Best sport option
Background: I have been looking since what seems forever for the perfect headphone/mp3 solution for the gym. I exercise mostly at the gym for strength training (use my own music) and for cardio (I use guided interval training mp3 workouts). I use cardio coach (www.cardiocoach.com) my absolutely favorite cardio option and itrain (www.itrain.com) which is pretty neat too.
Traits I look for in the perfect mp3 player for the gym:
- Should be light unobtrusive and rugged. I do not want to worry about scratching dropping or damaging the player.The player should not get in the way when I workout.
- No headphone wires. Headphone wires get in the way and sometimes I have even yanked them accidentally out of the player while working out.
- Should be easy to navigate to and find what I want to play (exact Cardio Coach Volume or playlist for my strength training)
- Decent sound quality
I dont mind not having a whole lot of storage-capacity because I am OK with transferring music/workouts frequently to the player. About a couple of weeks worth of content is all I expect it to hold.
About the Sony W202: This is an incredible idea. A pair of great sounding wireless headphones with a 2GB mp3 player integrated right into the headphones.
Overall impressions:
- Better than jaybird gear the previous bluetooth wireless headphones (for use with ipods or any mp3 player) I had reviewed here (http://www.amazon.com/review/R2VP6138TP6JQ6/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm). But the perfect gym mp3 solution has not yet been invented. (I used the jaybird gear headphones with an ipod nano. Wireless freedom and no need to wear the nano on my person either...it can be kept in a corner of the gym....was quite happy...I am dumping them now and switching to this Sony W202.)
How it scores over jaybird gear:
- I have come to realize that with in-ear style sport headphones (headphones that are sweat resistant comfy and wont come out when you are active) fit has a lot to do with shape and size of the ear canal. I was lucky to get decent fit with jaybird gear. They dont work for my husband as they keep falling out when he runs. From online reviews this is what I gather too. Either they fit you or they dont. Sony has a less ear-shape dependant construction and is likely to fit more people though it is by no means universal. It has three sizes of ear bud adaptors to provide flexibility for ear canal size.
- Sound quality is better than jaybird. Jaybird uses bluetooth - bluetooth compression affects clarity of sound. Jaybird sounds decent ( better than a lot of regular non-bluetooth cheaper headphones) but is not on par with higher end headphones.
The good:
- Meet the need so well on being comfortable unobtrusive and secure-in-fit (the last being for me...your mileage may vary based on your ears). I did a 40 minute elliptical workout a ten minute treadmill run and some core training on the stability ball and they stayed put and out of the way. I did not have to as much as touch the headphones to adjust the fit except once in the first five minutes of the workout when I fiddled for a better angle in the fit for a few seconds. They then stayed completely out of the way and secure. (For me the fit is more comfy and secure than jaybird.)
-The controls seem difficult when you look at the player but when you actually use them they are surprisingly easy to operate. I had no learning time. I did not fiddle. I could very easily control the player during the very first time.
- I like the Zappin feature for ease of operation. When you press the jog wheel and keep it depressed you hear "Zappin in" and then the player scrolls through all the music on the player by playing brief snatches of each song When you find the song you want you just press the jog wheel again and it will play sequentially from that point on. To exit "Zappin" mode all you do is press the jog wheel lightly again and you hear "Zappin Out".
- For $ 69 they are very cost effective. That is less than a high end pair of headphones and less than quite a few mp3 players as well.
- It has a optional shuffle mode if you want it to play music in random order.
- Great battery life and a 3 minute charge option for 90 minute playback.
What could have been better:
- You can use two modes to transfer music to the player. The first is with the inbuilt software called "content transfer". Content transfer works with iTunes or Windows Media player. After you install Content Transfer on your PC you can drag and drop music from iTunes or Media player on to Content Transfer. It will analyse each track to recognize the chorus as it transfers music to the player. Then should you use Zappin during playback of the player it will play the most recognizable bit. Issues with Content Transfer:
a. Not eactly as easy to set up and use as itunes. OK for people who are techno-patient and dont mind reading manuals but not as intuitive as itunes.
b. The auto-recognition of the most recognizable bit may not work very well for workouts (workouts tend to have longer mp3 tracks some of which reuse music). It works most of the time but not always for music. I could not recognize most of my workouts and a also few songs using this feature.
c. The "announce" track-name feature to overcome lack of a screen in the latest iPod shuffle is a better way to navigate a screenless player. Too bad that the Shuffle still needs wired headphones. (Except for the navigation ease I consider W202 a better sport option than the shuffle).
- You can also simply treat the player as if it were a detachable hard-drive on your PC and manually copy songs. Whe you use "Zappin" it will then play a snatch from the 45 second mark within the track. I think this feature is better because it allows you to organize the music exactly as you want within folders on the player unlike Content Tranfer mode that organizes its own folders on the player. However there is no way to scroll from Folder to Folder during playback. The player will go through your music in alphabetical sorting order - by folder and within each folder by track name. You can easily organize the music so that you put in a preceeding number (like 01. 02. 03. ...etc) before each Folder name or track name to ensure it plays in the right order. The ability to scroll not just through tracks but also at the folder-name level whould have created the equivalent of playlists on the player and brought it pretty close to perfection in my opinion.
- There is no way to mark tracks to exclude them in shuffle mode as you can with ipod models (I can mark workouts audiobooks and podcasts to be excluded in shuffle mode on my ipod and just listen to my music in random order).
The bad:
- You can skip to the next song or the previous but you cannot forward or rewind within a track.
- The USB connecter on the player is not covered. During active use that represents an issue because sweat could get in and cause damage. The positioning of the mini-USB connector port isnt exactly where sweat is likely to reach but still...if you work out hard the player coud be at risk.
Should you get the player?:
- Only if you are thinking of getting a new player specifically for the gym or for active use. Otehrwise get something with a screen to help navigation.
- If you already have a player or wireless bluetooth headphines wait for the next Sony Walkman W202 version which (based on how vendors release upgraded models of popular mp3 players) should be about April 2010. I bet the player will overcome many glitches in its next avatar.
- If you buy make sure you buy from a place that has a return policy in case the player does not work for you during the first couple of exercise sessions.
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