Sony NW-HD1

When Sony announced its latest Network Walkman at the 25th anniversary party for the original hip hifi, it was seen as an attempt to dethrone the Ipod. However, it was also universally criticised for not being able to play mp3 files. With the player due to hit these shores any time now, we got our hands on the Japanese model.

At first glance the magnesium alloy case is far more appealing than Apple's latest offering, although its small green and black screen is barely adequate. Thankfully the interface is straightforward, though less intuitive than the Ipod, and manipulated through a good click controller and buttons for volume, display mode and menu jumping.

The main accusation critics have levelled at the HD1 concerns the use of its proprietary Atrac3plus encoding, rather than the more popular mp3. Sony claims its system offers comparable sound quality, yet in a file only half the size.

In tests our ears support the quality claim, but the huge issue remains that few people have collections in the format. Sony's solution of sorts is to enable its Sonicstage music library software to convert other formats to Atrac3plus before shuttling music to the 20GB drive in the HD1. While this sounds OK in theory, conversion of one lossy compression format to another does produce noticeable loss of fidelity. Besides, storing two versions of each song on your PC is hardly desirable.

On the positive side, a battery life that we rated at over 25 hours per charge beats the Ipod hands down, while Connect, Sony's new online music store, integrates well with Sonicstage and has a decent selection of music starting at 79p per track.

Contact: Sony Style 020 7365 2947
www.sony.co.uk

Specifications:

• 20GB HDD
• USB2
• Headphones/Line out
• 110g
• 89 x 13.8 x 62.1 mm
• 30-hour claimed battery life
• Sonicstage 2.1
• Atrac3plus encoding