This is horrible, the fun is out of it. The site has become slow, lethargic and extremely difficult ...
This is horrible, the fun is out of it. The site has become slow, lethargic and extremely difficult to navigate.YYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!
Member since:05.02.2009
Reviews:61
Members who trust:16
I would call this Sony’s techno-glamour. I had a close look at its predecessor HD1, beautiful, sleek but something was missing. That something has exactly been taken care of in Sony Network Walkman NW-HD3, but there are still some glaring and annoying flaws in this glamour product from Sony but chances are Apple iPod is in for a real push to exist at the top of consumer’s mind and Sony Network Walkman NW-HD3 is taking the walkman culture to the 21st centaury and rightly so.
On the face of it there is hardly any difference with the HD1 but just spend some time with it, quite few striking and key difference will be immediately noticeable. Like HD-1 it froths technological brilliance and arrogance which has become synonymous with Sony products. You can’t but admire its beauty, sleekness and functional achievements. Sony Network Walkman NW-HD3 is even smaller and less heavy than the Apple iPod 20 GB which is some achievement for a typical hard drive player. It’s simplicity and style is something to be grudgingly admired. (The player is meant to be used in Landscape orientation).
One of greatest achievement is its support to native MP3 playback (Sony’s MP3 digital audio player category started with S23 way back in 2004). Talking about iPod, it is machine with fabulous features with PIM, impressive
third party app support, calendar but interestingly the HD3 is hardly a player stuffed with impressive features. It doesn’t have a clock even.
Let just have a description of HD3, in design it is very similar to the HD1 except the addition of scintillating color schemes and some terrific backlight hues. The main upgrades are encasing in very tough plastic. The primary play and menu control has a wee bit larger five way directional pad made of plastic with 1.5in LCD display, very simple.
But one annoying aspect is the requirement of the Sony’s own SonicStage 2.3 for using Musicmatch, Windows media player or any jukebox software for that matter. It has a very subtle and smart headphone jack, the wired remote not being included, dedicated volume control and small but smart Menu and Mode buttons. The hold control, a battery on/off switch (very useful) and propriety cradle connector port is at the bottom. The hold strap options is there but not included.
It has got a slightly strange and rather unusual but effective track selection method the mode button cracks your music files in categories like Artist, album etc. Select a particular artist all his songs will be played and the best part is right-click, you will be guide to all its album. It has got a user defined bookmarks and in fact can have 100 bookmarks.
The file formate support has been taken care of quite successfully more or less. It supports native MP3, WMA, ATRAC3, ATRAC3plus. The big plus is HD3’s excellent and power packed audio quality while playing ATRAC3 and MP3 formats. Virtual surround and EQ settings works with least fuss and in fact top class.
The LCD lovely settings. At default settings even, looks great, gray back ground with dark text which can be changed. Performs excellently both indoors and outdoors. Essential informations like track, album, artist, genre and time elapsed are displayed by the player interface complete with individual icons. Besides HD1’s proprietary port it has a very handy adapter clinging to it and includes power, USB as well. helping those on the go and light.
Navigating the Sony Network Walkman NW-HD3 is smooth moving one from the other although HD1 bug persists with 2-4 seconds delay.
A big USP of Sony Network Walkman is it excellent battery life of 30 hours but I could not achieve more than 22 and a half to 23 hours, even that is excellent. The transfer time is a excellent 8.2 MBps over USB 2.0.
A quick look at the technical specifications:
PC interface(s) supported USB
Flash memory installed No built-in memory
Digital storage Built-in 20 GB 1.8" Hard disk drive
The 20 GB storage is great, swallows 4000 songs nice and cool. The USB 2 is very fast. But the earbuds supplied are bad a good headphone is a must to get the best out of it. But it must be said it is not as intuitive as the iPod and neither as instinctive. Creative Zen and iPod are more simple to use out of the box. As usual with Sony audios the sound quality is exclusive, SonicStage will have no problems converting WAV and unprotected WMA formats ATRAC3.
The playlist manipulation should give a food for thought to the guys up there sittings at Sony’s R&D, besides listing problems songs tend to jump on the other a fraction of a second and continue playing- a source of annoyance.
At $300 it’s premium level stuff but instep of the fact that it makes the wallet thin, still worth it.
Note of Caution: SonicStage is a very versatile software but please don't make upgradations just like that, it might give you campatibility chaos with existing music files except MP3s
P.S. My point of annoyance is the ''issue of using'' SonicStage but no complains about the softaware, it's perfect.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Great design, hi-quality sound (Better than iPod), easy to use, smaller than iPod, better software than iTunes. AMAZING battery life. Disadvantages: Menus on Walkman if you have a lot of albums to get through - are a little bit time consuming to navigate.
Advantages: Great design, hi-quality sound (Better than iPod), easy to use, smaller than iPod, better software than iTunes. AMAZING battery life. Disadvantages: Menus on Walkman if you have a lot of albums to get through - are a little bit time consuming to navigate.
Jun 30th, 2009
exceptional by (11%):
very helpful by (89%):
