Hallelujah! Sony has done away with its horrible SonicStage software and is opting to go the PlaysForSure route with all of its new Walkman players. Yes, that's not the most traditional way to start a review, but we couldn't bear to place this most exciting tidbit anywhere but at the top, so there you have it. The death of SonicStage comes wrapped up in two nice new MP3 players, the NWZ-A810 and the NWZ-S610, a series of compact flash players that is the subject of this review. Of course, an improved software relationship isn't the only thing this device has going for it. While it doesn't bring anything new to the table in the scheme of MP3 players, the NWZ-S610 is a quality device with desirable extras and an excellent rated battery life.

Simple, sleek, and understated

The newest series of Walkmans comes in a variety of capacity/color combos. You can go with a 2GB (US$120) S615F version in black, pink, red, or silver; a 4GB (US$160) S616F model in the same choice of colors; or the more capacious 8GB S618F, which comes only in black and will set you back US$210. It's not the cheapest player on the block--the Creative Zen V Plus, which offers roughly the same features, runs US$30 to US$40 cheaper. However, the NWZ-S610 offers a more sophisticated design with a larger (1.8-inch) screen and a higher-quality feel. It's also a little larger overall, measuring 42 x 79.5 x 11.5mm, though whether this is a good or bad thing depends on the user. It's certainly pocket-friendly.

Below the ample screen, the NWZ-S610 offers a similarly well-proportioned control pad. A central play/pause key is surrounded by four tactile directional arrows, which are used for skipping tracks and navigating menus. Happily, volume is handled via a dedicated rocker on the right spine of the device. The front of the player also houses the ever-handy back/home and power/option (contextual menu) buttons. A hold switch can be found on the left edge of the device, while the top and bottom contain the standard 3.5-millimeter headphone jack and proprietary USB port, respectively.

Easy navigation and easier syncing

In general, the Walkman is a snap to use. This is in large part due to a lovely, icon-driven main menu on the device itself, but we can't forget the absence of the requirement to load music via SonicStage--that's a huge help on the software/transfer side of things. Transferring songs, including subscription playlists from Rhapsody, is a breeze, and the NWZ-S610 plays oh-so-nicely with Windows Media Player for syncing any content. Supported formats include MP3, WMA, and AAC for audio; AVC (H.264/AVC) Baseline Profile and MPEG-4 for videos; and JPEG for photos. If you get tired of your own content, you can tune into the onboard FM radio, which offers an autoscan feature and 30 preset slots.

Delving into the various content menus proffers different results, all of them straightforward and easy to navigate through. Oddly, playlists cannot be accessed through the music menu, but have their own icon on the main menu screen. Within music, you can sort by album, artist, and so on--navigating by album is particularly nice as there's an option to do so by cover art. Once you dig down into the tracks, there's a useful twist-like interface feature.

You can navigate down lists using the up and down keys, but press the right or left ones and you're taken through sections, such as 0 through 9 and A through D. This is quite handy for getting quickly through long lists. The photo menu offers a lovely 3 x 4 thumbnail grid, and videos are listed with their titles and a handy thumbnail still shot. It's a polished interface overall, and it makes browsing pleasant.

Sound and settings

In addition to the various features mentioned previously, the Sony NWZ-S610 series offers various audio and display settings. For example, you can flip the screen orientation in order to view photos and videos in landscape mode ("wide-screen")--a convenient feature. You can also choose to view full-screen album art while listening to music, rather than a thumbnail with song info on the playback screen.

The player also has the standard playback modes (shuffle, repeat, and so on), and there's a snazzy EQ section that offers a graphic representation of the presets (five in all, plus two user-defined modes). Then, of course, there are the various sound-enhancement tools--Digital Sound Enhancement (DSE), Clear Bass, and Clear Stereo--which honestly don't do much, but they do offer a little improvement. Finally, there are the surround sound effects, for those who want to feel like their listening in an arena or at a rave.

Sony has never had trouble with MP3 player performance (except if you include the performance with its software)--the NWZ-S610 is no exception. As we've come to expect from Walkman players, the rated battery life is fantastic: 33 hours for audio and 8 hours for video (check back for our lab's test results). Photos look very good on the bright color screen, with nice detail and excellent color saturation. Video is similarly impressive, though we wouldn't want to watch more than 20 to 30 minutes on this size of screen. Sound quality for music was fine through the included headphones, but much better through a pair of Shure SE530s (any high-quality earphones should do the trick). The NWZ-S610 series offers nice, tight bass; rich, enveloping mids; and clear, sparkly highs--what more can you ask for, really?