Customer Reviews

Sony NW-HD1 20 GB Network Walkman Digital Music Player

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

From a hardware perspective, it's a work of art. Beautiful, sleek, lightweight, and solid feeling. I got it in my hands and fell in love. And then I tried to use it. Which required installing SonicStage. I'd read all the bad reviews of SonicStage, and I'd used (what I thought was) equally bad Sony software in the past -- OpenMG for their NetMD player, for example. So I was prepared for some annoyances, fine tuning, maybe occassional bugs. I also assumed the people who complained were exaggerating about how bad it was. LET ME PROMISE YOU -- THEY WERE NOT. In almost twenty years of using computer software, tinkering with electronics, owning some version of almost every gadget known to man -- I have never seen such a promising piece of hardware CRIPPLED by such a buggy, ill-conceived, underpowered, unintuitive piece of software. It's WORSE than what people are telling you. It's so bad that I ended up returning mine and buying an Ipod -- something I swore I'd never do. The user interface isn't even consistent between the player and the software. There's no way to shuffle all the songs on the drive. User support is non-existent. SonicStage freezes and crashes for no reason, despite being upgraded to latest version and uninstalled/reinstalled. Certain songs won't transfer, others are marked as having no digital rights (even though they were tracks recorded from the same albums as other songs that transferred fine -- and that NEVER had digital rights assigned to them in the first place.) A lot of people have complained about Sony forcing you to use their proprietary ATRAC3 format instead of MP3. Honestly -- that's the LEAST of this unit's problems. The bigger problem is that the software engineers are too incompetent to program a stable program that will actually CONVERT and MANAGE those ATRAC3's. Sony's hardware engineers created this beautiful player, and their software engineers will be the cause of its failure. Words cannot do justice to how badly Sony bungled this mess. It kills me to say this, but don't waste your time.
**NEW ADDITION: To the reviewers who make comments to the effect that anyone who has problems with SonicStage software either has a faulty computer or is a complete idiot: Have you actually tried to USE the software? Or do you just sort of sit and stare at the pretty pictures on the screen? (I mean, come on. Nobody's arguing that the hardware is extremely impressive, but the software is buggy, unintuitive, and inconsistent. It's been pretty well documented by several thousand people. I can't imagine that anyone outside of the programming group that put that mess together would actually think it's a competent piece of software, and if they do, they must enjoy spending hours in front of their computer and not have much of a social life.) Second, some reviewers have disputed my claim that the unit cannot shuffle the entire HD. My claim is true, it has been substantiated by a senior marketing representative from Sony with whom I have exchanged several letters and phone calls. Yes, you can shuffle within albums (or "groups"), and you can shuffle within artists and playlists. But you CANNOT shuffle through the entire HD as a whole. The only way this would be possible would be to designate the entire library as a single playlist, and playlists are currently limited to 1000 tracks. So if you have 3,000 tracks on the player, there is absolutely, positively no way to shuffle those 3,000 tracks -- only subsets of those tracks (e.g., album, group, etc.) I suppose you could spend several extra hours of your life creating complicated playlists and shuffle between those playlists. But on an Ipod (and, incidentally, almost every other MP3 player on the market), you simply hit a menu entry titled "shuffle."

I will keep this very simple and list the pro's and the con's of this unit so you can see what I liked about it and what I did not. For reference, my last MP3 player was a Jukebox Zen 20gig USB 2.0 version but the hard drive died so I purchased this sony.

Let me get the bad out of the way first:
-No remote included in the box (for 400, there really should be one)
-Converstion of MP3s to Atrac takes a long time if you have more than 1 gig of music...but...(see the good below)
-No "on the go" playlists. That is my biggest gripe with the unit as far as operations and functions go. There is a bookmark feature that lets you remember up to 100 of your favorite songs so you can make a bogus playlist of sorts, but coming from a Zen, the playlist feature is dearly missed
-The case included cannot be hanged anywhere. It simply protects the player from scratches but has no belt clip/string/rope.
-Cheapo headphones in the box but that's expected.


