Sony B105 – First Impressions
January 24th, 2008 omo
So I picked up a Sony NWZ B105F 2GB from eBay. Good o ebay? I paid almost $50 after everything, so it’s a little bit on the high end considering how much cheap MP3 players of this form factor and storage goes for (as low as $30). NWZ B105 is the model, F indicates that it’s black. There is also a white version.
The premium is…worth it? Maybe. The sound quality on this thing is probably the biggest draw. On my aging Shure E2C you can really tell the difference–lol, it sounds slightly worse than my phone I think. The base response is better, actually, but maybe I just haven’t run through enough tracks through it. That said my phone is better than most at audio playback, so take that as you will.
The installation and setup is pretty simple (there is almost none, actually), but there was one technical problem which required some frenzy googling to overcome. From everywhere I read this mp3 device supports UMS (USB Mass Storage) mode, which means if you’re on linux or OSX, you can just jam it in and copy files over much like a USB drive. Not so on Windows! Depending on how updated your Windows is, you may have to install WMP 11 and its related patches to get to the player. I think at some point in WinXP decided to support “MTP” which is another term for “lol welcome to your DRM overlord.” In some cases, depending on your PMP, it may or may not allow you to access the device directly. The added layer (media transport protocol?) also helps the user to transfer media over to the drive seamlessly (it’s real easy to make a playlist on the B105, for example). At any rate, before I updated my WMP my computer would recognize the MP3 player, but it wouldn’t give me the option to access it via Explorer. I had to use a media player (winamp, WMP, whatever) to get stuff on it. Later, I tried using the MP3 player on an offline, WinXP SP1 box, and that box took it like a UMS.
I also updated the firmware from 1.0 to 1.1. The process was impossible until you have fixed the above problem. That said the firmware upgrading was pretty straightforward and very easy. Go to Sony’s site and dl the file, plug it in, click. Receeb Bacon.
Looking around, there were no hacks or anything for this player. People used to the flexibility of iRiver or Cowon players should stay away. I want to play FLAC and APE files too :(
The form factor is good, if a little bigger than what I wanted. The feel of the player is good, so is the finish on it. I don’t really like how the buttons are laid out, because they are hard to access if you hold it with the hold switch up top. I guess that just means I shouldn’t use it upside down… The player does come with a little hole to attach a lanyard, which is right below the hold switch. The hold switch, I really like.
Some other nitpicks: the player, on startup, creates a meta tag db if you choose to browse it via artist/album/song instead of by directory. It can be kind of slow if you switch in a gig of music on it. The other nitpick is that once you turn it off, it forgets what the hell is going on the last time it was on. That’s annoying because if I stop and turn it off, I can’t pick up where I left off unless I manually navigate to it. And navigating on this device is not exactly like navigating on an iPod Nano (but it isn’t bad per se). Maybe I’m not using it right? There’s a power saving mode, so I guess I should just rely on that and just hit stop and unplug it instead of turning it off.
I think CNET rates it 7.0. I’d agree with this rating especially with consideration of price, and maybe add a couple decimal points. I got it off eBay, in OEM packaging but it was new. I think that’s reasonable, but look for a $20 bump if you want to get it from the Sony store or something stupid.
Battery life is great. I haven’t done any real test on that yet, because I always just plug it in my computer when I am in front of it as my computer is rarely off.
Ultimately, I bought this player as a stopgap. Being the convergence freak that I am, my next … phone/pda/mp3 player/camera will do all of this stuff. That leaves me with just the need of an extra storage device to shuffle stuff between computers. This, aside from the problem from above with MTP mode, should do the trick. My last USB drive is only 256 MB, so this would do fine to replace that. Meanwhile it’ll do its job as a MP3 player that I can use without fussing with weird media players to copy music to and fro.
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