Hier een goeie review uit Engeland.
NW-HD3, the best portable hard-drive based player bar none...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi all,
I have been reading your comments and I thought I might as well add my experiences...
First of all, I would like to start by saying that Apple is a computer company while Sony is a hi-fi (among other things) company. With this in mind, I can now continue...
My experiences with MP3 go back to 96 when, as a student, I was the only one in my circle to experiment with the format. Back then, I was looking for an efficient way to listen to music through my laptop (I really hated those Principles of Marketing lectures) and a small file size was a major goal as big sized hard drives were at a premium. Coming from an audiophile background, I was not impressed neither by the sound quality of the MP3 nor by the process of converting .cda tracks to .wav and .wav to MP3 through a series of DOS commands.
I have been looking for a portable hard drive solution for a while now and I have been carefully studying reviews and visiting hi-fi shops to see what the items sound, look and feel like. I was hoping that after all these years, and since MP3 was still here, an awful lot should have changed with the format. For a whole year I was hugely disappointed because nothing sounded as good as my 4 year old MZ-R91 minidisc; including the iPod.
Before I listened to the iPod, it was at the top of my list as it was (is) getting remarkable reviews. You an imagine my disappointment when I first listened to one. Looks aside (which is something totally subjective) the hardware is rubbish. Those headphones are some of the worst I have tried and the size of the thing... The iPod is by no means portable.
Just as I was getting disappointed, Sony brought out the NW-HD1. The Walkman was totally slated by the magazines because if it's lack of native MP3 support. However, to me the spec looked particularly attractive and I had a go at it this Christmas. By the time I went to the shops to have a first listen, Sony had brought out the NW-HD3... so I bought it.
In terms of portability, the NW-HD3 is truly portable for a 20GB player. The finish is generally high quality with magnesium body although the matte gray plastic at the top and bottom looks a bit cheap and easily scratched. The headphones are the usual low cost Sony items and are well and truly crap; the do not fit my ears properly and the sound is harsh and unnatural. I swapped them for a pair of Bang & Olufsen immediately. The B&Os are not the best headphones either but I found that for this piece of equipment, they perfectly match and they are the most comfortable earphones ever.
Looking further into the box, I was massively disappointed. You get the usual charger, a USB thingy which attaches to the USB cable and the power supply, a case and... that's it. There is no cradle or remote control; unacceptable for something that costs £250.
I installed SonicStage 2.3 without any issues and started converting CDs to ATRAC straight away. The actual encoding is slow but the transfer over USB2 is dead quick. At this point I should mention that the only format worth encoding to is ATRAC3plus at 256kbps. This is not as high quality as minidisc (296kbps) but it sounds as close to fantastic as current portable HD technology allows.
And the player sounds really good. The sound does not appear to be compressed and sounds quite natural for a portable device. Overall, I am impressed with the little thing. With regards to humming, my player does not produce any such noises neither at low nor at high volumes.
The user interface is easy to learn even if you are not used to Sony UIs and it does pretty much everything and quickly. Navigating through the songs is easy enough using the arrow keys and by pressing and holding the "Mode" button you are taken back to "Now playing".
Negatives? Of course...
- There is no 296kbps encoding. This is a major limitation for those who want the quality of minidisc on a hard drive system.
- There is no drag and drop support; one is tied to using SonicStage.
- The bundle is poor; a remote control and docking station should be included at this price.
- The unit recharges during transfer reducing battery life. Furthermore, strangely enough the unit needs to be connected to a power socket during transfer!
- Song tags can only be edited through SonicStage.
While comparing the iPod to the NW-HD3, the difference soon became apparent. The iTunes software is miles ahead of SonicStage and the iPod interface is slightly better than that of the Sony unit. However, NW-HD3 sounds miles better that the iPod... So, my conclusion is this: The iPod is designed by computer geeks with high compression, highly portable files (as opposed to the unit itself) and user friendly UIs in their mind while the NW-HD3 is designed by hi-fi geeks with sound quality, device portability and battery life in their mind. It's a matter of priorities and it's up to you what's more important; I have made my choice and I'm glad.
[EDIT] De HD3 kan je opeens niet meer krijgen op
www.sony-style.nl. Erg vreemd, ik heb een idee dat ze hem uit gaan stellen, de sony winkel in Amsterdam wist een paar weken geleden nog niets van de HD3 af en ze worden altijd 2 maanden voor release ingelicht. Hopen dat hij toch te krijgen zal zijn. PS Op de duitse site van sony style is de HD3 wel te bestellen en wordt ie begin januari verstuurd.
[
Voor 6% gewijzigd door
Verwijderd op 27-12-2004 15:27
]
) , maar hij had dus een kapotte unit. Erg goed om het te lezen. Lees vooral ff door 
:strip_icc():strip_exif()/u/5108/icon_madonna.jpg?f=community){kind=icon}
:strip_icc():strip_exif()/u/125674/crop651c3ff018675_cropped.jpg?f=community)
Bovendien duurth et omzetten gewoon veel te lang..
Ze zouden me bellen zodra ze hem hebben en dan kan ik hem ophalen, heb er best wel zin in! 
ze kunnen idd vaak iets met de prijs doen ik kreeg er ook al eens 50 euro korting. :strip_icc():strip_exif()/u/36723/portrait_ronald_de_boer.jpg?f=community)
Dus je kan drag en droppen in windows explorer wanneer je hem als externe harde schijf gebruikt? Is dat niet altijd het geval? Werkt de HDx serie niet gewoon als extern opslagmiddel (= harde schijf)?
:strip_icc():strip_exif()/u/116730/crop5739bd6b87179_cropped.jpeg?f=community)
). Hij is er 12 januari. Als hij me niet bevalt, dan ruil ik hem gewoon voor een 20 gig ipod 
Het is gewoon een externe HD. Maar voor muziek erop zetten zit je vast aan sonic stage. Voor de rest dus gewoon drag and drop!
/u/12281/maan.png?f=community)
.
. /u/131439/417785s.png?f=community)
het is niet zo'n hoesje als bij de Ipod (met harde beschermkanten).:strip_icc():strip_exif()/u/75594/icon.jpg?f=community){kind=icon}
heb hem al sinds 30 december, had nogal geluk. Ging op reis, en heb hem voor 289 gekocht bij tax free shop inc 2 jaar garantie, in schiphol. Ze hadden hem die dag binnen gekregen.
:strip_exif()/u/47958/angry-bird-kamikaze.gif?f=community)
.
:strip_icc():strip_exif()/u/75578/crop5935346597d2a_cropped.jpeg?f=community)
/u/119537/nick_icon.png?f=community){kind=icon}
/u/130527/klaar.JPG?f=community)
Dit topic is gesloten.