Now the good...
-Visually, this unit is simply stunning. Pictures do not do it justice. It actually looks like a 400 dollar piece of technology.
-While Atrac conversion is slow, it could not be more simple. A transfer wizard asks you to select the songs you want to move to the player, and then converts them ON THE FLY without making a copy of the file in Atrac on your computer. It's great because if you have a lot of music, you can simply leave the player on overnight and everything will be done when you get up.
-The player sounds very good. I can say that I found the quality to be much better than my Zen, and the Zens are known for their awesome sound quality.
-64 kbps Atrac compression sounds pretty much as good as a 128 kbps MP3 compression.
-Menus are very simple to navigate and there are only 2 buttons on this unit not counting the standard >>, <<,play/stop buttons. All of them are used to good effect.
-The equalizer on this thing is stunning. On my Zen, I always turned it off because I could not hear a difference. Here, the unit actually sounds better depending on what settings you like.
-Battery life is stellar. Not exactly 30 but close.
-Creating playlists using the Sony software is VERY easy. Type in a name, drag and drop files either on the player already or in your computer.


I could probably go on like this for a while because this unit has tons of little things that make me just love it. For all the bad rep NW-HD1 got for the Atrac format, it really delivered in terms of audio quality, ease of use, portability, and visuals. If you like solid construction units that are reliable (it really looks reliable despite the 90 day labor, 1 year parts warranty) and have 400 dollars to spend. I would get this over the iPod anyday.

As a sidenote, the unit IS smaller than an iPod. It is about the size of the iPod mini.

I think whether or not you like the Sony comes down to a taste in style. I do not have any MP3 files on my computer, so I don't care about the lack of native MP3 support or converting CD's to ATRAC. The ATRACplus format sounds awesome and is better than Apple's AAC format because you can store more songs in a smaller space (that is, the Sony unit is smaller than the Apple 40GB unit). The 40GB iPod stores 10,000 songs in AAC format (or probably less in MP3 format). This Sony 20GB unit stores 10,000 songs in ATRAC3plus 64kbps format. These formats are basically equivalent to each other in terms of sonic quality, except that Sony allows for greater size compression. People complain about the SonicStage software and I will admit that it is not the best, but it also only took me 5 minutes to figure out without looking at the documentation. The battery life difference is not even a contest as the Sony goes for 27 hours while the iPod only goes for 12 hours.

I could have gone either way on the iPod vs Sony debate as I think both units are really nice. The Sony is just as easy to use as the iPod (admittedly, I am not as knocked out by that wheel as other people are). I am glad I got the Sony and recommend it to others.

I don't think I am going to add much to the reviews written previously. However, having owned an iPod and this unit, I lean towars the Sony device. I admit however, that I am a bit biased.

I previously owned a Sony Network Walkman MS-11. This was Sony's older memory stick media player. That unit was extremely small but was limited by the memory stick capacity. Add to the fact that memory sticks are not cheap and the unit was expensive. While I enjoyed my MS-11, the software was atrocious.

Unfortunately, Sony didn't learn.

I am a Sony-phile. I own tons of their stuff and was really excited about this new product. However, I was a bit cautious as they only supported ATRAC. For those of you, including myself, who buy most of their music in CD format and then simply want to transfer your music to a portable device, this unit is fine. It is is similiar to the iPod in that the songs are transferred in a proprietary format. Apple uses AAC and Sony uses ATRAC. The problem arises with those files that are not in ATRAC format. While the iPod will accept MP3, the NW-HD1 will not. It must be converted to ATRAC.

That wouldn't be so much a pain if it wasn't for the pathetic software that comes with the unit. The Sony programmers spend WAY to much time on the visual look of the software and not enough time in getting it to work properly or quickly. As a result, even on one of the highest-end computers available on the market, it is slow and clunky. Transferring files from MP3 via the software to ATRAC on the device takes forever.

If you have a bazillion MP3's on your hard drive, stick with the iPod. If you want to digitally store your music on a portable player (and don't really care about storing them on your hard drive) I would recommend the Sony.

The unit is extremely small. About half the size of the iPod. Battery life is (comparitively) amazing. One of my biggest pet peeves with the iPod was the crappy battery. With about 25 hours of battery time, I don't need to worry with the Sony. The unit looks much better then the iPod. While the latter comes in what I like to call "puke white," the Sony is brush aluminum with a black plastic casing around the green and black screen. The headphones are crappy but that's expected.

