Sony has a very peculiar way of making MP3 players where they have a basic standard they build upon for every release. The players in the later years started with the 1st gen Sonic Stage dependent S600 and A800 series which were updated to use MTP with the S610 and A810. Now we’ve reached generation 4, but the basic layout of it all is still more or less the same as the S600 and A800.

The design is different, there are themes available, SensMe was added and there’s a podcast feature. That’s pretty much it and doesn’t exactly scream for any Sony user to upgrade. The question is if these new features are any good and if the player generally has the same old Sony quality. Read on for a full review.

• Quick Look
• Capacities: 8GB, 16GB
• Screen: 2” QVGA 240×320 TFT LCD
• Size: 42.9 x 89.5 x 7.5 mm
• Weight: 46g
• Supported Audio: MP3, WMA, AAC-LC, Linear PCM
• Supported Video: MPEG 4 SP, h.264 @ 320×240
• Transfer Modes: MTP
• User Interface: Tactile
• Sound enhancements: Clear bass, Clear Stereo, VPT Sourround, DSEE Sound Enhencement and Dynamic Normalizer
• Other Features: FM Radio, Themes, SensMe, Podcasts

Accessories

In the box you’ll find the normal Sony accessories; dock insert, software, various papers, USB cable and earphones. Since the A800 Sony have been shipping their high end players with EX82 in ear headphones which are ten times the quality of normal included earbuds and these are also present with the S630.

My player came preloaded with some music videos and music as a “promotion”. This may or not be the case with other players (this player came from a Norwegian store) and frankly shouldn’t matter much to most people, but for what it’s worth it might be on there when you get it.

Some after market accessories are available such as Bluetooth transmitters, some docks/speaker systems and various chargers. There are a few more speaker systems coming out for these players but they haven’t appeared on Sony Style yet.

Design

Sony tends to separate the higher end from the lower end players also with build quality where the lower end players (such as the S610) have been plastic while the higher end (like the A810) have been metal. This is also the case here and the S630 has a brushed aluminum front and back panel with a hard plastic frame. It’s very stylish and gives you a feeling of having a high quality device that won’t break easily. The S630 is also Sony’s thinnest player to date at only 7 mm thick, which means it should fit any pocket rather nicely.

The button layout is a mix of that on the A820 and that on the A810. The round buttons from the A810 are there but placed in the same pattern as on the A820 with home/back button and option/power off button on each side of the navigational buttons. I’m not a fan of these buttons as they appear a bit sluggish to press compared to the A820. It’s rather a subjective thing as the buttons are in fact very responsive, but you have to press them a bit further down to get the click than on the A820 hence giving them the feel of not being as responsive as those on the A820. The volume and hold buttons, located on the right side of the player, are also more recessed than on the A820 so they are harder to locate blindly. It’s no doubt done to give the user a feel that the player is slick and thin (as it is) but I’d prefer the buttons to be a bit more raised. Still, this is nitpicking based on having a A820 and doesn’t matter that much.

The dock port and 3.5mm jack is located on the bottom as with the A820 and A810. A lot of people complain about proprietary cables but they do have their advantages. Refer to this article for the pros and cons of both proprietary and standard USB cables. I personally don’t mind as I already have a Sony but for some it’s a nuisance. The same goes for having the audio jack on the bottom, some hate it while others love it. I find it natural to put the player upside down in my pocket so it’s right side up when i grab it, so having the jack on the bottom is logical to me so the cable don’t have to travel the extra length of the player. Again, it’s individual preference.

In Use

I swear to the Sony UI while others hate it. It’s not that shiny and it doesn’t have dogs running around on screen like some players do (erm Samsung), but it’s clean and fast. The S630 uses the exact same UI as the previous 3 generations of Sony players, with minor changes to make room for new icons. The initial search and playlist icon on the main menu has been moved to the music menu to make room for podcasts, SensMe and the FM radio.

Browsing files is done either by ID3 tags or files/folders. The UI is very fast and is assisted by the alphabet browsing which lets you scroll through lists normally with the up and down keys but also scroll through the alphabet with the left and right keys. This is very fast and also the reason why I love this so much – if you have a lot of music it’s invaluable. Videos are still sorted by transfer dates which is rather annoying. If you have a lot of videos, maybe some music videos in between, they’ll all mix up randomly based on when they were transferred.

The settings menu is the most annoying part of the Sony’s UI as half the music settings are on the menu accessible from the now playing screen while the other half is all the way back in the main menu, into settings and further into music settings. There are settings for basically anything, so my advice is to study this menu clos
ely if you get the player.

The S630 also has the same instant on feature as other Sony players, where the player will go to sleep rather than turn itself completely off. If you turn it back on within 24 hours or so it will pop on within a nanosecond and you don’t have to wait for it to boot.

Transferring Content

The S630 is MTP, which means it’s drag and drop in XP and Vista. If you have WMP 11 installed, you can make playlists by right clicking in explorer and selecting playlist, or by using software such as WMP. Some software is included, but it’s not very useful and not needed.

Music Playback

Music Features

Sony players come loaded with a lot of various sound “enhancement” technologies with various degrees of usefulness. You have Clear bass, Clear Stereo, VPT Sourround, DSEE Sound Enhancement and Dynamic Normalizer. Some people use that stuff, but frankly I have yet to find something that works well besides Cowon’s licensed BBE effects. As for music playback settings you have the normal shuffle/repeat etc. No pan/balance or playback speed settings for those of you who use those.

