I wish I had read this review before buying my NW-HD3. The unit is OK but the SonicStage software is so poor that it renders the device unusable. Mine is going on ebay this week..

Sony’s reliablity got me to buy more Sony products. I’ve got a Sony CD player that is, egad, nearly 20 years old now (bought it circa 1986) and it still works. Just recently it began having read problems on disk insert, but considering it’s been move a zillion times and never been repaired, realigned or even cleaned, I’d say I’ve gotten my monies worth.

So, last year I picked up a Sony Wega TV and DVD player (but went with Onkyo and Polk for audio). So far, so good.

I tried out the player - the review was WAY too biased against Sony. The hissing sound comes from the e5c's that he tested with - I get hissing when I plug my e5c's into my PC headphone. There probably won't be any noise if you use the ER-4S, and that's a better earphone anyway - cheaper too! Menus is not as intuitive as Apple's but other than that, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the player. It's solidly built, small, has amazing battery time. True, SonicStage is weak, but bearable. Why didn't Sony keep on improving the old OpenMG software? That had a better interface (and stability), IMHO.

This is actually the best mp3 player in the market! a lot of storage, able to play atrac3plus and mp3 (atrac much better sound). It is much smaller than the Ipod, has better sound quality than the ipod. The only think that i am dissapointed at this point are the earphones, bin the ones you get with it.

This is actually the best mp3 player in the market! a lot of storage, able to play atrac3plus and mp3 (atrac much better sound). It is much smaller than the Ipod, has better sound quality than the ipod. The only think that i am dissapointed at this point are the earphones, bin the ones you get with it.

Hey Shai- It's Jamie from England. :) I just read your review- i found it by accident! Incase you were intersted, i just sold my xda2 and i'm looking to get an mp3 player & a phone. Do you recommend the sony NW-HD3 or the Creative Zen Xtra?

Jamie Curtis

Finally managed to get my hands on the NW-HD3 in black (Out of stock in almost any shops) and my impressions are... Wow!!! Definitely the best player I ever own... Very small, long battery life, does exactely what it says on the tin and does it very well, don't expect any extras though!!! Plus, the transferts from PC to NW-HD3 are very fast (Around 7 mo/s for Atrac... MP3s are somewhat slightly slower...)

I'm using it with a pair of MDR-EX71 headphones, and I used to own Net MD player:
- At full volume, the NW-HD3 is definitely quieter than the MD, but still loud enough...
- The sound is somewhat different... I'm no audiophile, so I can't really tell why, but...
- Has more options to tweak the sound compared to my MD...
- The remote from the MD works on the NW-HD3, but not that great... Besides, the player's so small, you don't really need a remote...
- Didn't experience any background noise as Mavy experienced... Just a very very slight noise, that's present with any player I ever used anyway... Really nothing noticeable (Or the unit must be faulty).
- Sonicstage is a slight improvement compared to OpenMG, but still buggy and totally not user-friendly...
- Sometimes crashes when you try to record audio CDs with multimedia contents (Need to ripp them as MP3 with 3rd part softwares first).
- Converting from lossless Wav is taking for ages... Strange!
- Looks great (Got it in Black, and got a lot of "wow!!!" from people seing it), sounds great, very fast to start up and browse, very small and light... Very portable...
- Can charge through USB and is recognised in Windows as an external drive...

To sum up, great great player technically... Not my cup of tea from the sotware point of view... But really it doesn't really matter coz you will only have to download your songs once...

Would I recommend it? Yes... Very very strongly... 9/10 at least (Missing one point coz of the software that showed almost no improvement since openMG)...

I'm having a tough time deciding which MP3 I would like to buy, all have mixed reviews. At the moment I've minimised the list to the Creative Zen Touch and the Sony NW-HD3. Which would you recommend?

Thanks

Megs,

Which player to buy can be a tough decision. I suggest listing the criteria that are most important to you: cost, capacity, battery life, size, compatibility with iTunes or Napster to Go, etc. and then evaluating your finalists against your criteria.

As for the Zen Touch vs. NW-HD3, that's may be a tough call. The Creative is $100 cheaper, but larger and heavier.

