Sony NW-HD3 MP3 player

Posted by T3 Online on Fri 19 Oct 2007

So, Mr Sony, there's these things called MP3s - we think they might catch on...

Sony has finally succumbed to the all-conquering power of MP3. After many years of umm-ing and ahh-ing, only broken by brief spells of toing and froing, the king of proprietary formats has finally released a product that uses the world's most popular digital music codec. Sony has also managed to get the price just about right, with this 20GB model costing about the same as a similarly specified iPod - although whether people will view this as another reason to plump for an Apple is something for Sony's marketing department to ponder over.

The design is very similar to that of last year's non-MP3 NW-HD1 (T3 106, 2/5), but the batch of minor stylistic tweaks has been backed up by a range of colours - including a rather attractive silver and the jolly natty rose number we have here. The screen is 1.5 inches of clear monochrome - which can be reversed for white lettering on black - and the main jog control is easy to use and responsive. We've got a couple of minor quibbles, though - mainly, the way that the on/off and hold switches are accessed - it's a bit fiddly to turn the thing on, and you'd better have at least one longish fingernail.

One area where the NW-HD3 clearly scores over its Apple rival is the battery life, with Sony claiming a whopping figure of 30 hours. But while it certainly provides considerably more play time between charges than the iPod, it's the way this was achieved that concerns us: the HD3 is a lot quieter than the competition. In fact, it's so softly spoken that we initially kept checking the volume limiter wasn't activated. While this isn't always an issue - full volume was usually loud enough - listening to music on London's noisy Underground proved frustrating.

This is a shame, as music playback, particularly with good-quality ATRAC files, is very impressive, with plenty of depth and detail on offer. MP3s have a slightly rougher time, and this isn't a file quality issue, as we listened to the same tracks on other players with better results. They don't sound bad - just not that good. Sony would obviously argue you should convert them to ATRAC, but as with previous conversion-based Sony players, this is a long, laborious process.

Sony's first stab at a proper MP3 jukebox is pretty impressive. Lessons learned on previous ATRAC outings have been taken on board, and the whole shebang works well, from the updated SonicStage software to the well-crafted hardware. A couple of lingering doubts remain, though, over the volume/battery life trade-off and the MP3 sound quality, which stopped us getting too excited.

FEATURES
Plays MP3, ATRAC, WMA, WAV. 20GB hard disk (13,000 max tracks). 30 hours' battery life. Weighs 130g.