Should You Buy a Sony Walkman in 2024? MP3 Players Compared

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A Walkman? In this day and age? Well, yes. Sony is still at the front of mind for a number of "retro" audio formats including its iconic cassette players -- plus, the sales of the humble CD are again on the uptick. Meanwhile, the Walkman is still produced today, bringing "personal audio" into the 21st century. Here, I compared two descendants of the legendary Walkman name: the Sony NW-E394 and NW-A306 digital audio players.

Sure, most people happily stream all their music via their phones, but there are a lot of reasons why some people might want a portable music player in the modern era. Streaming burns through a lot of data and battery life, and downloaded songs can take up a lot of storage space. Perhaps you're regularly away from Wi-Fi or cellular signals, like on a plane or subway. Do you have unlimited data when you're traveling? Maybe a young or older family member wants tunes, but doesn't need the complexities of a phone. 

Fortunately, there are a variety of digital audio players (DAPs) on the market, including several from the OG portable music company, Sony. The Walkman brand lives on in a number of current players, including the NW-E394 and NW-A306. Each one has its own quirks, but both provide music where streaming can't reach. And in the case of the A306, it actually does streaming too. 

While not for everyone, both of these players are worth considering for people not satisfied with phone-based streaming audio.

NW-E394

6.5

Sony NW-E394

Like

• Small and light
• Wonderfully simple to use

Don't like

• Micro USB
• No FLAC support
• No Bluetooth

• Storage: 8GB (internal, not expandable)
• OS: N/A
• Apps: No
• Battery life: 35 hour playback
• Supported formats: MP3, WMA (Non-DRM), AAC (Non-DRM), Linear PCM
• Connection: Micro USB
• Other features: FM radio

The NW-E394 feels like it's from another time, and it is. First going on sale in 2016, it likely felt old even then. However, with a decade of "MP3 player" development under its belt at that point, what else would it really need to figure out? Despite its age and inherent limitations, the NW-E394 remains in Sony's lineup.

The NW-E394 is incredibly light and tiny. I've seen bigger key fobs. Battery life is a solid 35 hours. It even comes with the little earbud headphones that were in style 20 years ago. There's no iTunes here (or anywhere, really), so to get your music onto the player you need to connect to a computer via USB. I'm a little disappointed to see Micro-USB on the NW-E394, but it's to be expected due to its age. Sony's Music Center software is surprisingly simple, a welcome relief for a company that doesn't have the best track record with music players. Transferring music was easy, if a bit slow, assuming you have any music on your computer anymore (see below to remedy that).

One of the best features of the NW-E394 is actually a built-in FM tuner. Once again a throwback to Walkmans of yore, having a radio in your pocket is practically a novelty at this point. Wait, free music just… floating in the air? What magic is this? 

Using the NW-E394 is one of throwback simplicity. There's nothing as elegant as the iPod's scroll wheel, but a minimum of buttons and an intuitive interface lets you navigate to the song you want fairly quickly. There's even a reasonable amount of power from the headphone jack. I'm not sure why you'd want to drive big over-ear headphones from a sub-$100 media player, but I was able to get a reasonable listening volume out of the E394 doing exactly that. The little included wired earbuds are pretty bad, though I would have been shocked if they weren't. There are lots of budget earbuds on the market that sound really good, so I don't think this is important. Oh, and there's no Bluetooth.

My only major complaint is the inability to play FLAC files. FLAC, or Free Lossless Audio Codec is a common file format among higher-end music download services, and it has been a mainstay of people converting their CDs since it saves storage without losing quality. Personally, I have way too many FLAC files to consider a player that doesn't play them. However, if you don't have a FLAC library and can't imagine you would (MP3 and other lossy compressed files are far more common), this won't be an issue.

If you are considering this for a younger person, there's an automatic volume limiter in the settings to protect the hearing of someone who probably doesn't realize that listening to music so loud it makes your ears ring is bad. However, the volume is probably too low for car or airplane rides unless they're using noise canceling headphones.

I like the NW-E394, mostly for its size and simplicity. If someone doesn't want the "bulk" of the NW-A306, or just wants what amounts to a fully offline music player, this fits the bill. It's a little expensive compared to the many Chinese brands making PMPs, but it works and is from a brand you know.

