Sony Walkman X Series. My Review Part One.

Good things can come in small packages. Sony certainly threw in some good things, but this touchscreen Walkman is far from thorough in quality. I'd be happy with what it does do well if it didn't cost so danged much. MSRP is $299 for the 16gb model I purchased. Expect to see $399 asked for the 32gb version. Look around though. Several retailers have had them discounted for as much as 15% off.

The X1051 is nicely packaged. Peel off the outer box you see above to find a rich looking square with simple graphic.

Slip the cover off to find a tray with the X1051 nicely presented. Under that tray is another box with everything else.

The contents are vast. One of the things you get when you buy from the big boys. High quality proprietary headphones with different sized replacement tips, a proprietary USB sync cable, an airplane adapter, what looks like a line-out cable, a dock insert, a CD, and a slew of paperwork are "free" with your purchase.

Paperwork includes a "Read This" warning to protecting your hearing, an advisory to use Windows Media Player 11, Napster TO GO ad, Limited Warranty (labor 90 day and parts 1 year), a Slacker Radio Services ad, a precautions page in many languages, and a thick License and Trademark Notice. The headphones included are excellent, and include a little microphone in each side for noise cancelling purposes. Notice the 5 contact plug. They will work in any other media player, but those extra leads are ignored except in this Walkman. You can also use other headphones in the X1051, but you won't get the noise cancelling with anything but those shown above.

I was impressed with my initial encounter. Nice packaging, and a sense of quality in the presentation. The player itself has a good heft to it, and appears well made with significant attention to detail. I'll spend a week or so with it to get used to it's quirks. Look for PART TWO where I'll get into the grit and grime of the Walkman X1051.

4D

Insignia's Portable HD Radio. NS-HD01. My Review.

Although you won't find every radio station has gone digital, HD radio is coming. Where I live only one station is up to date, but since I had a $50 gift card and some time to kill I thought I'd give the Insignia HD radio a try. The upcoming Zune HD player will have HD Radio reception in it, but Insignia beats them to the punch by being here now at your local BestBuy and at a reasonable price ($49.99). Check your local store, as my store had several but BestBuy.com didn't have any.

The controls are not all obvious. I highly recommend you read the user manual before getting to into it. You can let the radio charge up while you study up.

You'll find a covered mini USB port, hold switch, and a reset hole on the left side. Volume is on the right. The headphone jack is on the top edge.

There are only 10 channel Presets. A little disappointing as my area has more than 20 FM stations channels within reach.

A dated aesthetic. It's almost exactly the same size as my RCA Lyra Slider but a clutter of buttons around a tiny screen.

FM and digital radio, but nothing else. It would have been nice if it had a little memory or a card slot to store MP3s, as some times there isn't anything worth listening to on the radio. I guess that's what MP3 players with FM radios are for.

With the earphone jack on top, and all the controls on the face, it should work fine in a shirt pocket or the snug armband that comes with it.

The screen is just a little larger than an inch square (1.5" diagonal), but a slightly wider rectangle would have served better to display station and song info.

Volume control is on the side. A bit confusing as there are up and down and left and right buttons on the front that might have been more intuitive for volume control.

All in all it's a fine radio. Nothing amazing, but competent. Reception relies on your headphone cable, so you might get different results depending on the headphones you use. The included ones helped it find most of my normal stations.

Is it worth $50. Given that most MP3 players (other than ipods) include FM radios, I not sure. I think Microsoft has the right idea including HD and FM in the upcoming Zune HD. Yet if you've got $50 to kill and are impatient to try out HD radio in your area it's perfect.

4D