Recently I bought a Sony "network walkman" for my other half, who needed some portable sounds as she has recently caught the gym bug. The unit she choose out for me to buy for her is quite cool, light, round, with buttons nicely blend into the round shape.
I'm always been a big fan of Sony's ability to make nice hardware.
Then comes the software. SonicStage is the biggest pile of [expletive] I've ever touched. It constantly gives you random errors, the DRM messses with you despite the music you're trying rip being on an actual bought CD. I get the feeling sony is saying "well we'll sell you this nice player, but don't be ripping any music you bad pirate". AS for MP3s and WMA...they're bit of an after thought. I'm pretty sure some of the error messages I got said "I'd rather you use ATRAC3, how about some DRM with that?"
The interface is unintuitive that makes earlier versions of media player look good and itunes look like a godsend.
I guess I should of learnt, I had all these problems years back when I was a minidisc man. However, always the optomist I assumed SS would be alot better, or they would of finally put in WMP support. Silly me.
Come on Sony get it together.
(Moderator edit (BG) - Removed expletive)