40th Anniversary Walkman: NW-ZX505 Hands-On Review

For all music enthusiasts, Sony's Walkman series products have always been timeless classics. Since the launch of the first generation of Walkman products 40 years ago, Sony has profoundly changed the way people listen to music. Even in today's world where smartphones are in vogue and portable players are gradually declining, Dafa still has a solid following with its outstanding design concept and excellent sound quality tuning skills, establishing its benchmark position in the industry.

As a commemorative product for the 40th anniversary, Sony previously launched the NW-ZX500 series of music players, committed to continuing to create a more high-end music experience. The product I got this time is the ZX505, and now I will bring you a hands-on experience and listen to the "commemorative taste" of Sony Walkman's 40th anniversary.

Exquisite and compact appearance

As a portable music player, the NW-ZX505 still continues the series' consistent exquisite and compact style. Its dimensions of 122.6x57.9x14.8mm are much smaller than the smartphones we use daily, but the thickness is needless to say. The compact design of the ZX505 makes it very convenient to store. Whether it is placed in a trouser pocket or a backpack, the ZX505 commuting experience is very good.

On the front, the ZX505 uses a 3.6-inch screen with a resolution of 720P, and there is still a clear space at the bottom. The back is made of skin-like material, which makes it tighter when held in daily use, not only making the hand feel more comfortable, but also preventing a certain risk of slipping.

On the right side, the familiar button area is still there, and the layout has not changed much. However, the charging port of ZX505 adopts a more unified Type C and is placed on the upper left side. (This position is really...) The Micro SD expansion card slot is at the lower left side. The ZX505 has only 16GB of storage, plus the Android system application occupancy, so users who like to listen to local music should buy a larger expansion card slot.

Due to the left shift of the charging port, only the lanyard area is left in the lower area, and the top area still has the familiar 3.5mm interface and 4.4mm balance port.

The appearance is still familiar, but the biggest impact on audiophiles should be the Android system of ZX505 this time. From rejection to love, as a commuter, I can only say "Sony, you still understand a lot". Although the habit of listening to music has always been based on local albums, for the needs of individual singles and genres, streaming media is indeed a more suitable choice. This time ZX505 is equipped with Android 9.0 native system, and the internal application store cooperates with App Store, so it supports commonly used music apps such as QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music. Thanks to this, it also has Sony's selected Hi-Res music APP built in, and the big guys with membership can get on board.

The system fluency of ZX505 is not a big problem, after all, the application program is relatively simple, but if you want to use it for high-performance needs such as playing games, you can be a little bit worried. Although Sony is equipped with the Android system, the underlying optimization still follows the logical permission requirements of the mobile phone, so it is not deeply integrated with the player positioning. If Sony can improve the system personalization in later products, the overall player experience will be more friendly.

It is worth noting that the ZX505 had problems accessing the Internet when it was first released, but these problems have been resolved after Sony updated the firmware. If the relevant model of Walkman you purchased has the following problems, please update the firmware immediately.

Balanced and versatile sound quality

As the high-end ZX500 series, the official has made many hardware upgrades to the ZX505 this time, and the materials used have a significant improvement in the theoretical value of sound quality. When playing local music, the ZX505 gives me the feeling that the overall sound field is a little wider, and the three-frequency sound line separation is more obvious, especially in the low frequency, which is much more powerful and elastic. The mid-high frequency performance is more rounded, and the human voice is clear. But in some high notes, the experience brought to me by ZX505 is not as amazing as expected. According to Sony, the characteristics of some capacitors will not stabilize to achieve the best sound quality until after 200 hours. Maybe there will be surprises if it is burned in for a longer time?

Speaking of surprises, the most obvious point of ZX505 may be the obvious noise control. Compared with the previous listening experience, its performance is more pure in terms of timbre, so it seems much more transparent. In summary, this player is more balanced in sound quality, and it is very suitable for omnivorous audiophiles to listen to frequently.

As mentioned above, the biggest surprise of ZX505 is the return to Android system. After confirming the sound quality performance of the same positioning, if you are rich enough, then this ZX505 that supports streaming music playback is worth considering. In addition, as a commemorative work of the 40th anniversary of Walkman, ZX505 also reserves the theme easter egg of nostalgic tapes. As long as you listen to music through the Walkman player, the system will display different tape screensavers according to the format of your songs, which is full of nostalgia.

Heavy users charge once a day

Since it uses the Android system, I believe many users will doubt its battery life. The official promotional page also gives the theoretical value of the battery life for music, which seems to be good. But before talking about its battery life, let's take a look at the charging effect. The ZX505 comes with a charging cable. Although it uses Type C, the fast charging speed is not much faster.

The corresponding charging speed is the power consumption of song playback. In the actual test, after playing for 2 and a half hours, the power consumption of ZX505 is about 20%. For long-term users, charging once a day is a foregone conclusion.

As a Walkman product targeting audiophiles, the ZX505 still inherits Sony's consistent advantages, and its sound quality performance is full of benchmark meaning. As a commemorative work for the 40th anniversary, the ZX505 has made careful designs in basic quality and nostalgic Easter eggs, but there is still room for improvement in aspects such as system, battery life and charging. If you are an audiophile with suitable equipment on hand, then the iteration significance of this product is not obvious, but if you have sufficient "belief and emotion" in the Walkman series or have a clear need for replacement, then the ZX505 is still a product worth considering.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.