I've had the NW-HD1 for over a year now, and while it's not perfect, I still love it a lot.
the NW-HD1 has a better casing then the NW-HD3, magnesium vs alluminium
Things I do not like; non-intuitive firmware, touchy small buttons that are hard to operate without looking, Sonic Stage.
Things I like:
I use it intensively (2 hrs a day) and alway toss the thing in my bag or pocket, and despite that, not a scratch, it looks asbsolutely new. Try that with an ipod.
It is compact and looks great, and has very good batterylife.
It sounds very pleasant; a friendly, detailed and spatious sound that I can listen to for hours without any fatigue (I use atrac 3+ 256 Kbs, fine sound, ~200CDs fit on it). I use the Shure E4, before that the E3. The E4 is a fantastic player.
With the E3 I needed to EQ the sound, fortunalety the Sony has a good non-distorting equalizer.
All in all I'm still so satisfied that I do not consider buying another player, before the Sony, I had 6 players in a year, including an Ipod mini, all of which I found unsatifying.
BTW, it can be upgraded by Sony to play MP3.
Enjoy it.
Out of boredom I tried out SonicStage and although its quite sluggish and slow, it's not so bad. Anyone want to comment on the interface of the player? It seems to me that between the NW-HD1 and NW-HD3, not many things have changed.
