Hello Everyone- I¿ve just bought a VGFAP1L 40GB so this is one of my first posts proper.
Dixons had a ¿Bank Holiday Special¿ with the unit selling for £199. The local SONY Centre is still selling them at £349.
Initial impressions ¿ The VAIO is stylish, well built and sounds good with a really great screen. I¿m a lifelong SONY fan and had looked at this model a while back to replace my brilliant but aging MZR-50 minidisc player. I originally decided against the VAIO on cost basis. I almost bought a COWON i-Audio M3 http://eng.cowon.com/product/iAUDIOM3/about.html which the forums seem to rate. But I¿m pleased I hung on for the SONY to do the inevitable price crash. I guess it must be about to be discontinued ¿ hence the ¿givaway¿ price.
The supplied headphones are just about OK . I¿ve listened to the VAIO through a pair of high quality Sennhieser headphones and the sound really is very good, but these headphones are too large and cumbersome for day to day use. , So I¿ve upgraded to SONY MDR-EX71 to good effect. Well worth £30.
I carried out the firmware upgrade last night which went without problems and also upgraded Sonic stage and VAIO music transfer, again with no problems.
I¿ve read a lot of negative comments about Sonic Stage , but I can¿t see the problem. Easy to use and fast transfer (the album cover feature is REALLY cool).
Likewise ¿ the firmware update was easy and has enabled many new functions. I was considering taking the unit back due to the fact that I couldn¿t prevent it putting gaps in between tacks (especially noticeable on live albums). This was a real problem as many of my favourites (in the progressive genre) all have tracks that run into one another. Minidisc copes with this effortlessly and so the gap was really really annoying. However the firmware update has sorted this out ¿ Brilliant ¿ Dark Side Of The Moon returned to it¿s former glory!!
My only ¿problem¿ was after the firmware update there appeared to be a line of ????????????????????? (and Japanese characters!) beneath the Album titles that I couldn¿t get rid of. I Eventually hid them but turning of ¿two line text¿ in settings menu. I guess deleting and re-transferring the songs may sort it, but it¿s not a priority.
A fuller explanation of the new functionality in the downloads section would have been helpful ¿ but mainly most new functions are self explanatory and there is a link posted elsewhere on this site to a full explanation of the upgrade.
