It is fair to say that Sony equipment now commands a premium that it is often hard to justify against the competition but when you hold a well crafted and beautifully designed Sony product that soon vanishes and that is the key to brand value.

Perhaps the most noticeable black hole in the Sony range has been a quality hard disk audio device, now we have to be careful as the generic term "MP3 player" cannot be applied to Sony as they are firmly backing their own Atrac3plus audio format which sadly precludes the support of the more widely adopted MP3 format.

But lets look at the unit first, the first thing that strikes you is size, measuring just 82 x 62 x 14mm its like the Ipod's thinner cousin who's been at weight watchers for a few months, the magnesium body is light too tipping the scales at 110 grams. The user interface is via the green backlit LCD display which generally displays 6 lines of data on screen, navigation is via a combination of the "mode" button on the top edge of the NW-HD1 and the 4 way joystick, which also doubles up to control tracks replay. All of the main commands are replicated on the in line headphone control which also has a small LCD screen.

The unit is based around the latest 1.8" 20gb hard drive which is further protected by a 25 minute shock protection buffer, ensuring that this hard disk based player will be good in the gym or in any other stressful situation. Files are transferred to the NW-HD1 when its sat in a USB cradle the latest USB 2.0 standard is employed to move files as quickly as possible this is vital considering its slower to move Atrac3 files than MP3's. Sony have bundled the network walkman with the latest version of the sonic stage software, version 2.1 enables some clever features including various forms of auto synchronisation to make the most of the space on your device.

Space could be at a premium in a 20gb device but using Sony's proprietary Atrac3plus format a 48kbps file sounds equivalent to a 128kbit MP3 file, this means you can fit some 13,000 4 minute tracks onto Sony's baby, of course not everyone will be happy with using Atrac but sadly it looks like you will have no option but to use the copyright enabled format.

Battery life is a claimed 30 hours using the 48kbps format and the battery can be charged from flat in 3 hours with an 80% fast charge in 1 hour, the unit will charge whenever sat in its cradle and connected to the host machine even if playing. The 20gb device can also be used as an impromptu USB hard disk and requires no extra drivers on the host PC.

There is no doubting this is a very competent and highly stylish hard disk walkman from Sony but will its Achilles heel be the use of Atrac3Plus in the face of a world awash with MP3? but it is a stunning piece of Sony design and highly desirable at only £199.99.

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