Sony also use some weird “enhanced” browsing features. “Intelligent shuffle” will let you shuffle all songs and time machine shuffle will choose a year and give you a random track from that year based on the ID3 info. Initial search lets you search for songs from their first letter. All of these are rather useless since they are incorporated into the player in form of browsing by year and the left/right alphabetical scrolling on music lists.

Sound Quality

When people ask what Sony player to buy, I generally tell them to look at the differences in features and decide which features are most useful to them. Stability, menus etc is more or less identical on all players. The same can be said for sound quality, which is more or less the same on all players – which is a good thing. The S630 is no exception with stellar sound quality all over. It unfortunately has the same low 5mW output that other Sonys have and while it can drive my 80 Ohm DT770 decently it’s not a good choice if you have very demanding headphones and don’t want to use an amp. Otherwise, there’s nothing in the sound quality department that will give you a reason not to get a S630.

Other Features

SensMe

A new feature adopted from Walkman music phones is the SensMe channels. Basically this is supposed to create playlists based on your mood, and it analyzes BPM to determine what fits in what category. I can see how this would be useful to some – and I’ve also seen forum users saying they use this all the time – but frankly it’s not that accurate. While it placed most my songs in categories which I could see it being in, it made some peculiar choices. I have a hard time seeing how Frou Frou’s “Holding out for a Hero” from Shrek 2 is “relaxing” and personally I wouldn’t have put Red Hot Chilli peppers’ “Californication” under “Electronic”. There are other examples too, but in most cases it was decent. The problem might be that it uses so many categories there are few songs in each, for instance a lot of the songs in “classical” (which it seems to think means “no vocals”) would fit just as well in “relax”. Bottom line the SensMe feature is either a hit or miss and you’ll either like it or never use it. The mistakes it makes might be a tad annoying if you plan for a romantic dinner, put on “relax” and it suddenly starts playing “who let the dogs out”. It also takes a while for the player to scan the songs, about 12 minutes for the 200 songs I transferred. You can’t use the player while it does this, but it’s only necessary the first time after you transfer the songs.

Themes

the S630 is also the first Sony player to have themes built in. There are 10 different ones and you can also set your own wallpaper. I personally don’t use this for anything other than getting a totally black wallpaper, but it’s a nice way for people to personalize their players.

Podcasts

Being accustomed to SanDisk’s way of handling podcasts I first tried to get files into the podcast menu by tagging them as podcasts. When that didn’t work, I tried to put the files in the default podcast folder, which also didn’t work. I tried the dreadful software (which, to make things very clear, is 100% useless) without any more luck before I as a last resort turned to the user manual(!). Seems that putting the files in the podcast folder was the right thing to do, but it only recognizes folders and files inside those folders and not lose files in the podcast folder. When you get this done, it’ll let you browse the contents of the podcast folder under the podcast menu on the main menu of the player. Both audio and video podcasts are supported and it also lets you delete files on the player and it marks new files that you haven’t played. A very nice feature as I myself is a very heave podcast user, I just wish they would add compatibility for video podcasts with resolutions higher than 320×240 so it would play the full array of podcasts our there.

FM Radio

The radio is like every other radio on an MP3 player.
It has presets, and the range is rather average. It failed to pick up certain stations at all inside the house and those it did pick up had static. If you do get a good signal, the sound quality is nice. There’s no record feature like on some players, just a plain old FM radio.

Video

The S630 like its predecessors use the same format as iPods – h.264. it only supports resolutions up to 320×240 (which is the screen resolution) so it doesn’t play back all iPod formatted material but it does support many video podcasts that offer that resolution. Video quality is nice and as with older Sony players you can zoom the video to fit the screen if the resolution is low or the aspect ratio leaves black borders. You can also set video orientation, useful for left handed people or if you want to display the video without turning the player on its side.

Battery Life

Sony not only likes to confuse people with alphanumerical player names but also by sometimes listing battery life numbers that differ by 50-60 hours depending on the file format. The official battery life of the S630 is 40 hours at “normal use”, which means perfect conditions and low bitrate files. In reality, expect battery life to be anything from 30-40 hours depending on your usage pattern. Either way it should be more than sufficient for most people

Conclusion

Reviewing Sony players is a bit weird as you find yourself repeating the same basics over and over again. Truth is that you can read any of our reviews of the video capable players from the last few years and the basics will still be true for the S630. It’s a very capable player with a nice build quality and a few new features compared to the older models. SensMe is a bit of a marketing gimmick, the same can be said for podcasts for that matter but it’s nice to see Sony including more features to differentiate their models. I still prefer the A820 due to bigger screen and better buttons (I also use the Bluetooth capabilities), but the S630 is a better choice if you want a smaller player and don’t need the bigger screen. The S730 is also out which is the same player as the S630 but with noise canceling features. That feature isn’t that useful in my opinion but I’ve actually seen the S730 going for less than the S630 so if that’s the case you might as well get that one. Either way the S630 is a nice update to the Sony line which keeps the same old very stable firmware with the essentials for enjoying music and adds a few new features on top.

Pros

• Build quality and size
• Battery Life
• Sound Quality
• Firmware Stability
• Podcast Feature

Cons

• Buttons could be better
• SensMe isn’t that accurate
• Not that much of an upgrade
• MTP only

Purchase

Amazon usually has the best price with free shipping and no taxes. For Europe the player can also be found at AdvancedMP3players

Forum

For support and other questions, please refer to our forum which has a section for the new gen 4 players.