THANK YOU JAMIE C!!! Finally some one else who isn't on the sony bashing band wagon! I have a NW-HD1 and its great! And im planning on getting the HD3 later this year before i go on holiday, agreeably the sonicstage software is a bit lifeless and cant hold anything up against itunes (which is great) but you arn't going to be using 24/7. Conver/import and tranfer, if its one album thaten itll take 5 minutes... what the problem? THE PLAYER IS GREAT, software isnt... id give it 10/10 for the player but im gonna have to deduct a point or two for the sonic stage... sorry... 8/10

THANK YOU JAMIE C!!! Finally some one else who isn't on the sony bashing band wagon! I have a NW-HD1 and its great! And im planning on getting the HD3 later this year before i go on holiday, agreeably the sonicstage software is a bit lifeless and cant hold anything up against itunes (which is great) but you arn't going to be using 24/7. Conver/import and tranfer, if its one album thaten itll take 5 minutes... what the problem? THE PLAYER IS GREAT, software isnt... id give it 10/10 for the player but im gonna have to deduct a point or two for the sonic stage... sorry... 8/10

Hey Jamie
so funny what just happened. I am gkad that you are happy with the hw hd3, you can hack it for much higher sounds though, reply if you are interested

The last mesage was from Shai, there is a bug on the site

I just found out that the last message is posted by the name below LOL! Jamie I recommend for your to buy the nw hd3, it is the BEST MP3 Player! It also doesnt break! it can sustain a 1 meter drop while playing without the hard-drive being ruined

Thanks
Shai Bergman

Can the NW-HD-3 be used with the old open MG software or only with sonicstage?

Just got it in the mail. Looks, feels, sounds better than the IPOD in my opinion. Sony is sleek, IPOD is generic. Headphones suck, price is steep, but i love my sony. wish I could have an armband with it for exercise. But it looks and feels so amazing. No hiss problems.

Is the NW-HD3 compatible with Omgjukebox?

Ive had my NW HD3 for less than 2 months, and it has suddenly broken - it won't get past the logo screen onto the menu. I am taking it back later this week but be wary when buying one - you may need the guarantee quite soon!

Had mine for around a month i love it ! ok the ‘i pod’ has the better menu system but i dont need that the sonys one does the job! & I don’t see nothing wrong with ‘sonic stage’ apart from learning your way around the software, i just want hours of quality music and ive got it!, and if you live in the EU you can still turn the sound leveler crap off. 5/5

I bought my player just a few hours ago and I love it! I had wanted a Creative Zen touch for ages but I saw a workmate's new HD3 and so I went and took a look. The sound is awesome! It looks *really* sexy - I got the red version because they were out of black but I think now that red might be the better choice anyway - more eye-catching. Anyway, compared to the iPod, it's way ahead. The iPod should be taken out to the field and shot, and so should anyone who disagres with me -_- don't test me! I refuse to buy anything made by Apple on principle anyway - their stuff always treats you like an idiot. As the saying goes - 'build a computer that idiots can use and only idiots will want to use it!' iPods are just so boring, heavy, ugly, and common. And I don't give a flying frig what you say about the menus, anyone with two neurons to rub together can use this sony and it still has the features you need. I've had a walkman, a CD walkman, and now my network walkman. I am a happy man! Sony kicks Apple's arse any day!

I own an iPOD and I love it. The jog dial for navigating the menus, flawless victory!

I own a Sony Vega TV and I love it to death.

Sony iPOD ripoff? Stick with TVs and digital cameras

My buddy Shawn & I right now have a war waging on between the iPOD and the Sony Network Walkman.

come check it out at www.area420.net

Sony NW_HD3 and iPod mini ... which one should I buy if I only use it as a MP3?

Sony NW_HD3 and iPod mini ... which one should I buy if I only use it as a MP3?

Can someone please tell me whether the Sony NW-HD3 supports seamless MP3 playback, e.g. next MP3 starts to play when the previous one fades out, i.e. no dead silence or pause in-between MP3s, rather like radio airplay?

Please send me an e-mail.

Thank you very much!

I bought the HD-3 as I've got a MD Player from Sony

I like Sonicstage - and find it great to use on my laptop

The sheer storage space using the ATRAC3 is great as is the sheer playback time

Totally recommend it - it's great!

I seriously can't recommend it, as I'm just about to take back my second HD-3!

The first one refused to turn on after a months worth of use - it just displayed lines over the screen...and the second one now freezes on the startup Walkman logo....

