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NW-HD5: Sony's iPod Killer?

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

April 6, 2005, 11:54 AM

Sony showed off the latest addition to its line of Walkman digital music players Wednesday, the NW-HD5. While it is the fifth hard drive player to be released by the company, it will be the first to see worldwide distribution.

One major difference, however, is in the design. Unlike Sony's previous units, the NW-HD5 is designed to stand upright, similar to Apple's iPod. Users will have the option to use the player on its side if they wish.

Also, the circular controls on Sony's previous players have now been replaced with nine buttons, which appear similar to gaming controls.

The NW-HD5 supports MP3 and Sony's proprietary ATRAC3 formats, as well as Windows Media and WAV files. The capacity, as with previous models, will remain at 20GB, enough to hold 10,000 songs.

Battery life improvement was also a focus with the latest redesign of the player, and Sony claims 30 hours of continuous playback when listening to 128kpbs MP3 files. This is an improvement of 8 hours over the previous iteration.

It is unclear whether Sony intends to market the NW-HD5 as an "iPod killer," but if so, it may be a hard sell to consumers. A recent survey of teens found that while Sony is second to iPod in terms of the players teens plan to buy, it's by a wide margin. 70 percent of teens plan to buy an iPod, while only 15 percent plan to buy a Sony player.

The NW-HD5 player will first be released in Japan later this month at a street price of $327 USD. Sony said that it will announce plans for a worldwide release in the coming weeks.

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By Nick Cox

edited Jul 6, 2005 - 6:30 AM

I hhave been told the Sony NW HD5 has its volume limited in line with EU regulations. I am also told that this can be overridden to make the machine play louder. Are you aware of this and if so how do I override it.

Look forward to hearing from you

Score: 0

By corndeg

edited May 27, 2005 - 3:45 PM

First of all Screw media player screw ipods and screw REALPLAYER!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyonw who uses media player or realplayer to transfer their music is not allowed to use a device like this. Now to continue i have the hd1 version and granted with some bugs in the player and in the software but its a great player smokes the ipod on batery life and style. The sony is able to play way louder than the ipod. SonicStage is EASY TO USE IF YOU JUST GET OUT OF YOUR SUPID IPOD SHELL. Granted the new hd5 looks kinda retarded but the size and weight are significantly smaller than ipod. Also almost anykind of compression can be uncompressed and reformated into another .*** so making players with many codecs is useless. If you buy a player like this you take the time to arrange your library nicely.

To finish up the reason why these devices are pricy is that you are miniturizing a 20hd to have the fastest access time possible with the lowest powerdrain and sonys sound processors and reproduction chips are not your candy store s*** that apple uses and therefore are capable of reproducing a much wider range of sound frequencys at much higher volumes without distortion depending on the compression you are using. But check it people you cant expect to buy a player like this for under 200 our miniturization tech just cost too much they would be loosing profit on all.

Score: 0

By ringoschplingo

posted Apr 9, 2005 - 2:40 PM

Until Sony allows it's devices to be added to software that current media libraries have been created using (eg Real Player, Media Player) then I will never buy their products again. Sonig Stage is an embarrasment, difficult to use, unstable and if I used it it means that I will have to copy all of my cds to disk again. DON'T BUY SONY util their devices can be added to Media PLayer etc.

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Apr 7, 2005 - 5:49 AM

...though i have no reason to buy one yet.
http://www.ipodlinux.org/Main_Page

Score: 0

By bolaris

posted Apr 7, 2005 - 4:42 AM

AArghh!..I get real pissed when I see same old s!"*t spat out over and over!

As is mentioned earler, support for OGG, FLAC, APE etc. is long overdue!

Go and make one that plays these formats!

Just another piece of junk with an insulting price tag.

Score: 0

By SorenMD

posted Apr 7, 2005 - 2:19 AM

I like Sony products a lot (especially their notebooks) but DAMN that is one UGLY device. It looks like 70's lenolium on the kitchen floor! Come'on Sony you can do better than that for control buttons! Make somthing touch sensitive like the clickwheel!

I would buy it except that it looks so ugly that I couldn't stand holding it (let alone pushing those nasty buttons)

Score: 0

By TheJMT

posted Apr 6, 2005 - 7:16 PM

iPod sucks! Sony is a much better company than apple, i'll buy this as soon as i get a chance and i hope it destroys iPod!

Score: 0

By Wiser

posted Apr 6, 2005 - 6:24 PM

I'm sorry, but that looks like someone beat it with an ugly stick and then ran over it with an ugly bus.

Score: 0

By ecradda

posted Apr 6, 2005 - 6:07 PM

cant be an ipod killer if it costs more than an ipod, and looks like cr@p

Score: 0

By clubbered

edited May 17, 2005 - 4:02 PM

It's actually cheaper than I-Pod.

Score: 0

By M1M2Z1

edited Apr 6, 2005 - 5:22 PM

C'mon an iPod killer?
I don't think so.
Part of what makes the iPod an iPod is the touch-sensitive click wheel.
Plus SonicStage is garbage.
Connect music service is garbage.