All in all, I think the unit can command a $100 premium over the iPod simply for the size factor. If Sony were to come out with a firmware update and a software update that would allow a simple drag and drop transfer of MP3 files, I think they would not only sell alot more, but bring stiff competition to Apple.

Just picked one up. Upgraded from being a minidisc user so I am already familiar with the quirks of SonicStage. Yes, I know that in two weeks here in the US the NW-HD3 is coming out and will play MP3s natively but frankly I want ATRAC, I have done simple listening tests side by side and agree ATRAC is a richer, warmer sound than MP3.

It depends on what kind of user you are I guess. All my music comes from burnt albmus so converting to ATRAC doesn't bother me. If I were someone who had a hard-drive full of MP3s from Kazaa then admittedly this wouldn't be the best choice for me as far as file-format is concerned.

But all that said, I'm already extremely pleased with my purchase. It's true - until you get one in your hand, or your pocket you don't realise how small and light this thing is. The 30hr playback for me was a big seller as I use the unit all day listening to music at work, and have gotten use to Minidisc batteries lasting these kinds of lengths. Side by side with colleagues' iPods it just feels so much smaller and lighter.

I did a lot of research and wanted to add some information that might help people thinking of taking the plunge, because I feel this is a unit that has a had a lot of unfair bad press - a chance to right some wrongs, and agree with others on some matters:

1. Volume. The unit has been cited as having low volume. It definitely depends on the headphone match-up. With in-ear solutions like the fontopia headphones, you'll never be able to blast past 1/2 - 3/4 of the total volume before your ears explode - believe me it's plenty loud enough, but with my DJ style headphones it is noticeably quieter. This can easily be corrected with a custom EQ of your choice which noticeably increases volume the moment you play with it but some tracks can get drowned out by the NYC subway.

2. Shuffle - some reviews have stated that the unit can't shuffle. Not true. I agree it is not as immediately obvious as an ipod but once you understand how it works you'll see that you can shuffle at multiple points in the folder-tree, such as shuffling the whole HD, or shuffling just an artist, or just a genre, or just an album. Plenty of flexibility here once you understand it

3. Sonicstage - seriously it's not that bad, and growing up through the various versions with my minidisc I can tell you it's a lot better than it was. My only real frustration is that you only see items on the unit displayed in the order you put them on the HD, but you can drag and drop this order to your taste. Hopefully future versions of sonicstage will address this.

4. Gapless playback - yes it's here - and if you call yourself a music fan you should demand it. It allows you to hear albums in the manner in which they were intended without false stop-gaps of silence occuring between tracks that were designed to blend together.

So there you have it - hope you have the information you need to make an informed decsion. I din't want to become another white-earbudded iPod zombie (NYC is crawling with them). I care about build-quality, battery life, and most of all sound-quality. In the display case next to the Sony the creatives, iRivers and Apples really just looked so plasticky.

Hope you enjoy yours.

I have been using a Creative Nomad Jukebox3 for a while now (prio to that the first 6GB Jukebox), it recently lost its Firewire capabilities and somehow, I can't shuffle all my albums anymore...it also 'clicks and whirrrrrs'...and it is H-U-G-E, not to mention Creatives Customer Support policies...anyway it was a toss up, the NW-HD1, Rio Karma or the iPod.

The Karma is very nice, good (if not a bit awkward) form-factor, tons of features (great format support) and good battery life, awesome price. I was very close to purchasing this, but the build quality was terrible. It felt super cheap, like one drop and *boom* dead player.

The iPod, yeah, yeah, millions of people can't be wrong right? Well, millions of people drive Hondas and there are better cars out there. To ME, the iPod has so-so sound quality, and medicore battery life. Good Form-Factor, but I don't like the 'look' of all white (for the new 40GB). Many of my friends have them and again, the sound quality is pretty weak (even compared to Creatives and @128+). Nice size, looks slick, good interface (I do like the click wheel).

So, the SONY NW-HD1, man this this is SMALL and LIGHT the picture of people holding it their hands doesn't get the size across. It's very, VERY slick looking, great form-factor design.

There are many people who are concered about it not 'really' playing MP3s (as it converts them to ATRAC), but really, so what? I would rather have one format that allows me to have the same amount of songs, at a smaller file size and same sound quality on a 20GB player, then a 40GB player with bigger files (for same sound quality) and less battery life (going on 22hrs right now as I left in over night to check it). Transfer uses 'High Speed' USB, whatever that is (I have USB 2.0), it's seems plenty fast. Sound Quality is great, better than iPod IMO (same song recorded at same output, same headphones, etc, etc.).