I have to say I'm not overly impressed with the reliability of the units - apparently I had a one off the first time, but two in 2 months!! I'm assuming other people are having the same problems and not letting anyone know...

It's a real pity, as I really liked it other than that, decent battery, good sound and a useful line out feature so you can connect it to your hi-fi, car stereo etc

I know a lot of people say you should buy new headphones - but I thought they were pretty good when you listen to ATRAC 256 or MP3s over 192kbps...so it's possibly best not to waste more money on it...Sonic Stage is also OK - it can crash if you try to move a lot at once though - with my second HD3 I tried to transfer the same tunes that were on the last one - around the 12gbs worth of stuff - and it didn't like that one bit.

Anyone else had these problems or am I just unlucky?

I've bought one just a few days ago. The hissing is there, definetely - but only with headphones from the box. There is no hiss with my Koss (not sure about the model, KSC-10?) and Pioneer (SE-M370). I'm not going to use headphones from the package anyway - sound quality is poor in my opinion - boosted mid-range, poor lows and highs.

Sonic Stage is not so bad (UI) but it had frozen 4 times while transferring 2900 mp3 files - using auto-transfer. When I have finally decided to transfer albums manually - in groups of five - everything went smoothly and FASTER (16GB transferred in about 45 minutes).

Sound quality itself is fine, comparable in my opinion to sound of sony's MDs.

What I miss, TERRIBLY miss, is two things:

1. There should be a way of deleting files from the unit itself,
2. It would be nice to have a possibility of editing file tags (artist, genre and so on). This one is not so important as no.1, but I'd like to have it.

Manual contains info about dissasembly of the unit, when I'll have some free time I'll open it and make some photos - I'm thinking about possibilities for replacing HDD with bigger one (I suppose this is possible because manual describes communicate from unit with info about replaced HDD).

Any questions? By mail :)

Does anyone know is the NW-HD3 can upgrades its firmware by users but not by sending it back to Sony Service Center?

Yes, you can update the NW-HD3 firmware yourself.

Sorry for my English skill. But I would like to say my opinion. lol

For the software side.
The SonicStage is so bad, even if the newest version 3.0. There is no way good to syncronizes tracks on PC and HD3. Let's say, If I change track's infomation such as Genre or Artist on SonicStage's My Library then the corresponding track on my HD3 doesn't reflect the changing when I connect it to PC again. I think the iTunes can makes syncronized functionality better. SonicStage has full of bugs and sometime crashs when transfer a great number of tracks into the HD3(and leave the HD3's capacity lost in some reason and cannot get it back except formatting or Initialize the player again). The important missing feature in SonicStage one more is there is no feature to rescan the My Library folder where all my tracks is(like WinAmp or Windows Media Player). If I change some track's information in folder via Window Explorer of My Computer myself, tracks information in SonicStage's My Library doesn't reflect changing too.

For the player side.
There is no way to view all tracks in my HD3 in the order of track's name. You can view all albums, all artists, all genres, but where is all tracks! If I would like to listen to some track but remember just about track's name, where I can go through this.
There is no way to view player's information such as Disk Space remaining, Number of tracks in the player, Firmware version or even the clock.
There is no way to create real Playlist not the Group called by Sony Engineer.
Most of Sound Adjustment feature in the HD3 can use with tracks in Atrac3/Atrac3Plus format only. MP3 format can use only Digital Sound Preset.

I cannot found any resouces that argue that the Sony NW-HD3 can upgrades firmware by user or by sending it back to Sony Service Center.

Could anyone tell me the website or anything else that argue that the Sony NW-HD3 can upgrades its firmware by user? And if Sony NW-HD3 can upgrades its firmware, What website is now containing new firmware for downloading?

Thanks you in advanced.

NW-HD3 is by far the best MP3 player on the market. Smaller, lighter, more bass, louder and far better sound quality than I-pod. Ok it has some drawbacks - admittedly sonicstage software is a bit of a pain, but you can use Realplayer with an add on for atrac format instead if you like.
As for you guys wanting to sell or return your NW-HD3's - go for it - go and buy and I-pod and enjoy your music without bass or volume - its your loss. Oh and by the way - I-Pods have the highest failure rate of any mp3 player on the market - typical apple really.

Bottom Line - Ignore the whingers on here and buy an NW-HD3 if you really care about ultimate personal portable sound playback.

