Sony NW-HD5 Review

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Sony NW-HD5
4.4 stars
Average rating for this product is: 4.4 out of 5

From 4 ratings and 30 reviews

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eviepvie's Review of Sony NW-HD5 MP3 Player

9th Apr 2006

Overall Rating

5 stars
  • Value for money
    4.5 stars
  • Sound Quality
    4.5 stars
  • Features
    2.5 stars
  • Time MP3 Player Owned
    6 - 12 Months
  • Battery Life
    5 stars
  • Memory
    20 GB
Good Points

Great battery life.
Good quality sound.
Small + quite light so portable.
Different from the ipod.


Bad Points

Can crash sometimes.
Mine broke down.
Sonic Stage software is quite bad.
User Interface is not the easiest in the world.


General Comments

I bought my Sony NW-HD5 in September last year, so I've had it for more than half a year. I use it regularly, for about 2 hours every day. For 3 months, everything was blissful, but then, my HD5 broke down, and started only playing in one ear. I sent it back to Sony, who fixed it, although it did take around 2 months. The Sonic Stage software is quite annoying. It is slow and is quite hard to navigate. It takes a longish amount of time to put songs onto the HD5, as songs first have to be imported into Sonic stage and then exported onto the HD5, this can take about 30 mins, even with the Firewire. Otherwise, this is a great gadget. One of the main reasons I bought it was because it is said to have a great battery life. And it does. I can use mine for a week without needing to charge it, which says a lot, as I use it for at least an hour and a half everyday. It also sounds great and the headphones are comfy. One of the main features that i like, which is not widely advertised, is the fact that the output mode of the player can be changed from "headphone" to "line out" this is helpful for me as it means that using a jack I can plug it into my hi-fi and listen to the tracks on it through that. This is cheaper than buying something like a dock for the Apple ipod. I also bought it because I simply wanted to listen to music on it. It plays music very well, but that's about it. If you want fancy extras like a colour screen, a video and photo viewer than I would definitely advise you to buy an ipod, however, if you want a simple reliable music player, then buy this. Overall, this player makes you stand out from the crowd a little, you will not just be another ipod-listening clone. The battery life is great and the sound is great too, what more could you want??

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Members' Comments oneviepvie's Review

  • eviepvie Rank: Lance Corporal on 24th Dec 2006

    Posted a review here in April. I said then that my Sony NW-HD5 MP3 player had broken down once and I had got it fixed. Now, just a year after buying it, it has broken down again!
    This time it seems a little terminal. The screen doesn't appear to work. I think I might be following those white-headphone-wearing clones after all...

  • n0vember on 21st Feb 2008

    Can you please help me.. how can I put some songs in my HD5?