Stylish with excellent sound (Sony Walkman NW-HD5 20 GB)

Member Name: listen_up

Product:	Sony Walkman NW-HD5 20 GB
Date:	22/11/05 (368 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, Stylish, user-friendly, great sound quality

Disadvantages: Packaged software could be better

I recently bought a Sony NW-HD5 after my Creative Zen Micro's headphone jack stopped working correctly (it was, in fact, the second time it had happened) so I went for a company I can usually trust.

It's difficult to review everything about a product like this without making it a pain to read so I'll go for points :

Pro's
- 20gb. You can't have enough space for the future!
- Great design. Stylish and feels more expensive than it actually is.
- Easy to navigate. I actually prefer the simple click buttons to any touch-sensitive wheel or pad. The menus on the screen are easy to find your way around and artists/albums are laid out in the standard way.
- Light. Considering the copacity of the drive you hardly notice the player.
- Scratch free. Unlike the ipod.
- Great sound. Everyone knows Sony do sound better than anyone and this product is no exception.
- Removable/Rechargable battery.

Con's
- SonicStage. The software for transferring songs onto the player is slow and can be a pain to use. It hasn't bothered me too much but it's worst point is....
- Converting WMA's. Converting all your tracks to the ATRAC format can take a ridiculously long time. Not a problem for some people but half my collection was WMA!
-Lack of extra's. Some people may be dissapointed by the lack of bonuses such as alarm clock and FM Radio.

So there you have it. There are downsides to this player but I feel the pro's heavily outweigh the con's and I wouldn't swap it for anything else. Other things that are expected, such as being able to charge the player though a PC (via USB) and various equalizer settings, are also worth mentioning. I've tried to be unbiased in my review but despite the con's I can't recommend this player enough.

PS. On the European version the volume level has been dropped due to legal problems in America, to solve this problem simply do a google search (ie. NW-HD5 volume) and the answer will be revealed!

Summary: Great player. Buy it now!

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