User Interface (UI) is easy to usse, maybe because I am used to Creative's hack of a UI, but I had no problems. Installation of the Sonic Stage/Connect software was fast, PC found the player (unlike some PCs having issues with iPods), I ripped a song, converted it, transferred it, thumbed through the UI and listened.

As for Customer support and Firmware upgrades/fixes, we'll have to wait and see. SONY supported the Minidisc for a long time so there is hope =)

It's slick, eye catching, small, light, can fit as many songs at the same sound quality as a 40GB iPod, easy to use and it has great sound quality.

On the surface it might seem like 'lesser' of a player in the shadow of the iPod. The only 'con' (though I don't think it is) for some people might be having to convert their already existing MP3s to ALTRAC and transfer them over. It might take longer, but MP3 players are not about transfer rates (IMO). I want an easy to use UI, great sound quality and good form-factor, the SONY has it in spades.

(I include real-world MP3 conversion speed below.)

OK, I just couldn't help it. I'm still unemployed, but just *had* to get this hard-disk digital Walkman. The small physical size - 3.5"x2 3/8"x1/2" and 3.88 oz. with the built-in LiIon battery - simply makes this a must-have for a gadget fanatic such as myself. (The Sony is really much smaller in real than in pictures.)

So I went ahead and bought one. I knew this player would not play native MP3 or WMA files. I knew I'd have to convert my existing MP3 and WMA files, or even re-rip some of my favorite CDs. I was curious how good this player was and how hard the conversion would be, so I took the plunge.

In one word, Sony's tiny hard-disk digital Walkman is wonderful. This is $100 more than other digital music players of the same capacity. But, alas, what you get is a stylish, high-tech gizmo that simply screams "high-end" and "superb engineering." It's a joy to hold and behold.

Beyond the small size, light weight and clean styling, I was very impressed with the sound quality on this Walkman. I ripped a jazz CD and a rock CD into ATRAC3Plus at 64kbps, and was surprised to hear the richness in the sound output on my separately purchased Sony headphones. (I never use bundled earphones.) I compare-listened to the same tracks encoded in 128kbps MP3 and played on my Archos MP3 player. The sound quality was very similar. But after I turned up the bass on the Sony, I was nearly awed by the improved bass from the ATRAC files. Since 64kbps means half the file size as 128kbps, this translates into similar sound quality for half the file size.

Speaking of customized EQ, the Sony has two kinds of sound effects. One set is called VX, which is virtual effects like simimulating a recording studio or a concert hall. The other set is the graphic EQ, with a few presets and two custom sets. There are six EQ bars from bass to treble. Each bar has seven settings from -3 to +3. I found that -1 to +1 sound very similar, but you'll notice the difference once you notch up or down to 2 or 3 either way.

The Sony is pretty easy to figure out, although I have to say it's still not quite as dummy-friendly as iPod's deservedly famed interface. There is a four-direction round button (it does not rotate a la iPod's wheel, which I dislike). In the middle of it is the play/stop button. There is no separate pause button on the Sony. In fact, the stop button works like a pause on this player: pressing it causes the audio to stop in the middle. And after you turn off the Sony (by holding down the menu button at the top), next time you turn it on again, the track resumes from the exact stopped point. This is a convenient feature, esp. for audiobook tracks.

Besides the menu button, which is used to access settings, there's a "mode" button, which lets you access the Artists, Albums, Genres, etc. lists. There's also a volume rocker at the top. I personally find the Sony's max loudness more than my ears can take, even on a noisy New York subway. You can turn on volume control in settings to keep a lid on the max volume. At the bottom player is the hold button (easier to slide than iPod's) and a battery button which allows you turn off the unit completely if you don't plan to use it for more than three months.

