The Register describes it as “yet another attempt to displace the iPod from the top of the digital music hardware charts.”

Sony’s new HDD Walkman (creatively called the NW-HD1) is 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.4cm unit fitted with a 20GB 1.8in hard drive and sufficient RAM to provide 25 minutes of skip-free playback.

Looks wise I reckon it can certainly match the iPod, and it is considerably smaller, but in other areas it falls a little short.

For a start can you really see anyone going to the hassle of remembering the gobbledegook-like names of the various players Sony are putting out in the near future? besides the NW-HD1 there’s the VGF-AP1 (which is the Vaio version) and the NW-E55 and NWE75 (both Flash based.) Now I’m sure these names have perfectly sound logic behind them - but they’re nowhere near as catchy as “iPod”

Also, Sony have (in my opinion) shot themselves in the foot by creating a player which only runs on their own music format (ATRAC 3) when MP3s have effectively taken over. Yes, you can convert your MP3’s, but, if another player says you don’t have to, why bother having duplicate formats?

So, should Apple be watching their backs? Sony has been making portable music players (walkman, discman, minidiscman etc) for many years now, and in that respect they have a lot of experience. But it feels like they’re being a little too sure of the success of this new player a little too soon, and their stubbornness in relation to their own ideas and their own existing brands and formats may leave them out of a market which is already happy doing things differently.