suprised at all the goodies I got with my player. A great, sturdy docking bay; a three line remote control; american and european/U.K power cables (I do a lot of travelling so this is fantastic); and a nice swish, sexy, solid carry case (though I have a feeling this was an exclusive addition as the packaging of this case was all in japanese, and the site says this is not an included item).

The G-Sense pad is fantastic. Of course it takes getting used to for some, but after a bit its just second nature.

The battery life was superb. The packaging claims 20 hours battery life and this is easily achievable. I found though that charging fully everytime, from the moment you get it gives you longer. I timed exactly the first time and i got 23 and a half hours. Off the record sony did say in interviews that 24 hours was more like the maximum battery life, why they put 20 hours on the packaging is beyond me!?

The hold/power switch is fine in my experience. I haven't actually accidently turned it off. Its pretty darn hard to. But just a warning.

Also some of you WMA lovers will have to convert to MP3 or the numerous different types of ATRAC, to get your songs on your player. Really if you still really like Windows Media 10, you should set you player to always record to MP3 format.

Also the photo feature and having the cd sleeves on the player next to the albums is great. The display is crystal clear (I hear that it is a higher resolution and has far more colours, don't know the exact figure).

Also, if you'd rather have a longer battery life aswell as a far smaller player (smaller than ipod mini and has a 30 hour battery life, as well as a 20gb HDD!) in return for sacrificing the colour screen, I strongly suggest the NW-HD3. It's fantastic and my brother recently purchased one.

Members' Comments onMattyMarsh's Review

• sneaky007 on 14th Sep 2005

  Hoe much does this thing cost??????????

• MattyMarsh on 14th Sep 2005

  Well i brought mine for £240, not that much. Unfortunately, Sony let themselves down by adding no support for the laer and thus, Apple and their ipod range have surpassed this promising player.
  
  SOny discontinued this range many months ago now, to concentrate on the NWHD5 player, which will be discontinued i gather soon for a brand new player lol. I do not agree with Sony's policy of jst trownng out new players in the hope one will catch as people who buy their products are left with an unsupported product.
  
  I recently purchased the new ibook last month and are absolutely loving it, my Vaio Pocket is not Mac cmpatible and i have tried to find a way around this but it seems impossible. Therefore i will be purchsing the ipod nano very soon to get round this.