This post was published over 700 days ago and therefore may not represent current Outside Context thinking or opinion. Please, do not let that detract from your enjoyment of it! Sony make some of the best hardware in the world. Simple. Elegant, special devices with form and function mixed to perfection. And they don’t rely on being cool either, they have a understated style that is simply: Sony.
Take for example the Walkman. It is half the size of a standard Ipod but twice the battery life. It has a massive 20 gig of space and plays songs in a higher bit rate that is better quality than Apples player.
So whats wrong?
I will tell you, the Sonicstage PC software sucks. Really sucks. On importing a CD I am offered the amazing 320kps quality for my music. This is great, I love Atrac compression as it doesn’t ramp up the bass. So I spend AN ENTIRE DAY transferring in 50 or so CD’s. Then I import my MP3’s from my hard drive into the library. Then I tell the system to copy the tracks to my player…
Three days later I am still struggling with that. Basically, the player will support the higher standard but it first needs to convert the tracks again into 322kps format. This takes ice ages. So naturally I leave it and get on with my day. Only to find on my return that there was some problem with the first CD. One of the files wont transfer with a cryptic message about rights. This was a directly imported CD so I own the rights! No matter, at least the others have transferred? No. That message has sat on the screen and all other transferring stops until you click OK. That is just stupid. I have to sit in front of this machine until Ragnarök so I can just keep clicking OK. Fine. I sit and I click. Finally it finishes. I get a pop up telling me that all sort of CD imported tracks wont copy to the device. CD’s all over the library are transferring in parts, bits, chunks. There is no logic to it whatever.
Then it crashes. It gives me a dire warning about the library being unusable and it connects to the Internet to confirm the rights. Sigh.
On rebooting it wont find the player. I give up and go looking for Sony’s support forums. It was then that I learn that there is something worse than Sonicstage, that is Sony’s support. They don’t have forums. They don’t like UK people, they hate their customers. Oh and they don’t like Firefox, and their website is slower than glacial drift and light years behind Apple.
I wonder how a company with, frankly, the best hardware design team in the world can simultaneously have their software programmed by chimps. Drunk chimps armed with guns who hammer them down on the keys in any random order.
They do watch the opposition, I can tell because they have launched a music download service similar to iTunes, only theirs is crap. Totally crap. How can something so unworkable come from the mighty Sony? Because they don’t care for UK customers.
I know this. How, you ask?
My walkman should have come with a remote control:
I saw on many Japanese forums how you get a neat little remote in the box, which has a digital readout. Fantastic, only I don’t get one in my UK box. I speak to the store and they say that no, UK customers don’t get one. Why? I check the price. The UK Walkman costs MORE than the Japanese one and yet we don’t get the remote! So I ask the store to sell me one. No, they cant do that either, as they don’t have them. I have to call JAPAN and ask for one.
So I do. And moreover, finally, I speak to someone who speaks English and they say… No. UK customers cant have one. Simple as that. Is this techno-racism? I don’t know, but I am not happy.
Eventually I get the player updated and leave the flat to go to work. The music is brilliantly clear and bright the Walkman lasts for ages before needing recharging.
I am in love again.
Help me Sony, I love your hardware but the paying of £300 is for a total experience, not to be ignored and dammed with bad software.