I've been a loyal Sony customer for many years, and been extremely happy with their CD Walkmans, so it was no contest that I should opt for the HD3 with it's superior battery life... but I've been left bitterly disappointed.

I'm not sure what's wrong, but the transfer rate seemed God-awful slow, nowhere near 7 mp/s that was quoted. iTunes never seemed so good after that experience. What good is an MP3 player that takes half an hour to upload one album? . And then after that it started refusing to upload the songs to the HD3 altogether.

Now I don't know whether to try again with it, get a replacement, or get a refund. To rub it in... my sister's iPod has worked brilliantly.

Just got a refund and replaced my second faulty HD3 with a 6gb mini ipod - I've been using Sony walkman products for years but the HD3 was truely terrible...this is an honest opinion!

After comparing the two, I hate to say it but the ipod wins hands down...

Main points for me are:

1. Very easy navigation to find tunes - took ages on the Sony.

2. You can have playlists without transferring the same tune twice - if you use the Group function on the HD3 you have to transfer the tune over again.

3. Itunes is decent software - easy to use, very quick and reliable transfer of tunes.

4. Ipod now has a reasonable battery life - 18 hrs apparently - will have to see about that though.

5. No hiss unlike the Sony - going to miss that old tape walkman sound...how can a digital product hiss????!!! sort it out Sony!

I do miss the the user definable EQ function on the Sony as it gave a clearer sound than the ipod (still with hiss though)..oddly enough I tried the HD3 headphones on an ipod and it improved the sound a huge amount - ipod headphones really are bad, being a musician it makes me wonder if people who slate the HD3 headphones have actually listened to them!

Anyhow the ipod is popular for a reason - it works, my 2 Sonys certainly didn't....

Hi,
Help!Just bought a HD3 and cannot get it to work !! With the SonicStage software, when I try to import the CD Info it does nothing. I registered with the Connect online store, have checked the setting, and read the instructions but nowhere does it tell you how to get it working ! Can anyone help and let me know what the problem might be ? Thanks...

About the SonicStage thing... I was fed up with the poor speed and stability and wrote a command line tool which does the job of copying MP3s to the HD3 for me. It took half an hour to prepare© ~3500 files last time I ran it. However, it has no features. It only supports two modes: Copy directory recursively, Copy m3u. No adding to an existing collection, no deleting. MP3 only. OSS, C (gcc). Should run on Windows/Linux/MacOS/whatever, just needs to be compiled. And it is a bit hard to get to run by the average user because first you will have to determine your individual player's key which has to be passed to the tool.
Unreleased as of yet, but might open a Sourceforge page in the future.

Just bought an HD3 and am very impressed so far. The only problem I have it converting WMA files to Atrac files. The file disappears when I try to import. Can anyone help?

I would convert the WMA files to MP3 first.

After reading the reviews between the ipod and the HD3, ive decided to go for the ipod. mainly because its user friendly. Although iam still worried about the battery life

Hi!

Just bought the nw-hd3. Just reading the post from ikari_01: i would be very,very interested in helping to develop the x-change-thing. Please contact me via e-mail when you read this. thanks!

-manu-

i have just bought a Sony NW-HD3, and it is a beauty. It works very well for me, and the new SonicStage 3.1 works very well, when downloading from Sony Music Store. I did not install the version from the original CD. Everybody complains about lack of playlists. You can use Bookmarks and Genre for playlist, and that works fine. You have to do the jobb of editing the ID3 tags with another program, f.eks. Winamp, but that works ver well. It's a must that your MP3 files have a updated ID3 tag for the Sonic Stage program to work OK. I have 2 question about the player. 1 is about updating firmware. Where can I find the updates for this. WEB site etc. 2 is about removing the lock for the volume control. I have read that this will raise the volume by 20%. I would be tankfull for answers on this topics.

Hi to all,
New NW-HD3 bought and I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the blasted thing to transfer Mp3 files and not convert them to the ATRAC3 format.

I just want to listen to my tunes, i dont really care about what format their in. At 20Gb I think I won't argue over whether its 13000 or 10000 tunes.

If somebody would be so kind as to email me with some idiots guide to the hard disk player, i would be very grateful.

I think this is a great player if i could utilise its ful potential.

