Sony Walkman Review and Giveaway

Many moons ago, I had a Sony Walkman:

can you see the cassette tape in there??  and how can you miss the headphones??

Thanks to the lovely folks at Sony, which is the official music player of the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series, I had the chance to try out the Walkman W-Series Runner, a cord free, water resistant player.  It has 2 GB of memory, and when it's fully charged, it lasts up to 11 hours.

You charge the player by plugging it into a computer, and it has a little plastic case for storage.  I wasn't sure if I would be able to put my iTunes library onto it, but I found out that I could.  I downloaded the software that came with the player, which includes Content Transfer, a way to drag and drop music from iTunes onto the player, and it was easy to do.  You can also use Windows Media or Windows Explorer to drag and drop your music onto the player.

When I put the unit on, it took a little bit to get used to, at first I thought it would fall off, but it stayed put.  It comes with three sets of earbuds, small, medium and large.  I didn't realize how tiny my ears are, because the small worked best for me. 

The set is held together by a magnet, and it turns on when you separate them.  There are tiny controls on the right side, to select music and to control the volume.  The left side has a shuffle button.  I tested it out on a three mile run, after a few minutes I stopped running and took my earrings out, because they were causing a clicking noise.  After I got moving again, I started shaking my head like I was dancing in a club (a club? what's that?) I shook it up and down and side to side to see if the unit would fall off, but it didn't!  The sound quality was excellent, and I liked how I didn't have to deal with wires dangling from my ears, connecting to the player I wear on my arm.  There have been times when I'll be pumping my arms and one will land on a wire and yank the bud out of my ear, which really annoys me.  I did have to steady my hand against my cheek to push the buttons, but that was only because I was moving.

There is also a feature called ZAPPIN Playback, where it plays short clips of the most rhythmical sections of your music, so I guess you could use that mode if you have an especially tough run that you need motivation for.  Overall, this player did the job, and I really like the fact that if it starts raining, I don't have to worry about it getting ruined.

And now, giveaway time...I have two players to give away!

To enter, please visit Sony Style, the website where you can purchase the player, look around, and let me know what intrigued you.

For additional entries (please leave a separate comment for each):

1. tell me your absolute favorite song to work out to.
2. be a friend of my blog.
3. I've been spending more time on Twitter lately, so for another entry, follow me @MollySBaker
4. share the giveaway details on facebook, your blog, or send out this tweet:

check out the @SonyElectronics Walkman #giveaway on @MollySBaker’s blog http://tinyurl.com/4olsmuj

5. like Sony on Twitter here, or on facebook, here.


Giveway ends midnight ET on Sunday March 13th.  I'll choose two winners using random.org.  Good Luck!


*note, I was provided with a player for the purpose of this review, the opinions on the product are my own.