Sony S610 Review

The Sony S610 is Sony’s low range PMP starting at just $100. It competes with the the likes of the Creative Zen, Sansa Fuze and maybe the iPod Nano. It packs a good range of features at a good price, with an average design and good build quality. It offers great sound quality, as expected of any Sony player and has a superb battery life. We delve into the details of the Sony S610 in this review and check out whether it makes for a good buy.

Sony S610 Specs:

• Dimensions: 47.4 x 84.6 x 16.2 mm
• Weight: 52 gms
• Display: 1.8″ LCD, 262k Color, 320 x 240 pixels
• Capacity: 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB
• Audio Playback: MP3, WMA, AAC
• Video Playback: MPEG 4, H.264
• Battery Life: 32 Hours Audio / 8 Hours Video
• Image Format: JPG
• Transfer Protocol: MTP
• Other Features: FM Radio, Preset and Custom EQ
• Included Accessories: Headphones, USB Cable

Design and Display:

The Sony S610 sports a strictly average design and is not much of a looker. It’s body is almost fully made of matte plastic which give it good durability and sturdy build quality. It has nice round edges and plastic buttons with a tough plastic screen. At dimensions of 47.4 x 84.6 x 16.2 mm and a weight of just 52 gms, it is very compact and light weight.

It sports a 1.8″ LCD display with 262K colors and a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. The display quality is superb with good brightness and contrast. The colors are distinct and accurate, and the image quality crisp. It has nice viewing angles and offers good video playback.

Interface and Multimedia Playback:

The interface of the Sony S610 is very easy to use and intuitive. All the menus and options are easy to understand even for a first timer. The interface is almost similar to the older players- A810, A720 etc. It is very responsive and fast.

The Sony S610 has seriously good sound quality. The sound is balanced fully throughout the whole sound spectrum. It manages both the highs and lows equally well. The music interface is standard supporting most features, it lacks direct playlist creation though. It has a 5 band custom equaliser with some presets. It also comes with Sony’s DDSE Sound Enhancer Technology which improves the sound quality. The video playback is nice and smooth with no frame skipping. The display size is a bit too small - just 1.8″ for serious video viewing though. It plays any videos encoded to M4V at 320 x 240 px.

To transfer multimedia content to your S610, you just need to connect it to a Windows XP or Vista PC and transfer content using and MTP supporting software like WMP etc. It isn’t compatible with Mac or Linux OSes as it doesn’t support the MSC protocol. It also has an FM radio built in with excellent reception quality. You can also view JPG images using the built in image viewer.

The battery is rated at 32 Hours for Audio and 8 Hours for Video playback. It offers just slightly less than that, which is still quite good.

Pros:

• Great Build Quality
• Superb Sound Quality
• Nice FM Reception

Cons:

• Unappealing Design
• No Direct Playlisting
• No MSC support

Conclusion:

The Sony S610 is a good PMP with nice features and superb sound quality at an affordable price. It is definitely a good buy at $100 for the 2 GB version.

Our Rating: 3.5 / 5.