NW-A306

7.0

Sony NW-A306

Like

• Great design
• Compact and light
• Android 12

Don't like

• Battery life
• Mediocre amp
• Slow processor

• Storage: 32GB (internal, microSD expandable)
• OS: Android 12 (Updated to Android 13)
• Apps: Yes (Spotify, Qobuz, etc.)
• Battery life: 36 hours playback (less with Bluetooth, streaming, etc.)
• Supported formats: MP3, WMA, FLAC, WAV, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, DSD, MQA, others
• Connections: USB-C, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
• Other features: USB DAC functionality

If the NW-E394 is a PMP of the old school, the NW-A306 is absolutely one of the new school. Originally running Android 12 and recently updated to Android 13, along with its metal body and touchscreen, it feels like a high-end phone scaled down to one-quarter-size. It can play back high-res FLAC and other audio files, and because it runs Android you can download your favorite music streaming apps and either stream when you're on Wi-Fi or download tracks to listen to offline (if the service supports that). 

The NW-A306 you see here is actually mine. I bought one when they first came out. I travel a lot, and even though Google Fi lets me use my phone anywhere in the world, the "unlimited" data isn't actually unlimited. If you're streaming music every day, you'll eventually hit an unpublished cap. So, I wanted something I could listen to on the plane, or on remote adventures, without using up my phone's storage. As such, I have used the NW-A306 a lot. 

First, the positives. The design is fantastic. The metal case feels quite luxurious. The buttons on the side are fairly easy to differentiate without looking. I had no issue installing Spotify and Qobuz, and downloaded tracks from those services along with about 150GB of FLAC tracks, all of which fit easily on the 256GB microSD card I added. It's easy to use, functioning basically the same as any other Android device. Bluetooth headphones connect easily, more easily than with my Pixel 7 in some cases. 

There are, unfortunately, some negatives to the A306: Mostly, it's a little slow. Booting up, starting apps, sometimes even swiping through menus, all take a little longer than many people would want. While Sony clearly spent lots of money on some aspects of the A306, it seems they tried to save some money on the processor. This wasn't a great decision since that impacts the everyday usability. It's not terrible, but it is noticeable. The small screen doesn't handle the Android interface very well either, with menus and notifications often overlapping or otherwise difficult to read. 

For a product with audiophile leanings, it's also not very powerful. If you have any wired headphones that are even remotely hard to drive, you'll struggle to get a decent volume out of them. Trying to drive the same headphones I got a similar volume out of the E394, which is less than a third the price. Unlike the E394, this A306 does have Bluetooth and that's what I've used with it the most.

The biggest issue is the battery. Sadly, there is no automatic shutoff. Since I'm not using the device every day, invariably when I go to use it, the battery is dead. Essentially, if you've used it during the day and you're not positive when you'll use it next, you have to remember to shut it down. That wouldn't be as big of a deal if it didn't take so long to boot up. For comparison, the E394 shuts down at the press of a single button, and boots back up in seconds. Easy enough to do every time you put it down without a second thought.

Having owned and used the NW-A306 for months, I will say the positives outweigh the negatives, but it's disappointing how frustrating it can be to use and own. It's an A on paper but a B-minus in practice.

Where do you get MP3s?

You'd be forgiven if you're wondering where in this age you even get music files. My guess is many of you sold or tossed your old CDs and haven't considered music downloads for more than a second after you signed up for Spotify. 

Fortunately, there are several options for standard quality, like Amazon and Apple. HDTracks and Qobuz are a good source for high-resolution files, though you'll need the NW-A306 to play those. Bandcamp is another great option, especially if you want to support smaller artists. 

If storage isn't an issue, FLAC is an open-source lossless file format that is widely offered and supported. Most stores no longer have DRM, or digital rights management, meaning that once you pay for the files you can play them on any of your devices.

If you want to dust off your old CaseLogic CD binders and rip some new high-quality files, you might also need either an internal or external CD drive since it's unlikely any computer you've bought in the last decade has one. I've bought several external models myself and found every one was terrible. Hopefully you're not interested in going that route.

For more about the various download options, check out Best Stores for Buying Digital Music You Can Keep Forever.

Walkin' Walkmans

Clearly, portable media players are a niche product. Though most people just use their phones, there's a surprisingly-varied market for players -- even in the mid-2020s. Sony invented the "media player" category, but then ceded territory to Apple in terms of digital media players, yet it still dabbles in it. Both the NW-E394 and NW-A306 are good, if a little flawed, products. The E394 is pricey, but a good, simplistic player. The A306 does so many things right, but then stumbles with some of the basic usability aspects. So in the end I like both of them, but I don't love either.

As well as covering audio and display tech, Geoff does photo tours of cool museums and locations around the world, including nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, medieval castles, epic 10,000-mile road trips and more.

Also check out Budget Travel for Dummies, his travel book and his bestselling sci-fi novel about city-size submarines. You can follow him on Instagram and YouTube.