Sony VGF-AP1L 40 GB VAIO Pocket Digital Music Player
By: Sony Average Rating: 3.5 Total Reviews: 15
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 On: 2005-12-09
After having this unit for about 3 months, I am still in love with it. Like many consumers, I researched several MP3 players and found the Vaio to be a very good choice for the price. Although the unit is slightly larger than ipods, its design makes you forget about it. I have never had a problem throwing it in a pocket. By utilizing the remote, there is no need to ever dig through your pocket.
Pros:
1. generic things like the color screen, large capacity, great asthetics, ect...
2. the remote is a godsend. it allows me to scroll without digging through my pocket. it is a one handed operation.
3. The user interface allows for many more navigation options. Although it takes some getting used to, the touch grid is a nice feature. All the common extras that you need can be accessed while on the now playing screen. No more scrolling through menus to turn on shuffle of EQs (ipod).
4. Sound quality was the main reason for me buying this unit. I have always been skeptical about MP3 due to its audio compression. However, the Vaio excells in reproducing MP3s more like a wav quality. I have directly compared the vaio to the ipod and it makes me wonder how people can listen to the ipod. The vaio extends further into the lower frequincies, while also reducing audible distortion. If you are looking for sound quality, this is your unit.
5. Battery life is amazing. Although they claim 20 hours, its hard to really see that happening. Last week I used the vaio at full volume, with full EQ on, and shuffling through all the songs. The unit played for over 14 hours with occasional specific song selections. After 9 hours I was thinking that it was going to die, but it kept going.
Cons:
1. headphones are a stupid length. The ont sound too bad though. However, mine have already malfunctioned, causing the right one to go in and out. good news if new headphones are cheap.
2. software has some issues. I havent been really annoyed with it yet, but there are some glitches.
3. I wish the scrolling device went faster. I have a lot of artists on mine, so to get to the end it takes a while. This is the only thing that the ipod has on the vaio. Apples scroll speed is something that could be useful. Again, I havent been fully annoyed with it though, I am just nitpicking.
4. When I have the unit in my pocket and i am really walking fast, I have noticed that it can skip. Just slowing down for a second usually brings it back to normal though.
On: 2005-11-10
After months of research on ipod alternatives, I purchased an Vaio Pocket (sale, $239) and was very impressed. I take it everywhere with me, very unfortunate the product had such a short shelf-life; I also bought (and returned) the newer Sony 20GB mp3 walkman, but decided I wanted graphics. I can support the reports of the reviewers about the graphics quality, its really sweet. If you cant find a case, PDAirs site is selling VERY functional ones, as Sonys are a bit difficult to track down these days.
As for the discouraging remarks about the included headphones, I have to say that it would be the same with any other player, from any other brand. Definitely not unique to Sony. Affordable ear buds with a longer cord are available just about every wear. The cool thing about the Vaio Pocket is that you dont even have to use the screen to navigate through your album (theres an included cord menu navigation thingy that you hook up to the earbuds).
All I wish for is a travel charger or battery extender...
On: 2005-10-27
I bought this after much searching - in fact I bought an ipod mini for my wife so I have some experience of both brands.
For those who love their music quality and want some style this machine is a great choice.
1. It is a 40GB player and cost £199 when I bought it - you will struggle to get a different 40GB player for £199 anywhere (even if it is being discontinued)
2. The screen is ace and displays almost all the information you could ever want to see of any track.
The track title
The Album cover
The Artist
The sequence number of the track (1 of 11 of an album or 211 of 9500 if you are just playing randomly from tracks on the machine.
The elapsed time AND the track length AND a graphics of how far along in the track you are.
The current time.
The battery life
That is a lot of information to put on one screen.
3. Browsing your music is made easy. The album display shows both album name and artist name as you search through.
When searching by track - it displays artist as well.
4. The sound quality is excellent and there is EQ management.
5. Cradle is a boon. Keeps machine protected and sturdy and provides drop in and out when when connected to either PC or stereo equipment. Also it is a great place to leave the machine when not using it meaning it will always be charged when you want to use it.
6. Navigation is simple once learned - same with ipod - you have to learn it first.
7. Robust build quality.
8. Battery life is excellent - I get at least 20 hours. (That is with a mix of Atrac3+ (64kbps)and mp3(192kbps) files. Every review I have seen quotes 20 as the minimum.
9. The searching mechanism (with the firmware upgrade) means I can search through 9600 tracks in a bout a minute just by keeping my finger on a button. This is impressive.
10. You can transfer pictures to it from teh camera.
This is not limited ot sony cameras - I have an olf Fuji F601 Zoom and to connect it to a XP PC you need to download the drivers. I was able to connect it to the AP1 and download the pics directly - AMAZING!!
I have had to reset it twice(or thrice) I think but on the whole it is an absolutley excellent machine and well worth the money.
