Sony Walkman NW-A3000 20 GB Silver

Advantages: 'Better than iPod' design. 'Better than iPod' look. Battery life (20-25 hours). The entire piece of hardware!
Disadvantages: The abysmal almost unusable software.

...they have a successful product. Sony however - seemed to have employed a bunch of schoolchildren to make their answer to iTunes - the connect player. This is a shame - because it seems like they've hired the world's best designers to make the MP3 player. LOOKS: So the NW-A3000 - is the answer to the iPod. The iPod beater. Well in terms of the unit itself, this is by FAR the best looking unit I have ever seen. It absolutely destroys the competition. ...
...point is - is that Sony have made a very versatile player without overwhelming the user with too many things to press - much like the iPod and most of the other players these days. VERSATILITY: The way in which you can organise your tracks is as good as iTunes - but you'll have problems with doing that, because of the prohibitive software - more on that later. The player plays music in the ATRAC3 format which is better quality in my opinion (as ... Read review

Advantages: Sleek, Decent Capacity, Battery Life
Disadvantages: Price, Read speed

...I personally would recommend the Sony NWA3000 simply because it is a very good alternative to the iPOD in my opinion. There is more than enough space to store all your albums (be serious, 80GB is only good if you want films in your pocket). It looks fantastic (though you will want to clean it all the time - get a silicon case to stop the scratching) and is definitely a fashion item :) All in all, the price is a little over inflated, but for what ... Read review

Advantages: Superp sound quality
Disadvantages: Sometimes crashes

Sony has truly created something great in this player, as in my opinion it blows the basic ipod out the water. Especially as these can now be bought for less than £130. I have always disliked ipods for many reasons (mostly unfounded!), and was frustrated that despite the ipods flaws (low battery life, flimsy and poor screen), no other company had seemed to really come up with anything that could compete with it. That is until this lil' gadget was ...
...Sonic Stage, supplied on the Sony website. I cannot recommend this program enough, as it is fantastic. Its simple to use, very fast and efficient. The unit has also crashed several times, but it's not too much bother as long as you have something small and pointy to jab the reset button with. Despite this flaw, it would seem this is nothing compared to the amount of problems my friends have had with their ipods. I have to admit that the ipod, and ... Read review

Advantages: Sounds amazing, looks cool, clear screen, easy to use, feels good, good weight
Disadvantages: No support for ogg, connect software is useless, slight hesitation on menus, no remote

...and reinstalling the software, but Sony saw fit leave almost all files on the system even after an uninstall, including registry values. I narrowed my problem down to corrupted registry values, and had to manually go through and delete them individually. When I re-installed after this, a new version of the software was found and installed, this works better than the original. Even though it now works, it still has a number of problems. Its very slow, ...
...of files seems to stress it out. It isnt very intuitive to use, its often hard to tell exactly what the software is currently doing, and getting it to do exactly what you want can be harder still, if not impossible. For example, if you want to rip a CD onto your walkman, you also have to save the ripped files onto your computer. For me, this is pointless as I already have my CD collection saved as ogg vorbis files, so naturally I just wanted to rip ... Read review

Advantages: Great looks and sound
Disadvantages: Software a bit slow

...she was buying me a Sony player but was expecting the NW-HD5 so this came as a real surpise. This is my first foray into the world of MP3 players so can't compare with other items, but this is definitely worth getting from my experience so far. The unit is very easy to use. I haven't looked once at the instructions (which are a PDF file with the software rather than a manual). All you need is the quick start guide and common sense to navigate round ...
...is what you expect from Sony but you MUST remove the EU volume limiter or you will be very disappointed. The unit is supplied with the limiter ON and, even at full volume, it's just not that loud. However turn the limiter OFF and it becomes a different beast all together. As well as being louder the sound is much clearer and crisper. It is extremely easy to find the hack to turn the limiter off on the internet. You do not need to pay for the codes ... Read review