Bye Bye iPod, Hello Sony Part 1

Tagline: Cal burned 340. Heads turned 7 I lost my iPod Shuffle a week ago. Didn’t know where I dropped it. It was as easy to loose a stick of chewing gum. I looked everywhere but no avail and I was so depressed for the whole week. The commute to work was horrible. Who want to listen to birds chirping and roosters crowing in the morning? I want to listen to my 5-octave power pipes for lungs diva – Mariah Carey. After accepting the fact that my iPod is gone forever (Note to the finder, please take good care of my baby), I started to do some research in the net to look for a replacement. Even though I like my Shuffle very much, I decide to explore my option before I get another iPod. I recalled an ad in September issue of Runner’s World. (See above picture). What small and sexy this player is. To cut the story short, I marched to the Sony dealer at Times Square on last Friday night and bought myself a Silver SONY NWE-105 MP3 player. I also bought the lanyard earphones as I heard the earphones supplied are not that good and the salesman had a free armband/ carry case thrown in as part of the deal. The main decision point to get this cute MP3 player instead of an iPod (Nano or otherwise) is the fact that this little thing can run up to 70 hours with an AAA battery. Imagine the number of marathons I can run with this baby. I can be trekking in the Amazon without having to look for an AC electric outlet if I bring enough AAA batteries. Furthermore, it is packed with features that my old Shuffle does not have – a cool blue backlit display, repeat capability, play group setting, equalizer setting, and of course, it can shuffle too. The only downside of this little shiny baby is the software that comes with it – SonicStage. It is light years behind iTunes. SonicStage only allows you to rip your CDs into Attrac3 format which is basically not playable anywhere else except on a Sony machine. That is a major downside. Others - no drag and drop function for files, the search function is tedious, no smart play list that automatically pick up songs based on the set up and the list goes on. I use my iTunes to convert my CDs into MP3 and then import it into SonicStage and then transfer them into my new player. Works great! Sounds even better. In fact, my new Sony baby sounds much better than my previous baby Shuffle. The bass is far richer (maybe due to the great new in-ears earphones) and that make me a very happy man. I love the way the bass of Mariah Carey “We Belong Together” ripples through my eardrums. Part 2 of this blog is coming soon. I have yet to test-drive, I mean test run this baby on the road. I think it should work out fine with the armband and its lightweight. My ankle is not fully healed yet. Swelling is still there even though the pain almost gone. So, until the time I am ready to whiz down the block, I will just have to walk around stylishly with this baby dangling from my neck. Sorry, no pierced belly button to dangle this baby. Hahah! To see more ads and features of my new baby click http://www.sony.com/walkman