It is let down by the software - Sonicstage - which must be used to manage the music on the player.
Sonicstage is not terrible in its functionality but in its operation(although there are some real holes e.g. not being able to create playlists on the PC and transfer them to the player without retransferring the tracks).
It holds up the PC it works on and is generally slow.
Once the music is on the player however - you are free and can enjoy it.
With the firmware upgrade you no longer need to convert mp3 files to Atrac - they just copy directly onto the player. Also instead of using Sonicstage 2.3, 3.2 has just been released which is a big improvement.
It uses USB2.03 so is very fast.
I love it - I have 9882 tracks on mine (there is nothing like having all your music with you) and have nearly 5 GB left. This is in addition to hundreds of pictures.
I thoroughly recommend this wonderful piece of Kit.
 On: 2005-10-26
I was initially very impressed with the sony vaio music player aamazed at the 40gb size also it looked cool a little big and heavier then some other players but i figured i could live with it for 40gb. however i had problems with the battery running out after a few hours at times also the screen would freeze at times and it wouldnt allow me to reset restart or shut down. rather i would have to wait for the battery to run down before recharging it. despite this i didnt ask for it to be fixed accepting these as relatively minor problems. however it later stopped working altoghether after 9 months so within the warranty period. i sent it to sony which took a week or 2 to pick it up and they sent me an invoice after 3 weeks claiming it was out of warranty and i should pay £201GBP (APPROX) for repairs - i could buy a brand new player for this price - or approx. £40GBP to have it sent back to me unrepaired because there is apparently some minor water damage and as such sony will not repair the item. so i am currently without a player as such i would warn anyone against purchasing a sony player in light of the restrictive warranty policy which does not cover everyday wear and tear.
 On: 2005-09-28
Sony almost hit a homerun on this one. The product has an excellent user interface, huge storage capacity and superior sound!! However, Sony missed the boat in a couple of crucial areas. 1) The only way to charge the unit is to place it in the cradle. This is fine if you only use it on the subway or bus ride from work. However, for those of us who travel extensively,it would have been nice to include a charger port on the unit so that you can take along a power adapter and not have to pack the cradle as well. 2) Yes, the unit allows you to store and view pictures, however, what Sony doesnt tell you is that the delay between each picture is excrutiatingly slow. On the iPod, scrolling between pictures is for all intents and purposes, instantaneous. Not with the Vaio. There is at least an 8-10 second delay from one picture to the next(for high res pictures). I expected more from Sony. Also, the fact that they have discontinued this product and dont seem to have a replacement, lends one to assume that they are waving the white flag to iPod.
 On: 2005-09-01
The audio quality on the VGF-AP1L is better than the ipod. The menus are better, the pointing devices is not quite as nice but after a while it aint bad. The device looks better than the ipod IMHO. With the new firmware the transfers of MP3 is very fast (they do not get converted to ATRAC but DRM is added).
The only complaint I have is the Photo Viewer does not seem to offer a thumbnail feature (if someone knows how to do this let me know.) the album jacket feature does have a thumbnail feature so it should be possible.
On: 2005-08-29
i got this item a week ago and i think its really great! the reason i bought it is because i think it looks so much better than an ipod, and that its a sony (never had a problem with sony products before).
sure enough, when the package arrived i was not disappointed. it looks even better than in the pictures and it is very easy to operate. the battery lasts very long and the connect store is user friendly.
now for the bad stuff... 1.the software supplied is obsolete..you have to go to the sony website to download the latest version of the firmware as well as the the software for downloading music at the connect store. Once you finish the upgrades though, the vaio pocket works beautifully.
2. This product has been discontinued, though i dont see any reason why since sony does not have other 40gb music players available. this could be a bad thing if you need replacement parts in the future (though i spoke to a sony rep and they said they do have replacement parts even if the product has been discontinued). this could also be a good thing though: youd be one of the few people who own this sleek piece of electronics.
do i recommend this player? absolutely.
On: 2005-08-17
First the good... 40GB of space with a real battery life of 14hrs. With the updated firmware you can use native MP3s. Sound quality is excellent. Vaio Pocket supports gapless track playback, Color screen, Store all your photos and you can use it as an external HD.
And now the bad... there is just one thing in this list... the user interface is not very user friendly. I got used to it quickly but it did take some getting used to.
I love the Vaio Pocket... Id buy it over an Ipod any day.
