Sony NW-HD5 Review

Overall Rating

Good sturdy case, excellent music quality, no nonsense menus, hold button a plus, 40 hours of battery life, cheaper and smaller then 20 gig ipod

Cheap thin plastic usb cover that snaps off on first use, earphones are very cheap which is annoying for the over all price, Sonicstage whilst confusing on first use is functional at putting music onto the player but it stores it as a omg (copy righted file) so you can only transfer the music back to your own pc as long as you saved the track listings on your pc. You can't use it as a mp3 backup device if theres that fatal harddrive format, or transfer your files from say a home pc to your office pc. Can't use drag or drop in my computer, doesnt work on the mac, cheap cloth bag for protection.

I've had the Sony NW-HD5 mp3 player for a few months now and i still think its an excellent player, besides the problems above. It's volume is quiet to start with but if you use these commands you can turn off the EU regulation volume and let it roar...

1. Be in playback mode (playing a tune)

2. Press stop.

3. Straight away, flick the 'hold' button on the top of the player.

4. Hold the Search/Menu button down and enter the following combination of buttons in quick succession:

RIGHT RIGHT LEFT LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT LEFT UP DOWN

5. Stop pressing the Search / Menu button and flick off the 'hold' switch. The backlight will turn off and the display will say "POWER". This means you are in the service menu.

6. Press UP until you get to "OTHER".

7. Press RIGHT until you get to "G TEST".

8. Press UP until you get to "SP SET".

9. Press PLAY button. If the display says "OFF", you have a non-EU player and the limiter is not in place. If it says "ON", the volume is limited.

10. Press the Search/Mode button so that the display shows "OFF".

11. Press the PLAY button to store the new setting. Now the display should say "SP SET".

12) Hold down the Stop button until the unit performs a normal startup and displays the WALKMAN logo. Go to the normal options screen and switch the backlight back on.

Be careful with this, it does get noticeably louder (maybe too loud at top volume). Also, you can do all sorts of damage to the player in the service menu, make sure you don't mess with anything else or your lovely new player could be irreperably damaged.

I recommend this as a no nonsense mp3 player with no gimics ie pictures or radio. theres plenty of other gadgets ie mobile phones digital cameras etc for that kind of thing. Its strictly a music player and it serves its purpose very well. The only reason i've given it 9 stars is the hinderances with the sonicstage software (i'm using 3.2) but it is upgradable and hopefully there'll be a 3.3 of a v4 that'll iron out the current flaws in the software.