How Sony's HD Audio Player Falls Short

Mr_Silver writes "Sony's new MP3 based HD player (the snappily titled NW-HD3) is reviewed over at head-fi.org. Unfortunately it can't remember where you last were located when browsing, you can't list all the songs by an artist, 1.5 hours to transfer 2100 songs (instead of the iPod's 15 minutes) and a wall of noise in the output. Final conclusion? 'If there was a way I could return this thing, I'd do it in a second.' So close, yet so far." Update: 12/14 00:35 GMT by T : Not quite so fast: As forums.minidisc.org Administrator Christopher MacManus writes, it turns out that (as the threads below this review reveal), "The reviewer discovers that the unit he had is defective as someone else employs one and there is no hiss issue. Furthermore, the software woes he experienced are related to him employing JAPANESE software on an English operating system. Sonicstage 2.3, which he needs to use the unit, is now available in English."

Comments

Uh-oh

[bennomatic]

Too slow to load, can't list songs by artist, wall of noise. Lame.

Now I've done it; I've doomed the thing to be wildly successful!

Did he actually get...

[gordgekko]

Unfortunately it can't remember where you last were located when browsing, you can't list all the songs by an artist, 1.5 hours to transfer 2100 songs (instead of the iPod's 15 minutes) and a wall of noise in the output. Final conclusion? 'If there was a way I could return this thing, I'd do it in a second.' So close, yet so far."

I wonder if the reviewer made an honest mistake and actually received a genuine Sorny product. Anyway, I would have went with a Panaphonics.

Re:minidisc much worse than sony's hdds.

[stratjakt]

I'l sum this up by saying that I just wish Sony could build their future players like they used to with the Walkmans: Built to last.

I had a really nifty Walkman my old man got straight from Sony in Japan when he toured their facility for some big B2B deal.

It was no bigger than a cassette tape holder, had built in retractable headphones, one touch fforward and rewind.. Really really slick and packed with features. As high-end a portable product as Sony made at the time.

And it broke into a million pieces when it fell out of my hand into my lap. My lap, not the hard floor, it fell about 8 inches and landed in my lap and fell apart.

Built to last my ass. The two dollar knockoff walkman I got at radio shack ran circles around that high-end piece of shit.

Re:That's HDD, not HD

[techsoldaten]

HDD - That's hard disk drive, which is a useful and important feature the Sony device possesses over some of it's competitors. Oher devices make use of more primitive, potentially dangerous playback and storage mechanisms, including:

1. Copper wire connecting 2 tin cans, which is limited by geographic proximity to external broadcasting device (approximately 5 feet) and subject to external interference
2. Flintstones-style singing miniature Pterodactyl, which is known to develop an attitude over time and make gut-busting wisecracks in place of music
3. 'Space-Time Continuum' abnormality actually linking listeners with original performance, which occasionally disintegrates the listener
4. Shrunken city whose sole purpose is to exactly recreate tracks on penalty of death, which is limited by lifespan and extremely sensitive to shaking and tapping on the device
5. Ghosts of the band, which have a penchant for telekinetically elevating the listener during emotionally charged tracks and sometimes becoming visible to young children
6. Specially trained M&M Minis forced to sing, which are hard to keep housed within the device and nearly impossible to reinsert when the device's housing is breached

M