On: 2005-08-15
My 5 Star rating is based on my 2 weeks love affair with Vaio Pocket after three upgrades that are ESSENTIAL for out-of-box product. The upgrades allow the player to BECOME MP3 Player. If you dont upgrade it will be ATRAC3 plus Player, which is Sony version of MP3. First install the softwares on the CD that comes with the player. Then do the following steps:
Upgrade 1: Firmware on Vaio Pocket to version 3.0 from Sony Site:
http://www.css.ap.sony.com/VAIO/download/downloadList.asp?cat=VAIO%20Accessories&Model=VGF-AP1
Upgrade 2: Vaio File Transfer program from Sony Site:
http://www.vaio-link.com/Vaiopocket/downloads/downloads.asp?l=en&f=VMTU
Upgrade: Sonic Stage 3.2 from Japanese Site (Link is for English version):
http://www.aii.co.jp/contents/sonic/_data/sony-ss32/SonicStageInstaller.exe
This MP3 Player when connected to you PC is recognized as a removable Hard disk. So, using the Vaio Music Transfer program or Sonic Stage, you can copy your MP3 files as easy as drag and drop. Use Music Transfer Program if you have lot of MP3 in an organized format. The copy speed is much better than Ive seen in iPODs and Rios. I didnt find using the G-sense pad to browse and play my music files. I felt it was just as easy, as the wheel on iPOD.
Pros:
1. It has to be the screen. As good as any screens from Sony and its bigger than iPOD Photo.
2. 40GB hard-disk
3. Jacket Picture (Cover Art) that you can assign to your albums. Player displays it while playing songs from that album.
4. Sound quality better than many other MP3 Players including iPOD.
5. You can transfer pictures from Sony and several other digital cameras to this player without PC. But you need to have the cradle, which comes with the player as it has the USB outlet.
6. Very cool remote that can be used to navigate some simple features while listening to music. It has a two-line LCD screen.
7. Can be used as removable hard disk with 40GB capacity.
8. Replaceable battery unlike iPOD.
9. 20+ hours of runtime once charged fully compared to 5-8 hours on iPODs.
10. Very classy color metal and finish.
Cons:
1. It definitely has to be the length of headphones cable. I wish it had couple more feet. Fortunately, its not an expensive accessory to buy.
2. Have to have the cradle to handy if USB connetion is needed or when its time to charge. But with 20hrs life on battery, its something we can live with.
3. Less choice of cases unlike iPOD which sometimes is worth buying just for the cool cases out there. I got a case from PDAir site which is made for this player. Excellent quality. So, no complaints now.
4. Crashes when playing some corrupt MP3 files. The solution is to delete that file using SonicStage software after restarting.
For $250, I think it beats iPOD Photo in many areas. I personally, would prefer this over iPOD even if it was same price as we get several accessories already included with the Sony and the battery is replacable and sounds and feels better. If you are a techie, you will even find it user friendly like the iPODs which is its main strength.
On: 2005-08-06
As soon as i got this, i did a firmware upgrade, so I do not have much experience with firmware version 2.
I had some problems transfering my wma files, which sonic stage was supposed to convert for me. The program would just crash every single time i did it. Mp3 files transfered fine, however. While theres no one aspect of Sonic Stage I can point out to say that its bad, the program isnt very well made. Somethings there that makes it seem bad, but I cant quite place it.
The player is harddrive based, so there were short pauses when navigating large menus of playlists, albums, etc, but the pause wasnt that long, so I didnt mind. I expected a little bit of lag time for the harddrive to spin-up.
The screen is absolutely beautiful on this music player, and the GUI is very nicely made, but I wish there were more skins. Sony gives you 4 skins and the default to use, but they give you the ability to add more; I couldnt find any skins to download on the internet though.
Sound quality is very clear, with low noise levels. I havent used this in loud places, but it feels like this player wont get loud enough in those situations. The included headphones are weak, so I recommend buying another set. A player of this quality deserves better headphones. I use a pair of Sony MDR-G74SL street style headphones, which has a decent sound output.
Looking at screenshots and pictures makes this unit look really big and bulky, but when seen in person, it looks sleek, small, and aesthetically pleasing. The design screams high quality design. The remote that is included is very nice, as it is able to control almost everything that the player itself can do. Though this unit has flaws, its strengths greatly outweigh the weaknesses. I recommend it.
On: 2005-07-17
TRUST ME PEOPLE THIS IS A PIECE PLASTIC YOU WOULD NOT ENJOY.THE SOFTWARE IS OUTDATED AND YOU WOULD HAVE TO SPEND OVER 3 HR ON THE PHONE WITH TECH SUPPORT THAT IS NOT VERY FAMILAIR WITH THE VARIOUS PROBLEM I ENCOUNTERED,IF YOUR LIKE ME,AND LIKE TECH SAVVY MACHINERY THEN THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.STICK TO THE IPOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On: 2005-07-13
Wow, I am more than enthusiastic about everything with regards this excellent machine, from the style of the machine, to the operation of it and the software used to transfer music files. Using SonicStage 3.1 I have no trouble with converting files from CD or transferring directly as MP3. As is usual the headphones that come with it are second rate but as I already have a pair of Shure E2cs I can assure you the sound is second to none (and I have listened to several players before purchasing this one, the equaliser gives just the sound the response you may require. Its ability to view slide shows of your own photos is a good addition plus being able to transfer directly from my Cybershot camera means no more lugging my laptop away on holiday to transfer my pics once the camera memory card is full. All in all a very easy to use, superb sounding piece of kit.
