Sony NW-HD5

Love the thing BUT...

When i search a song on 'initial search' you have to skip tracks by pressing the button on and on OR it starts running extremely fast through the whole alphabet when you keep the button pressed...but that's TOO FAST

An 'initial search' with more letters might solve this issue which is of course a luxury problem

Next to that i miss the 'editing possibilities the 'old' md players had like, recording, deviding, combine, deleted, replace etc....on the spot then that would really make it a blasting machine...

Of coures if one would add a tuning possibility to that next to a chord diagram then me as a guitarist would be in heaven on earth.

Meanwhile i'm still very content with the nw-hd 5

Especially now i cracked the volume limit in the service menu.

Affordable Portable MP3 Players with loads of memory capacity, good looking, but delicate in places I would recommend the Sony NW-HD5.

I purchased The NW5 for the wife so she could listen to her music without me having to and if she can use it anyone can. However after 10 months the unit just suddenly cut out in mid song and switched off, after blaming the wife saying she must have accidentally switched it off, the unit would not boot back up, I returned the item back to the retailer who said that they would have to send it back to Sony for them to look at it, after 4 weeks of badgering the retailer Sony said they would replace the unit as this was beyond repair, after 2 weeks more and again badgering the retailer Sony offered the NW1200 as a direct replacement, so I sent back a 20Gb player and Sony wanted to replace it with a 6Gb player - not going to happen, they said that the NW3000 was no longer made (Problems) which was an equivalent, but they would throw in a leather case and some speakers - after throwing the Sales of Goods act at the retailer, I was given a full refund + 5% discount on a new product, I never bought a Sony and I never will again.

Here 2 weeks ago my quest begins... my old i pod broke and I wanted to get a new one, though i was at Boots and the assistant said try the Sony NW-HD5, his hard drive on his old i pod died twice. So he gave the Sony a go and said it was great. "Right" I thought, I'll put some research. I heard all the remarks about the software, though the unit itself was deemed fantastic. I've been using computers for a while now, and have high end audio equipment at home.

The ipod is a big let down, and as for Atrac and Sonic Stage, have a look at the Sony's comparision with Atrac at 64kbs reviewed and sampled with High End LINN and Meridian Audio equipment, ten users couldn't tell the difference between 64kps and 195kps! The audio equipment is renowned for being extremely revealing so it would of picked up all the irregularites. The Sony NW-HD5 is one of the best mp3 players out there, way above ipod, remember what it's designed to do, that is to purely play music, not show all your mates photos, videos etc.

This is the best product I have brought all year! Get used to Sonic Stage, use Real Player or Gym to get copy right music over to your hardware.

The best.

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??

Sonicstage has a mind of its own. It mixes up some of my tracks and places them in the wrong location on my Sony NW-HD5 MP3 player.

Other than the Sonicstage software, the Sony NW-HD5 is a great little device which seems to be very well thought out.

I purchased the Sony NW-HD5 MP3 player after researching a lot of MP3 players.

I have not had any problems with it, and the battery life is amazing (I left it on for 2 days by accident and it was still playing). The size, weight and feel when you use it are all amazing, making it a pleasure to use.

The only problem I have is the scroll to fins things is not the best, and you can miss the item that you are looking for, but this is a minor fault on an overall amazing product. You do not receive a remote control with the product, but any Sony remote will work with it, and there are may cheap ones available to buy.

I like the Sony NW-HD5 MP3 player. It's compact, well laid out, and it is easy to navigate through the menu options.

The sound quality is good, and now that I have disabled the EU volume preset restrictions built into the UK models, I can turn the sound up sufficiently to drown out the sound of traffic when I am cycling.

If you don't mind Sony dictating how you will handle/transfer your music, then this device is a solid and compact music player.

The downside is you cannot transfer music back to your PC if you remove the originals from your PC. This is not a backup device unless you copy the data direct to the Walkman using explorer using the Walkman as an external drive! Watch out if you wipe all your music from you PC, or if lose music because of a virus, as you will NOT be able to transfer your music back to your PC.

If you wish to transfer the music from your home PC to another PC - forget it, unless you format the Walkman HD and transfer the tracks via explorer again using the Walkman as a portable hard drive.

I can understand why some people are very disappointed after they purchase this device. Sony wants to control the way you handle your music!

I would not buy another Sony MP3 player again unless I could transfer music the way I wished to!

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.

The equalizer on the Sony NW-HD5 MP3 player can't be adjusted if music files are in MP3 format. Some other functions are only available with Atrac format, which is proprietary to Sony. The included ear buds are not great, and I would recommend purchasing better ones. The Sonic Stage software does not upload cover art for CD's.

In other ways the player is great. It is compact (2/3 the size of an iPod). It is also solidly built, and it produces very good sound quality. The display is not fancy, but the long battery life more than makes up for that.