This Sony network Walkman has a storage capability of no less then 20GB and its battery power is sufficient for more then 40 hours of continuous music. It’s small, certainly compared to its storage capacity. The walkman has a slim aluminum case that fits nicely into your hands. It really looks like a cool state of the art piece of technology

The operation of the Sony NW-HD5 is very intuitive. Still this walkman comes with a lot op options. The hard-disk of the walkman is equipped with the so-called “G-Sensor” technology that protects it to sudden shocks and movements. The clear 1.5 inch dot matrix LCD screen is nicely illuminated at will. So you see there are plenty of plusses with this device.

But on the minus side there are some, in our opinion unforgivable, omissions. The equalizer and performance improving capabilities will only work if you play Sony’s own ATRAC3 files. You can only add music to the player by using the program SonicStage that converts WMA files automatically to the Sony ATRAC3 standard. Using the Windows Explorer to manage your files is almost impossible. And to top it all off, if you want to be able to use the NW-HD5 with multiple computers you will have to register with Sony’s own music service. Otherwise that is off limits. Finally, the NW-HD5 has no remote control.

Let’s face it the Sony NW-HD5 is a nice piece of technology, but by adding so many limitations and conditions on its usage this device loses all of its attraction. Our advice is: “Let Sony know that we don’t like the limitations they impose on us by buying another player”.

It just doesn’t make sense that Sony is trying to force consumers into using their standards and placing a multitude of limitations on them if they don’t want to comply.

Ross is an audio enthusiast and regularly reviews new audio and video equipment at http://www.selected-audio-reviews.com/.

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