Price Paid:  $350.00 from Department Store in

Summary:
Aluminum case strong enough to share MTB rides: dust, sweat, rain, etc. Intuitive use and operation even for "non-gadget" people. Simple software and quickGreat for a "play and forget" device. Minor care and maintenance needed. Maybe not state-of-the-art technology, but who cares? Exceeded my expectations for the use.

Strengths:
Simple to use hardware and software. Great sound quality tuning. Much less risk of shattering than plastic and lightweight MP3 players (iPods) for aggresive and sports use. Earphones sound great but very uncomfortable for sports, specially wearing a helmet: if possible, replace them with Bose's In Ear and enjoy the listening even outdoors: great playback and sound put together! Not software malfunction yet, as I own a Sony computer.

Weaknesses:
Limited range of operation manipulating songlist in both device and software. Still can't find how to change or delete Bookmarks. Upper and lower plastic tips wear, unmatching the great aluminum look of the case. Expenssive for "20" Gb and unavailable peripheral accessories... It's a shame that Sony didn't face the SoundDock competition; it's sound quality deserves one. You have to be aware and careful with your connecting cable because of the need of a coupling adapter for the USB and current plug: don´t lose your adapter! Battery charge seems to run out of charge in different manners but don't know in what conditions; sometimes, with very similar use it lasts weeks and sometimes less... Hope to hear of a newer/bigger model from Sony.

Similar Products Used:
None. Borrowed an iPod and feared to brake it in my CamelBak!

aleein8

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 3.00 votes

Price Paid:  $178.00 from Ebay

Summary:
Unfortunately the previous reviewer had software trouble. I on the other hand have been using SonicStage for about 1 1/2 years and have run into no trouble yet. This softwear is fine for music management. I personally feel it is quite easy to use and straight forward. I actually have more trouble with iTunes! Most of my music is transferred from original CD's and from legal download sites. As such I haven't run in to many troubles with DRM. The NW-HD3 has a very simple to use interface. There is little complication here. This unit does what it was built to do, it plays music, and does it well. The sound quality is excellent, even at 64 kbps (atrac3plus). When listened to on a good stereo it is obviously compressed. But while in the car, or on a train it sounds great. Sony does have a lot to answer for when it comes to it's use of proprietary formats. I will say in their defence though that when you download from Connect the artist receives more money than from Apple. Sony is definitely protecting their content, at some level I cannot really blame them. All of that being said I have downloaded ‘free’ music many times before. All of this music transferred to the device with no problems, and plays back in its original mp3 format. Overall I would say this unit is very well executed. Build quality is up to Sony of Japan standard. And this thing is small, about the size of a cassette tape, if anyone remembers those. Now is the time to buy, the NW-HD5 has just been released and new units are going on Ebay for $178.00. I even have seen retail as low as $209.99. The only people who may not appreciate this unit are die hard iPod fans. That I can understand, this unit is quite different to the iPod, but excellent none the less.

Strengths:
Size, very small for a 20gb drive. Excellent sound quality. Build quality. Atrac3plus sounds great.

Weaknesses:
Proprietary audio format, Atrac3plus does limit you a bit.

Similar Products Used:
Mz-NH1. iPOD 20gb 2nd gen.

bporopat

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Value Rating
 2 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Visitors rate this review
3.00 of 5, 2.00 votes

Price Paid:  $300.00 from Good Guys

Summary:
The NW-HD3 is Sony’s answer to Apple’s IPOD. Plug it into the USB port on your Windows XP computer and it appears as an 18.6 GB hard disk. You can use it like any external drive, for backup, and to move files between computers. Sony is also a record company and, perhaps because of that, has built copyright protection into the NW-HD3 that is severe enough to get in the way of using it for legitimate uses. You can only play audio (MP3, or Sony’s proprietary Atrac) loaded into the NW-HD3 using Sony’s proprietary software called “SonicStage.” Being limited to that particular app wouldn’t be so bad, except that SonicStage has known bugs that keep it from working on some computers. I have two very standard Windows machines, one running XP and one running ME. Both are quite typical, standard machines with no exotic software or hardware installed, but I couldn’t get SonicStage to install and run on either one. I spent hours downloading newer versions of things, uninstalling, reinstalling, shutting down process in Task Manager—all the usual stuff—with no luck. The primary symptom is that when I run SonicStage, the computer reboots. The last time I used an application that could unintentionally reboot the machine, it was under DOS. It takes some doing to accidentally reboot Windows XP. I spent over an hour on the phone with Sony, during which I was passed up through three levels of support. The highest-level person said I should reformat my hard disk, reinstall the operating system, install the Sony software, and then install all my other apps one at a time until I find the one causing the problem. I already which one is causing the problem: it’s called SonicStage! All the other apps on my machine are quite happy with each other. Searching the Internet with Google for “SonicStage” and “crap” produces 989 hits. That should tell Sony something. Sony offers an alternative to SonicStage called SimpleBurner, which is only for copying CDs to the NW-HD3. It has a well-designed interface and runs without crashing the computer. Unfortunately, the “Copy” button is grayed out, apparently because it can’t see the NW-HD3 even though the NW-HD3 appears in Windows Explorer as a hard disk. It’s amazing to me that Sony knows about this bug (or set of bugs) and has let it migrate through multiple versions of the software. A company with more dedication to quality would hire some good programmers to figure out what’s going on and fix it. Sony is probably spending more money for support calls and returned product than it would cost to fix the bugs. As for me, I’m taking it back. It’s a bit pricy for an 18.6 GB external hard disk.

Strengths:
Makes a good (but expensive) 18.6 GB external hard drive. Not made in China.

Weaknesses:
Poorly written software has known bugs that make it incompatible with many computers, even ones with very typical configurations. Copyright protection is far too restrictive.