Speaking of the battery, Sony claims the LiIon battery can last three years under normal charging conditions. The battery charges to 80% in an hour (with the player powered off), and charges to 100% in another three hours. Of course, Sony makes a big deal of the "up to 30 hours" claim. You are supposed to get that if you play ATRAC files encoded at 48kbps continuously. But none of us does that. We use different encodings and we fast forward or rewind and we play with the buttons. My usage indicates about 20 hours of playback with lots of button fidgeting and skipping forward or backward, playing files encoded at 64kbps. (Higher the bitrate, shorter the battery life, which is true for all digital players.) Is 20 hours "long"? I think so, since my previous MP3 players lasted no more than 6 hours on each charge. This is just vast improvement.

You must use Sony's SonicStage (version 2.1) software to transfer music to the digital Walkman. I personally find SonicStage much better than some people claim. It's intuitive, fast and stable. It rips CDs faster than MusicMatch and maybe also faster than iTunes.

In terms of MP3 conversion speed, on my laptop (2.2GHz P-4, 512MB RAM and 4200rpm hard disk), each 1GB of 128kbps MP3 took about 80 minutes to convert into 64kbps ATRAC3Plus. (BTW, for those who care, this is faster than converting 128kbps MP3 into 64kbps MP3 using dbPoweramp Music Converter.) Obviously, the faster your processor, the more RAM you have and the faster your hard disk, the less time the conversion will take. It's still a hassle for those of us with tons of MP3 music, but it's nothing that can't be done either overnight, or over the course of a romantic dinner (with double servings of desserts, ha ha).

I didn't do much WMA conversion as most my WMA files are copy-protected songs purchased from MSN and Walmart online stores, so they cannot be converted into ATRAC. BTW, in the package you get a coupon for 5 free downloads from Sony's Connect music store, and the store works very well and the songs sound very good.

Judging from my own experience and reviews posted on the web, I think you can typically expect 1GB of MP3 will take anywhere from 60 to 100 minutes to convert into ATRAC3Plus.

In short, the Sony sports blow-everything-else-away physical dimensions, state-of-the-art hardware engineering and top-notch audio quality. It also has a clean user interface, a small but sharp LCD display (with green backlighting), and a very quiet 20GB hard disk. I'm in love with it. I was never in love with my iPod, Archos, Creative or RCA players. Even though with the Sony I had to convert my MP3s into ATRACs, the SonicStage program made it relatively easy and painless and I could just walk away for it to finish. And, man, I really love the 20 hours per charge battery life.

My only minor complaints are: 1) the included case is not a real case; 2) the U.S. version of this thing doesn't come with the cool inline remote control; 3) you must remember to "authorize" your PC (in SonicStage) before you can transfer music - Sony is just too crazy about music protection; and 4) Sony, please release the MP3-playback firmware soon! Better yet, add WMA support as well!

Of course, when Sony does release native MP3 playback support as widely reported, this Walkman will truly shine as the digital music player of choice.

If you are a true music buff, or a diehard gadget freak, you just *have to* get this great digital Walkman.

Before going into just how wonderful this player is, I wanted to address the two main criticisms from a prior review. First, you need not tell a buyer to beware when analyzing space and battery considerations. Every DAP vendor, including good ol' Apple itself, fudges on these statistics to default to the most ideal circumstances (straight playing with no menu use, no backlight, etc.) So saying that one will store fewer songs with greater encoding rates, or get less battery life under normal use is nothing new.

As for not playing MP3 files, well, that is true, you do have to convert existing files to ATRAC3/Plus. But you can also rip CDs directly to ATRAC3 Plus's 256 Kbps codec, for example, for stellar sound. And while you will lose some quality if you decide to transcode from existing MP3 files, going from one lossy format to another, I can pretty much guarantee you that again, under normal daily use on the go, in traffic, in a bus or train, etc., as long as you trancode using Atrac3 132 Kbps or greater, you will find very little to complain about soundwise. Besides, unlike the iPod, there is a 6 band EQ system which actually works and it works great.

As for the player itself, this smallest 20GB DAP to date (pictures just don't do it justice) is solidly built, remarkably light, with a sharp, though admittedly somewhat small display, and an interface that is a breeze to decipher and navigate with one hand. You won't need more than 10 minutes to use the player like a pro without reading a manual. And the sliding menu paradigm, similar to that on the iPod, is very smooth as is the whisper-quiet hard drive. What's more, you can wrap around a list when navigating from the top and the bottom, something the iPod can't do.

