The best Mp3 player in 2005 in my opinion.

The time of the Sony NW-HD5's release, the iPod Nano had only just been released and the 20GB iPod still had a black & white screen. I got this mp3 player as a gift in October 2005 and it is still working till this day.

At the time the pricing was around £200 for a 20GB iPod, so instead of following the crowd I thought I'd try something different and purchased one of these. 20GB is more than enough, since purchasing I have transferred FULL albums, not having to worry about using up the space with its storage capacity.

Straight out of the package I was very impressed, the Sony came in a quite heavy metal casing which felt really durable and an effective bright LCD screen. Gloss black buttons on the front in a Gameboy like setup made it strangely adorable.
It wasn't THE best looking mp3 out, but in comparison to my friends iPod nano which screen broke the Sony was superior quality and a lot easier to use.

I had heard about the sound being quiet because of a limiter, but after researching how to unlock the sound limit the mp3 player came alive!
The earphones supplied were pretty poor to be honest, they were around £7 versions you would find in any high street store. This didn't bother me because I already had a better pair of headphones already.

In the package the accessories were; a wall charger (which iPod didn't give as standard with there players), USB cable to transfer music from computer, CD with PC drivers and a velvety storage pouch.
For Sony, I was quite impressed with them including so much equipment instead of you having to source parts yourself.

The Sonicstage software supplied with the player is the only negative to the package, It isn't great, quite RAM heavy, leaves little options of how to manage your music . It isn't a useful hub like iTunes, but IS necessary to transfer music to your mp3 as you can't drag and drop the mp3 files.

Having owned this player for nearly 4 years and dropping it about 100 times it's stayed strong and never snapped or cracked anywhere. The metal casing will easily outlast anything else on the player as it is military strong.
The screen and hard drive have minor faults which cause them to cease working for a minute and it requires turning off and on again to get it working again.

So if you see one of these on eBay for a bargain price, it's a great piece of technology that does the job that is a 20GB jukebox in your palm.