Sony NW-HD5 Review

Overall Rating

Excellent design, robust feeling despite flimsy-looking USB/charger cover, tiny unit, good sound, good screen, easy volume reduction when in a pocket. It's been discontinued now for the A6000, so it should drop to a good price now...

Sonicstage, obviously. Also, MP3's can only be used with two of the EQ presets (the rest are just for ATRAC3). Accessories are very sparse apart from on the net.

I bought a silver Sony NW-HD5 portable MP3 player at a big reduction because it was ex-display, and mine does have the telltale cracks around the centre buttons. However, I've heard this may be peculiar to the silver version and not generally the black or red models. Anyway, if a minuscule couple of cracks around the buttons freak you out, so be it, but I don't worry about it considering that the quality of every other part of this player is excellent.

Sonicstage is just something you'll have to learn to live with. Re-encode or rename your ID3 tags in some other program you like more, by all means, then use SS just for the final bit, the transfer. This is what I do and it's working fine. I'm used to an XClef, which uses root directory layout (drag and drop), but I find the ID3-based database on the Sony easier to use (once the stuff is on there), and anyway this is going to be my main player for travelling around with for the foreseeable future, so it makes sense to update years' worth of files to one standard.

The button layout is intuitive, and while it isn't as flashy as the iPod family's click wheel, it means you can mute or turn the volume down quickly without taking the unit out of your pocket, or have to use an inline graphical or button remote (which in my mind are just as much of a crime magnet). The screen is good. The system loads nice and quickly, even with over 15GB loaded, and it remembers what song you were playing and where if you press play (pressing menu/find takes you straight into the menu's without blasting the preset volume song, which is handy too). One problem I have however, is that all my music is in MP3, and I'm loathe to change to ATRAC3 to gain access to the other EQ settings on the player, though I may relent once I'm more used to having the HD5 as my portable music storage.

The player is strong enough to fit into your jeans pocket if you're a guy, and it doesn't leave a bulge - always nice that, though I'm buying a cheap rubber skin for my HD5 just to be on the safe side. It'll still be tiny even when protected, but be warned... accessories are sparse for these Sony HD machines, so don't expect iSheep marketing trying to sell you everything like other brands. That said, you can still get the essentials (fitted cases of different styles) on the net with ease.