Walkman NW-A55L

[ngolinar]

There is a Walkman NW-A55L on Amazon, avalible for pre-order and I'm wondering, what are the differences between it and the NW-A55. The only difference i can see on Amazon is that it uses a USB-C port and has Bluetooth 5.0.

Thanks in advance for the reply

[Sean_Mc]

Hi there,

As this Walkman is not available in Europe, I don't have any further information. 

Best wishes,

Sean 

[walkmanblog]

Hi there, curious where you saw the Bluetooth 5.0 for the specs? I do not see this info on Amazon's product pages.

On this site (link below) I only see v4.2 which is the same as the previous model NW-A55.

https://www.microspot.ch/de/tv-audio/mp3-audiorecording/mp3-media-player--c164000/sony-mp3-player-nw...

As far as I know, the MT6625 in the A50 which is the bluetooth chip, only supports up to v4.2, perhaps there is a version of the MT6625 with BT 5.0 but not sure if Sony would need to have the chip re-certified for BT 5.0 if such a change occured. I doubt Sony would change the BT chip for this device, wouldn't counterproductive.

As for the usb type-c, the photos on amazon showing the port, look like the last year's NW-A50 with WM-port.

So until confirmed by Sony that it has USB type-C, it might still be wm-port unfortuantely.  Hopefully this is not the case.

But it is weird the various retailers have information about the device but Sony is keeping quiet. Although not the first time for Sony and probably not the last.

[ngolinar]

The confusing thing is, if there would be no BT 5.0 or USB-C there is no
difference between them as far as i can tall, and in my opinion they
wouldn't need that much time to just change the port...

[ngolinar]

The bluetooth 5.0 spec is here (the Manufacturer reference is the same as on amazon, NWA55LB.CEW):

https://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/sony-nw-a55l-16gb-schwarz-nwa55lb-cew-a2138761.html?show_descrip...

Just tap on Produktdaten and it says it under Anschlüsse. it also says it has usb-c (like on amazon) but shows pictures with the wm port (i i presume the pictures are of the wm port model because they dont yet have images with the usb-c port, but well, who knows). 

[walkmanblog]

Not sure where Heise.de is getting their info from but if it is from the amazon.de post

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07X3XD1BW?linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&creat...

in the amazon post there is no mention of BT 5.0 for this A series. I would wait until they appear in stores like saturn/mediamarkt and one can go and check out the retail box or Sony puts it up on their website to know if the usb type c and BT 5.0 are accurate. 

[QSwitch]

The A105 also runs on Android, has higher end hardware for the audio, and has wi-fi, allowing it to stream from services like Spotify directly.  It is missing the ability to receive via bluetooth.  The A105 doesn't properly support playlists - they can only be created on a computer and transferred to the device.  They cannot be created or edited on the device.  The A105 has significantly lower battery life due to the use of Android and the higher end audio hardware - it tops out at 23 hours or so for low quality MP3.  I tried one out for a couple of days and it looked like the estimate of 16 hours for FLAC was relatively accurate - an hour of 16 bit FLAC drained around 6% of the battery.  Using wi-fi hammered the battery hard.  If things like noise cancelling, ambient sound, EQ, etc. are turned on the battery life drops quite quickly, all of which makes the wi-fi of limited use.

The A105 does have better EQ (10 band instead of 6) and doesn't insist on rebuilding the database every time it starts up.  And because it's Android, finding particular songs or albums can be easier since it allows direct access to the files through file explorer apps.  I sometimes find that viewing a folder structure is a better way for me to find something I'm looking for, or, more useful, to spot albums I haven't listened to for a while.  These things weren't enough for me though and I decided that A55L is a better player overall.

[Sonyvores]

The only one difference between NW-A55 and A55L is that L version doesn't carry radio. Apart that it's the same