Thank you

JA

Hi all,

Have recently purchased the European version of the HD3 and although I had a few teething troubles as the device would not do exactly as I wanted, I think I have found a workable solution so I thought I might share it with you all. First off, all my mp3 collection is folder based with the Folder name as the name of the album and the tracks inside have filenames that are named accordingly. I have almost zero ID3 tags populated so this makes Sonicstage pretty useless for me (I downloaded version 3.1).

In an ideal world, I want to drag and drop the folders I wanted onto the player and each folder creates a new group on the player. I'm not really fussed about this playlist concept - if you want to create a new playlist of specific tracks, create a new folder in Windows, name it accordingly and copy all the tracks you want into the folder then transfer it - simple.

So off I went a hunting for a suitable way to achieve this and found one pretty quickly. The VAIO Pocket Transfer Utility
(http://www.vaio-link.com/Vaiopocket/downloads/downloads.asp?l=en&f=
VMTU). This little application gives you a little window into which you drag and drop your mp3 folders. New groups are created based on the foldername (something Sonicstage cant do?!?!) - excellent. One downside however is the fact that the track names are based on the ID3 trackname tag. Not too much of a problem as you can download a small free utility (mp3/TAG studio 3.0) to fill out the trackname tag based on the filename of the mp3 file. This can also batch process so you can do your whole collection in one go. But beware, I use this to fill out the Track title tag only with the whole filename (i.e. the bit before ".mp3"). If you already have information in here, it will be overwritten.

One problem I have come across when using Sonicstage that doesnt get much of a mention is that the sound presets and equaliser settings DO NOT WORK on mp3 files, i.e. the sound is flat - only on ATRAC files do the sound settings work. However when using the Vaio transfer utility (even though it converts to ATRAC) most of the sound settings do not work except for the Digital Sound Preset option. Now to be honest I dont use any of the other sound presets so this works out OK for me. The digital sound presets are the closest settings to the original "Bass Boost" as you're going to get and its these I use all the time else the sound lacks punch and I like my tunes pumpin'!

So there is my two pennys worth. I have also installed the Vaio transfer utility on another XP machine and it refused to start up but I have a funny feeling you might have to have sonicstage installed as well (to provide driver files possibly?) but dont quote me on that.

Hope this helps someone. Cheers.

I've just bought the NW-HD3 was told in the shop that I could use it with my Mac (OSX3.9 iTunes). Does anyone know if this is possible? Otherwise its going to have to go back!!!

Thanks.

I dunno If its Just My Hd3 But Are The Buttons Supposed to Be Kinda Loose?

I dunno If its Just My Hd3 But Are The Buttons Supposed to Be Kinda Loose?

I dunno If its Just My Hd3 But Are The Buttons Supposed to Be Kinda Loose?

Just wondering if you can transfer directly from the PC or whethere you have to rip from audio CD? I have most of my cd's backed up on a spare harddrive and seriously couldn;t be bothered ripping them again?

Help much appreciated.

Cheers

Alan

NW-HD3 is excellent if you have loads of MP3's. Shame it lies when it says it supports WMA files. It has to comvert them to atrac3plus first, argh.

I am about to buy a sony nw hd3 or a xreative micro and i was jus had a question about napster. I no you have to pay £10 a month but do you have to also pay per track you burn to cd or mp3 player, and if so is there any way around this.

Does downloaded music work for hd3.....not as in napster-wise where you pay.......

The lastability sound wack but has it been fixed?

Just bought it, takes about 5 seconds per album, recognized all the albums, artists, tracks and so .... , the earpieces suck, with other pieces the sound is very good, used an i-river one before which was also very good. Well for ur info I'm a happy customer :)

I recently bought a new SONY HD3 player for a decent price compared to an ipod

It would be great if someone tell me if
(1) its possible to directly drag and drop mp3 files into this player through explorer and does it run them
(2) Is the battery replacable
(3) Is there any way i can tranfer music to this player without using the USB adaptor
(4) Also, does this player has an AUTO OFF function. Else i cant make out how to shut this player off ?

Pls reply

Hi,
Just got my HD-3 and I'm having a few problems with it. Mainly the crashes in SonicStage.

Does anyone know what happens if the HD-5 firmware is used on the player?

Where can I get the official updated firmware from for my HD-3?

If I choose to transfer my files to Atrac3 format, is this done on the fly, or do I need the extra disk space as a buffer?

