Sony nwz-s618f and Mac compatibility

I was trying to find out if this device was Mac compatible. I spent a lot of time searching for information on the web and eventually found one Amazon customer who said that it would work but gave few details. This is my attempt to offer a more complete review.
So yes, almost all the features of this device will work on a Mac. Though designed to run on Windows Explorer, it acts like a USB device when plugged into the USB port of my PowerBook G4. I can then drag and drop files and folders into the device. Dragging to the trash will delete items but you must remember to empty the trash to regain memory space.
The battery charges while plugged into the USB port. The device will not eject like a normal USB device but as long as you are not transferring data you can simply pull the plug out with no problem.

General
The NWZ-S618f is a mp3 walkman with 7.3 GB of memory. It has a built-in FM radio and can also store and show photos and videos. It is small, 1.5 X 3 inches and .375 inches thick (roughly the size of my 2005 I-Pod 2GB but a little thicker). It has a 4:3 ratio 1.8 inch diagonal color screen. There is a central start/stop button surrounded by four direction cursors. There are two small buttons just below the screen, one for Enter and the other for Option/Power Off. Volume adjustment is with a switch on the side of the unit. My unit is made in Malaysia. It is mostly plastic but feels solid and robust. It comes with earbud headphones, a proprietary USB connection wire, a dock adaptor (but no dock) and Windows software: an MP3 Conversion tool and Windows Media Player 11.
Using the cursors you navigate onscreen going from icon to icon choosing Music, Video, Photos, Radio, Shuffle, Search, Playlists and Settings (eq, sound enhancements, screen orientation etc.). This is very easy and intuitive.
Battery life is fairly impressive, an advertised 33 hours for music.

The Music
This MP3 player is also AAC compatible. From what I understand, protected AAC files will not play on the device. I have only my own personal CD collection stored in AAC format in my I-Tunes library and all of these will play without problem on this device. You do not use I-Tunes to transfer the music but rather drag and drop folders from your I-Tunes Music folder. Album cover art is retained.
Like an I-Pod you can select your music by Song, Album, Artist, Genre and Year.
There is also a Folder selection. On the computer desktop, once you are inside the device's Music folder, you can re-arrange your I-Tunes created folders. So you can change the song order of an album (by changing the numeric song order inside the album folder) and even create albums (by creating a new folder and dropping individual songs into it). These changes will only show up in the Folder selection.
There is a Search option that lets you find songs easily.
You cannot use your I-Tunes created playlists. This (and not being able to play protected AAC files) is about the only function that does not work with a Mac.
I mostly listen to jazz vocal and classical vocal music. With the supplied earbud headphones, the sound was okay, a little harsh in the high end but not unexpected considering the limited range of the headphones. I have a pair of Sony MDR7509 headphones(decent studio headphones) and with these the sound is very nice. Full and round and the upper registers are no longer scratchy.
Using the Sony MDR7509 headphones I A-B'd this unit with my (2005) I-Pod 2GB. Both units were flat (no EQ or other processing. I prefer to listen to music flat). There was virtually no difference in the sound. The Sony sounded ever so slightly rounder during shriller musical passages. I also did the A-B test directly connected (no amplifier) to a minidisc player and my old Yamaha CD player and in both cases there was almost no difference in sound. Maybe (and almost imperceptibly so) the sound was a little rounder on the CD player. The difference in sound between all these devices was so small as to be meaningless in the real world. If you listen to any of these devices on a small sound system, the sound coming out of them is just about the same. The Sony unit sounds very good to my ear.
There are two Shuffle modes. Normal and Time Machine. Normal just randomizes song order. Time Machine randomly chooses a year and then shuffles all the songs from that year. Cute but a bit useless.
There are various sonic options available like a five band customizable EQ, Surround Sound and other sound enhancements. With some of these enhancements the sound can be much more dynamic but I find the added processing makes the sound unnatural. This is just a personal preference.
There is also a Normalizer which is useful in Shuffle mode (quiet songs and loud songs play at similar volumes).

The Video
This device can store and play Mpeg4 format videos. This means that you cannot just load up a DVD and drop the files into the device. You first have to extract the video files and then convert them to Mpeg4. There are many tools out there that can do this so do a search on the web. When you convert the files to Mpeg4 however, you must follow certain rules otherwise the device will not be able to read the files. The bit rate of the file must not be higher than 2500k/sec. and the resolution must be 320X240 or lower (320X180 for anamorphic widescreen). It was a bit frustrating as Sony does not include all this information in the documentation. I got help for loading videos onto the device here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/539019/how_to_put_videos_on_a_sony_walkman.html
Videos look very nice but small on the 1.8 inch screen. You can change video orientation in the 'settings' selection to fill the screen (so you hold the device sideways). You can also use the 'display' setting and choose full screen mode so that a wide screen picture will fill more of the screen. That said, the screen, though bright and colorful is small and watching a 2.35:1 film could cause some eyestrain. Though it is surprising how quickly one can get used to watching something on this small screen.
You can also show thumbnails alongside the video titles in the video selection menu but these tiny pictures are also difficult to format. I tried using screen shot jpegs scaled to 160 X 120 (as per the instructions) but these did not work. But I could take a screen shot (which was just scaled to a 4:3 format), open it up in Photoshop and then scale it to160 X 120 pixels (I used from 72 to 240 pixels/inch, they all worked). I then did 'save as...' a jpeg. If I dropped this jpeg into the proper video folder and gave it the exact same title as the video, then it would show up as a thumbnail. It works, but it is a lot of effort for a teeny tiny little picture.

Other Stuff
You can also store and view Jpeg photos. You cannot view RAW format photos.
There is an FM radio which is a nice touch. The headphone wire acts as the antenna so if you have weak reception, there is not a lot you can do to improve it.

Bottom Line
This is a compact, good sounding device. It has a reasonable amount of memory though a full length feature will take about 1.5GB of its 7.3GB memory. The screen is small but can be captivating. Get better earphones if you want the best sound. I am using this device on a Mac so some things may be simpler on a PC.