Score: 0

By skua

edited Apr 6, 2005 - 9:53 PM

Am I the only one PISSED OFF by these stupid gadgets? I can buy a 200GB hard disk for $100 and I can buy an MP3 Player for about $50... why is it that when you mate the two you get a 20GB Hard Disk that costs $300+ dollars with some crappy earbuds? AND YOU MORONS OUT THERE EAT IT UP LIKE IT WAS FREE!

I want a hard drive based portable with AT LEAST 100GB of storage AND support for MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC, APE, SHN and Uncompressed WAV. It has to have both Analog and Digital line in for recording as well as Analog and Digital line out. Don't BS me... I can get that type of I/O on a sub $100 sound card! Don't forget decent battery life.

As to the IPod vs Sony debate... I'm no Apple fan but they do have an eye for design. Sony used to... but this latest sample seems to indicate that all the Sony folks have gone blind listening to their IPods at work! That is ONE UGLY device.

Score: 0

By shy_one

posted Apr 7, 2005 - 1:01 AM

I agree even with 20-40 gig drive there is more than enough room on there to install a codec pack so you can play any format and how hard would it be to come up with the software for this i imagine not that hard correct me if i'm wrong.

Ipod has Itunes so i could see why they only want one format so that you use the Itunes store but the other major players like Creative Labs and and a few others don't have stores so i don't understand why they do not offer the ability to install codec packs and offer true freedom of choice when it comes to portable music.

Score: 0

By Tenoq

posted Apr 7, 2005 - 2:09 AM

Valid point there - HDD-based players really should be able to load a lot more codecs than they do. I've got a flash-based one, so I'm a little limited - but my iRiver has it's advantages in superior audio quality, not to mention portability and battery life.

However, the post above about 200GB HDDs is ridiculous - don't you realise the difference in size and power requirements of the HDDs you are talking about? These drives are 1.5" ones, not the 3.5" ones, and if you tried to run a 3.5" HDD from a battery, you'd be lucky to get 1 hour runtime, if you could run it at all! (Think they pull up to 20W each).

And besides - how many people have 200GB of music mp3s? That's about 3 months of continuous music, at 128k :p

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Apr 7, 2005 - 4:48 AM

I could easily have 200GB of OGG, or the future format, when storage capacity and Internet bandwidth become more advanced, FLAC.

Score: 0

By speedmeister

posted Apr 7, 2005 - 2:42 PM

It sounds like you would be a decent fan of the Rio Karma. It has FLAC and Ogg Vorbis support, 20gb HD, and an rca port, USB and ethernet ports.

Score: 0

By AaronDobbins

posted Apr 7, 2005 - 9:53 AM

The point he's trying to make is that you do not need to carry that much music with you at one time. Plus a 200GB hard drive would be significantly heavier than the current iPods or iPod mini. You would need a steel belted strap to put that thing on your arm and run on a treadmill :)

Score: 0

By skua

edited Apr 7, 2005 - 10:15 AM

In addition to my CD's and Vinyl, I collect live recordings. I have a heck-of-a-lot more than 200GB of digital music stored. Do I need to carry it all with me? Of course not...

;-) Yes... I realise that a standard 'desktop' drive weighs more and consumes more power than the smaller, lighter and more power-efficient laptop drives used in most portables.

... My point is that these companies continue to churn out completely overpriced hardware players... and even though your paying a premium... the user has very little choice (or none) when it comes to their codec of preference. On top of that it's almost impossible to find a unit that has the capability for live recording at CD quality.

I think as consumers we should demand much more for our hard-earned coin.

Score: 0

By team

posted Apr 29, 2005 - 5:38 PM

Sounds like some of you just need to carry your laptop around in your back pocket. We're talking about portable players, you don't need your entire music library with you at all times. Imagine the start-up time for a HDD player with 200gb. And the battery life would be terrible. i'm afraid we're still a ways away from some of those wishes. while you want the the ultimate perfect player that plays all formats and has line in/out and mic in and all that, its not gonna happen, especially while consumers continue to eat up the ipod.
sounds like you may want to look into a top model hi-md minidisc recorder for live music. they can record uncompressed and transfer that back to PC, however the transfer time back is like 2x, i think. but that is uncompressed PCM quality. plus 1gb discs are respectable and allow endless capacity and no worry about hard drive failure. they also play mp3 with no conversion now. and sonic stage isn't too terrible anymore, actually.
anyway, different players have their strengths and weaknesses. just have to decide what you want or use a combination of players...or carry your laptop with you wherever you go.

Score: 0

By speedmeister

posted Apr 7, 2005 - 3:12 PM

If you check the FLAC website you will find that they reference a few tabletop units that have many of the things you want. I think the problem with getting a portable player with the feature set you want is that you would either have to make it thick as a brick or much more expensive then anything that is on the market. I don't think there is enough demand for such a player right now to justify selling such a player. At least at the price points where it would be profitable to sell. Maybe in a few more years when price for HDs comes down some more.

Score: 0

By Alexatb

edited Oct 25, 2008 - 2:21 PM

As a previous owner of SOny and Ipod i have to say that Ipod's got nothing on sony:Battery Life , SOund Quality , and even Design of Sony are way above Ipod's.WTF do i need to carry videos and pictures on my mp3player for , after all it is a mp3player isn't it?

Score: 0

By Alexatb

posted Oct 25, 2008 - 2:25 PM

Now i see that this hasn't been debated for 3 years:)

Score: 0

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