Cheers

Al

hi guys
I need a help from u
I´ve got HD3 and I am from Europe
here is the norm in firmware which prevent me to listen music enough loudly.
I don´t know find firmware for HD3 anywhere.
Please, could somebody send some link for firmware of this Net. Walkman?
thank u people
Rob

hi guys
I need a help from u
I´ve got HD3 and I am from Europe
here is the norm in firmware which prevent me to listen music enough loudly.
I don´t know find firmware for HD3 anywhere.
Please, could somebody send some link for firmware of this Net. Walkman?
thank u people
Rob

hi,
i bought a hd3 at the start of the year and i'm very happy with it, i just have 2 little questions
1 is it possible to get the 18gb of music on my hd3 player back onto a blank sonicstage as i'm currently in new zealand for a year and my computer is in ireland
2 is there s/w to make the sound a little louder?????
any help would be welcome

HI,

I've got a Sony NW HD3 for some time now, like it overall but would have say that the iPod is probably the better choice, especially for all the accessories that you can get for it - speaking of which, is there a way to get the HD3 to play through a car stereo, nothing special just a standard factory fit job. I've tried the cassette adaptor item - don't, useless, I should have known better!!
Anyone out there got a solution??

i'v recently bought an NW-HD 5. It's QUITE A COOL MACHINE. hOWEVER THE SOFTWARE IS SO PLAIN AND NOT USER FRIENDLY.
i really need help on one thing.Why does my track disappear when i wanted to transfer my track from my nw-hd5 to my library. The windows sent a message telling me that the track does not exist in my library and if i wanted to delete the track in my mp3........really need help.Besides that, i am now using sonicstage 3.1

reply plz

hi need help

i own an hd3. i used my brothers computer to download alot of stuff and when i tried to use it on my own computer it was telling me i had to use the original computer. it says i must delete all content before downloading from my computer? not much use. but am i overlooking something simple. all advice appreciated.
thx gavin

I bought an nw-hd3 just over a year ago..
i loved it and was so glad i never bought an ipod.
but now it doesnt even turn on. it cuts out just after the sony logo dissapears :(
if anyone knows a fix please e-mail me as i wont be able to check this site often

cheers chris.

I purchased a Sony Network Walkman NW HD3 9 months ago from an Argos store.

When connecting it to my computer last night, a message appeared on the LCD screen saying ‘CONNECT AC POWER ADAPTOR’. This was already connected but my computer did not recognise it. I managed to transfer data to the device eventually but the screen still had this message. It also charged the walkman slightly.

When attempting to charge the device from another power source, the red charging light did not illuminate and the device will no longer charge.

Will this be a power adaptor problem or the small device connecting the walkman to the adaptor and USB cable which is labelled BCA-NWHD3.

The walkman is still working. Sony said I should send it to them but reluctant to do this as I have over 4500 tunes stored on the device. Would hate anything to happen?

Beware, with ref to my last comments, i have found out that the mains adaptor is the problem and when I rang Sony spares to order a new one they told me it was discontinued. DISCONTINUED!!! The model is only just 12 months old for gods sake. Tracked one down at a local retailer but they wanted £90+ for it. I thought i could save myself the bother of sending it back to Sony HQ but i have now ended up doing that anyway. I just hope they can sort it for me.

hiya guys,
i own a hw3 have done for a year, gutted the otha week to find it now freezes on the main screen and just shows the walkman logo. tryed everything but it just turns off after around 30 secs. ive heard other people have had this problem. does any1 know a solution. if yes, please please let me kno. thanx alot people. J

Hello everyone,

Jordan - I have had the same problem with my NW3 as it froze on the main screen. I rang up Sony UK on 07831250583 and they gave me a free post address to send it too. It was fixed within a week and sent back all cleaned up. All my songs were still on there too which was handy.

With hindsight I should have then sold it. There are many positives about this little machine and I really do think it is great. Sonic stage works really quickly on my new computer but was awful on an old one so I can understand the complaints about Sonic Stage. However just today, around 4 months after it was fixed the same problem has happened again. The title screen comes on and it freezes. Nothing happens except some clicking noise as if it can't read the hard drive and then some lines go across the screen. I rang up Sony again and I have to send it in. I think if they fix it this time I will be selling it and buy myself a different MP3 player.
This is something that really needs to be sorted out and I would think twice about buying another Sony MP3 product.

Good luck!