The Sony NW-HD5 20GB Walkman - A great start but a Horrible finish

This Sony network Walkman has a storage capability of no less
then 20GB and its battery power is sufficient for more then 40
hours of continuous music. It's small, certainly compared to its
storage capacity. The walkman has a slim aluminum case that fits
nicely into your hands. It really looks like a cool state of the
art piece of technology

The operation of the Sony NW-HD5 is very intuitive. Still this
walkman comes with a lot op options. The hard-disk of the
walkman is equipped with the so-called "G-Sensor" technology
that protects it to sudden shocks and movements. The clear 1.5
inch dot matrix LCD screen is nicely illuminated at will. So you
see there are plenty of plusses with this device.

But on the minus side there are some, in our opinion
unforgivable, omissions. The equalizer and performance improving
capabilities will only work if you play Sony's own ATRAC3 files.
You can only add music to the player by using the program
SonicStage that converts WMA files automatically to the Sony
ATRAC3 standard. Using the Windows Explorer to manage your files
is almost impossible. And to top it all off, if you want to be
able to use the NW-HD5 with multiple computers you will have to
register with Sony's own music service. Otherwise that is off
limits. Finally, the NW-HD5 has no remote control.

Let's face it the Sony NW-HD5 is a nice piece of technology, but
by adding so many limitations and conditions on its usage this
device loses all of its attraction. Our advice is: "Let Sony
know that we don't like the limitations they impose on us by
buying another player". 

It just doesn't make sense that Sony is trying to force
consumers into using their standards and placing a multitude of
limitations on them if they don't want to comply.