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Sony Network Walkman Hard Drive Digital Music MP3 Player

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12 User Reviews

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$199.99 (1 sellers)

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• Reviewed by: murmillo87

  Updated: 08-08-06

  Overall Rating: 2 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:2 Years

  Strengths: Long batery life

  Weaknesses: It would be impossible 2 fit them all in here.

  Overall Evaluation: First thing most people would realize is that this mp3 player doesn't actually support the mp3 file format, something that i found quite surprising.Before u can actually get started on the whole process of converting and transferring all your music to the nw-hd1 u have to connect it to the computer, for this you will need the ac adapter, the dock and the USB cable(for the i-pod u would only need 2 carry the USB cable). For me this is one of the most annoying things about this mp3 player as u cannot use it as a portable hard drive unless u are carrying all of this with you.To be able to listen to your music, u actually have to convert all your mp3´s to Sony's own atrac format for this you must use the provided program called sonic stage.This program will take a long while and it tends to crash when u try to convert-transfer large amounts of music at once.Once u managed to get all the music in the player u will realize that the library software on the player is unable to ignore the "the" in front of the artist name (this may not seem like a big issue now but it becomes annoying when u are looking for "the killers" and you have over 100 artists under the **** is also unable realize that "The killers" is the same as "The Killers"(In other words its case sensitive)Also I would like to point out the bad quality of its inner workings as after 1 year of using the player some random connection inside it broke and I had to keep applying pressure on the bottom center of the screen for it to work..I hope this information helps to make up your mind, and i hope u don't buy the so called "iPOD killer" as it will bring you nothing but trouble.

• Reviewed by: jfcanning

  Updated: 05-03-06

  Overall Rating: 1 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:8 Months

  Strengths: Great Sony WorkmanshipOK Display

  Weaknesses: Sonic Stage has to convert your music to Altrac

  Overall Evaluation: I bought my Sony NWHD1 about a year ago and was imediatly disapointed with the software interface. Sony has and had no plans to offer upgrades or updates for this model. Basicly Sony just wanted something to compete against the iPod. They miserably failed with ther Sonic stage software. It has to convert all your music in order to transfer it to the NWHD1, which can take a long time if you have an extensive library. And you have to import all your music into the Sony library before you can transfer you music to the player. A major pain in the as* to have to reconvert music after having spent forever and a day converting it in the firts place. I finaly sold the NWHD1 and bought a Creative Labs Zen Neeon, which so far is great. And instead of taking three days and nights to transfer music to the NWHD1 it only takes a few hours for the Zen Neeon.

• Reviewed by: rablpn

  Updated: 04-30-06

  Overall Rating: 1 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:

  Strengths: Price

  Weaknesses: It died just after the 3 month warranty expired

  Overall Evaluation: I paid $130 for this unit at Sears. It worked fine until just after the full warranty expired. It would cost $82.50 to send it to Laredo, TX to have it repaired. I've been having difficulties with some other Sony products. I think their quality has gone done the toilet. I would not recommend this MP3 player or any other Sony product.

• Reviewed by: dariomunoz

  Updated: 09-20-05

  Overall Rating: 1 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:15 Days

  Strengths: looks good

  Weaknesses: to complicated

  Overall Evaluation: I'm very dissapointed with this thing, so difficult to transfer music, stops when it feels stoping the songs, try to change a setting, the thing freezes and have to turn it off, just wants to smash this thing against the wall, I could keep writting bad things about this garbage, but I got better things to do.

• Reviewed by: PMrjn83

  Updated: 03-25-05

  Overall Rating: 3 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:3 Weeks

  Strengths: Small, Good battery life. It comes with a dock and a case.

  Weaknesses: Slow transfer

  Overall Evaluation: This MP3 player has to convert MP3 to ATRAC3 before it can be copied into the walkman. So if you plan to copy a lot of music on to the player, then you can get ready to have fun waiting for this thing to sync it up.

• Reviewed by: klozoff

  Updated: 03-10-05

  Overall Rating: 4 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:3 Months

  Strengths: Excellent sound, size, battery life

  Weaknesses: Horrible, inflexible SonicStage software

  Overall Evaluation: First of all this unit initially doesn't support MP3 but there is now a $20 upgrade from Sony that gives it native MP3 support. I have done this and it improves the unit incredibly (conversion times to ATRAC were painful before). I would suggest doing the update right away or waiting until they start selling the unit pre-upgraded (unless they are now only going to sell the NWHD3 which has MP3 support right out of the box?)Now the unit is wonderful in terms of design, quality, looks, sound and battery life, but the software that goes with it is still awful.A lot has been said about it, and there is hope for improvement from Sony in the future, but it is just a very inflexible piece of software. It seems Sony has decided how people use their MP3 players (mostly an unchanging collection of ALBUMS from CDs or their online store) and anyone that doesn't conform to this is left struggling.I happen to have a lot of single tracks from various sources and also use my MP3 player to listen to some radio shows (meaning I have to add/delete frequently). The software is very bad for this, constantly making duplicates of things and just not being nice.Having said that there are workarounds for everything and it DOES work in the end, but it is so unintuitive and painful that it really takes away from the great physical unit itself.

• Reviewed by: Blue_Mookie

  Updated: 01-15-05

  Overall Rating: 5 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:1 Weeks

  Strengths: Very small and compact, great design. Long battery life and plenty of space for music. 20GB can hold up to 13000 songs. Nifty LCD disply with backlight.

  Weaknesses: None.

  Overall Evaluation: A little pricey at normal price but I got mine for $268. Great deal. This MP3 player can last up 30 hours. Comes with everything you need transfer files quickly and has great softare from Sony.

• Reviewed by: LynMark

  Updated: 12-03-04

  Overall Rating: 3 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:3 Months

  Strengths: Dazzling to look at has a dazzling sound

  Weaknesses: Lost in propriety hell.

  Overall Evaluation: Sony's ATRAC compression is light years ahead of MP3 but still this player fails on many counts. While the SonicSatge software is not buggy as many say it is true that it can take up to 10 minutes to convert a single CD to ATRAC, and files cannot be deleted - the software come without an infuriating check-in/check-out palaver. Despite what some reviewers have stated here - HD1 is most definitely NOT a MP3 player and potential buyers who are comfortable with that format will quickly lose patience with Sony. If all your music is owned and legal you may wish to purchase this - it is superb buy but only for an informed market. A HD3 has just been announced for Europe which accepts native MP3. The Sony quality and attention to design is here but one can help feel that being a record company, amongst other things, has hindered Sony

• Reviewed by: Tony101

  Updated: 10-19-04

  Overall Rating: 5 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:1 Weeks

  Strengths: battery life, design, simplicity

  Weaknesses: ...

  Overall Evaluation: Well as we can see sony has made another fine product, small and very stylish...has so and go...with a 20gb HD and long battery life...and for the atrac conversion...if ur a person that appreciates good technology, then this is no problem...if it is then plz stick 2 ur ipods...*cough*

• Reviewed by: Easttrades

  Updated: 09-14-04

  Overall Rating: 5 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:2 Weeks

  Strengths: 20gb long life battery hours

  Weaknesses: none

  Overall Evaluation: highly recommended mp3 player. and it looks nice too. I used and gone through almost 10 mp3 player since 2001, and this is the one I really like and few hours of charge, the battery life last for days. also i can use this to download all songs from servers and use it as a storage harddrive. best mp3 player ever.

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$199.99 (1 sellers) | Avg User Rating | Specs