Sony VAIO Pocket VGF-AP1L MP3 player

Posted by T3 Online on Fri 19 Oct 2007

By the power of... dimples! The mighty iPod claims another scalp

Sony may have started the portable audio revolution with the Walkman back in the days of break-dancing and leg warmers, but it was seriously caught napping by the hard-disk-jukebox explosion. Now, finally, the sleeping giant has awoken, and with two jukeboxes launched back to back, it appears to mean business.

The VAIO Pocket certainly stands out from its rivals. Available in 20GB and 40GB versions (we tested the latter), the player is so well built that you'd put money on it to survive a scrap with Audley Harrison, while the grey-and-black colour scheme gives it an air of class that most of the British aristocracy can only aspire to.

But what really sets this new arrival apart from its competitors is the G-Sense control surface that graces the front right of the device. It's a bit like a laptop touchpad, except with an added grid of dimples. This corresponds to a virtual grid on the unit's colour screen. To select an item, you run your finger over the pad until you've highlighted the option you want. Then you press down on the dimple.

It's an innovative set-up, but sadly it's tied into a cack-handed user interface. Compared to the iPod's menu system, Sony's is torturously slow to use. There's no such thing as skipping through tracks here - instead, you wade through them. Screen updates can also be quite sluggish.

On the plus side, Sony has made decent use of the colour screen. You can search for albums by cover art and even download pictures directly onto the device from certain compatible cameras, via the docking station.

But when it comes to size and weight, the player is a bit of a porker. It feels substantially heavier than most other jukeboxes, including the company's own NW-HD1, and also has a weird bulge on the rear, which is presumably for the battery. Moreover, despite Sony's decision to support MP3 natively on its latest solid-state players, this unit can't directly play MP3 tracks. Instead, you have to use the company's horrible SonicStage 2 software to convert them on the fly.

When Sony first showed us the Japanese version of the VAIO Pocket back in May 2004, it looked like a pleasingly quirky device with lots of interesting new features. Since then, however, we've seen all these features appear on other players. Now it just looks and feels like a product that has slightly missed the boat. It's a shame, because it really is time the iPod had a serious competitor.

FEATURES
40GB hard drive. 320 x 240-pixel colour screen. 20 hours' battery life. USB 2.0 interface. 115.2 x 70 x 27mm. Weighs 210g.