On: 2005-07-04
Sony was too anxious in releasing this product. Its definitely NOT ready for mainstream and Im surprised they even released this product. The reason why we have this product from Sony is because they wanted to tap the billion dollar mp3 player market. However, worried about its users copying mp3s, they came up w/the most retarded DRM wrapping software on the market.
The hardware looks and feels great. However, the software is extremely inept, unintuitive and buggy. It is frustrating enough to make you return the product which is what Im doing. Save yourself the stress.
UDPATE 7-5-2005: Okay, so I had a chance to play with this thing a bit more over the holiday and I really really DONT LIKE IT! I thought Id give it another chance however, I just discovered that you can only use ONE COMPUTER to transfer songs via SonicStage onto this mp3 player. What the software does is "initialize" the device to "pair it" w/only 1 PC. If you install the software and move the cradle to another device, it WILL NOT transfer any music w/o "RE-initilizing" the device which by default REFORMATS the entire hard drive so you lose ALL YOUR DATA. Not just mp3s but ALL YOUR DATA!
Does Sony not realize how many households today are multi-PC households? That means if you have a laptop & desktop, you cannot simply plug the cradle into either one and transfer your data files and music. It MUST BE initialized to only 1 device.
So much for Sony brand and quality.
The Sony SonicStage Software is extremely slow. I tried adding an album cover image to one of my albums. I clicked PROPERTIES, ADD IMAGE, then OKAY. From that point, it took the software 2:34 (2min 34secs) to fully complete that task. Imagine doing that for all of your albums. Sonys software is horribly buggy and slow!
Stay away from this piece of junk! I wouldnt be surprised if all Sony mp3 players are this way because they do own Sony Music.
The INEPT software herein mentioned in this review is SonicStage 3.1 and the players firmware is 3.0, the latest versions as of the review date.
 On: 2004-11-30
I am glad to see Sony enter the Hard Drive MP3 player arena. This unit has great features great looks and a great feel. It falls way short however on sound quality. Compared to my current MP3 player, Pogo Products RipDrive, this unit just doesnt deliver a clear, rich or powerful sound. I tried ripping my CDs at all possible quality settings and types and the sound was not close enough to my RipDrive unit to keep me from being dissapointed. The Sony VGF-AP1L wins hands down on style looks and size. If you want to show off to your friends this looks great, but if you want to impress your ears try a RipDrive.
On: 2004-11-12
I bought the Sony Vaio Pocket about a month ago. The first thing that I noticed out of the box is that it looks really cool. Its stylish, a little bigger than an ipod, and pretty light. The G-sense touchpad is also really cool. The navigation is a lot easier than the ipod, it takes a while getting used to, but you can do a lot more with it, like make playlists, change the equalizer, and add album covers, without having to switch between menus. The best feature, though, is the fact that it is in color. Listening to music while looking at pictures is fun. You can plug a digital camera right into the music player and transfer photos. And you can use any picture as the cover for any album, which you will see in the "Now Playing" screen. There are some glitches in the player, for example: In the main menu, if you go to "Artists", then choose an artist that has some songs in an album, but isnt the only artist for the album, it will give you all the songs in that album, instead of just the songs with that artist. Another glitch is that the main control panel, wich pops up if you put your finger on one of the g-sense buttons in the right column, sometimes doesnt refresh, so if you press the play button, sometimes it wont change to a stop button, it will just stay a play button. This is no big deal, just take your finger off the button, the control panel will go away, then put your finger back on the button and the play button will have turned into a stop button.
I had no problems with the software that it came with, it is easy to use, Sony Connect is a good music download service, though I dont know how it compares with Itunes. I have read reviews of other sony portable music players that said that transfering to Atrac3 was slow, but it wasnt slow on my computer, so that wasnt a problem. Transfering music to the player is really fast. I like Atrac3, it takes up less space than mp3 and it has the same sound quality.
One more thing that made this player a four star instead of a five is the headphones that it comes with. it is a remote control that plugs into the player, then earbud headphones that plug into the remote control. The place where the two earbuds come together is way off center, so when you are wearing them, the two cords come together at the side of your head. This is a problem with the remote control, because it pulls on one of the earbuds, and it can fall out easily. You have to use the remote control with the earbuds, because without it the earbud headphones are way way way too short. I just got different headphones and use those without the remote control.
Well, there is my review. I suggest that you buy it and just use different headphones, because otherwise it is a really cool digital music player. Go Sony!!!
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