The sonic stage software may take some getting used to and the initial conversion of tracks may slow things down a bit, but once converted, transfer of tracks to the player takes 7 - 10 seconds per album. And unlike the iPod, you can share your music with up to 3 PCs via synchronization as long as you use SonicStage on those PCs (This is not clear from the owner's manual but an addendum is packaged with the player telling you how to authorize 3 PCs for use with the player).

You do need the USB cradle to charge the unit and connect to a PC. But while you need to take it with you if you plan to connect elsewhere, this cradle is small and so ridiculously light in its own right that the inconvenience is minimal at best. And speaking of being on the go, this unit has a 25 minute buffer, nearly that of the iPod, so it can take its fair share of jostling without missing a beat.

Some other negatives that could exist for some is that there is no way to delete files from the player itself and playlist support (bookmark) is rudimentary. You can add bookmarks to tracks while playing them, up to 100 tracks in all, and then, via the the Others Mode, you can play just those bookmarked tracks as a playlist. There is no reordering the list, however, and you need to be playing each track you want to remove from the list to delete its bookmark.

Two features I would also like to mention add to ease of use and stabilty. One involves the ability to jump back to the Mode listing from the Playing screen exactly at the point where you were before you started playing, or simply to the very top of the list, depending on the length of time you hold down the Mode button.

The other feature conserves the overall battery life and thus practical use of the battery. The underside of the player contains a switch to turn off the connection to the Li-Ion battery so that during long periods of disuse, extensive discharging of the battery is avoided and the battery will last longer accordingly (The owner's manual also shows one how to remove the internal battery under the guise of disposing of the unit so battery replacement should be a breeze even if not specifically intended by Sony).

All in all, with some warts easily outweighed by all the advantages, this is one fine player and definitely something you should consider if stability, size, sound, and cutting edge good looks are important to you. Yes it is on the pricey side, but in my experience, Sony quality is worth it.

By this time you have probably read all the other reviews so you are already well aware of this unit's pros and con's. I absolutely love this player and was so happy to get it in my hands on a beautiful Saturday morning. It sounds wonderful at Atrac3Plus 64 kbps with my MDR-66DSL Sony Eggo's, better quality than an Ipod. I also recently bought a remote off audiocubes for the unit, which simply makes the music experience a hundred times better. Ipod remotes suck, limited in their use by 4 buttons, whereas the remote for this player can perform all the functions you can perform on the unit itself. This enables me to keep the thing in my pocket the entire time while I can shuffle through my entire collection on my remote! This is great for listening to music at my school, since all my teachers are like the electronic device gestapo. There are three things that just really really piss me off about this thing. 1. You can't make On-The-Go playlists as easliy as with an Ipod, 2. I still can't figure out a way to shuffle my entire collection, and lastly (I can't believe I'm the only one to point this out) but the one thing I can't stand about the player is that I have over 3000 songs on here already and a bunch of artists, yet scrolling through all of them takes a long ass time. Maybe I just have to get used to the super fast scroller after you hold it down for about 5 seconds, but I have just been so used to my friend click-wheel, I miss it alot. Other than those 3 cons, this is the best digital music player on the market. Don't be fooled by those ipod suckers about how it doesn't play mp3s, because how can you argue with a format that is half the size and almost double the quality of mp3s. You just need a little patience for learning how to use SonicStage, and it will pay off. Before I conclude my review, let me remind all of you Ipod advocates that I will be rocking out to my music 18 hours longer than all of you will.

Sony's NW-HD1 is an incredible piece of hardware! It's literally like a 0.5-inch stack of business cards. The buttons are well laid out and responsive. The 1.5-inch screen is sharp with green backlight. But what really impresses me, is the sound quality. MP3 music tends to sound flat and dull at the 64-kbps bitrate, but not so with Sony's Atrac3plus technology. There's a lot of "boom" and "richness" in the sound even at 64-kbps. I'm very happy with the audio quality on this. SonicStage software is not as bad as some "reviewers" claim it to be. It's very intuitive, even more so than iTunes. It's also stable on my PC. Transfering Atrac files to the Walkman is super fast. Transcoding MP3 into Atrac takes more time but just pretend you are still using old USB 1.

This walkman is not cheap, but the incredible hardware design with high quality audio and totally cool form factor make it worth every penny. This is defintely one of my best purchases in electronics.