Starduck

Hi Guys, Am new here so go easy with my post. I'm a huge fan of Sony, and I guess like alot of people here I am unsure where to go and what to do. I hate to be blindly loyal to a brand, but it seems like I am when it comes to walkmans/HD players. Sony are a good brand and I own alot of Sony products which i love which would explain my 'loyality' to Sony. However, I find myself questioning why I am thinking of buying a sony HD? THis new range depending on what mood I'm in seems to be a great alternative, or just a complete flop that was thought up by my mum. My first HD player was a creative zen, and the only reason I got that was becasue it had a replaceable battery. WHere as the Ipod of the day didn't (still doesn't) and had bad press interms of replacing the internal battery(from my view this still hasn't changed). Then, oh mumma the NW1 came out, it was amazing 20gig in a credit card size box with nearly triple that of the ipods! I loved it apart from lack of playlists, and the 'all track' random was 100% awful! This was stolen a short while after so I was looking to upgrade, I ended up getting the Viao Pocket because it had playlists, colour screen, ok battery life and 40gig. I really thought I was making the right choice but I hate it, the playlist functionality sucks and must have been a shoe in. The battery life isn't that great, the colour screen is no use to me (its a gimmick) and its huge! Now getting to the point (sorry for the long post, I kinda feel like I'm on a Psychologists couch). I want to upgrade, I want the best which to me is 1-Sound Quality 2-Battery life 3-Playlists. The new range will meet these requirements but I'm just not satisfied that this is the best Sony can offer, they look great....but they are much bigger than they need to be. This for me is the sticking point, I don't care much for the new software, I'm sure that it is better than SS, But SS does what I need it to, as for the new artist links etc....sound great but I bet I wouldn't use them! Also, 6 months time, they'll bring out another set I'm sure, so its not only that I'm unsure about the products being released now, I don't want to get screwed if Sony are just using this as a gap stop till they bring something truely decent out. The news that Ipod are doing movies etc doesn't interest me, I want a portable music player. Surely Sony can do a great portable music player either HD or flash based and allow the excellent PSP be the movie/game (with option to save music) device? I can get a 30gig HN5 which is nice and small looks cool, has better battery life, replaceable battery, playlists.....is there really any reason that I should concider the A3000 instead, I just feel that I'm being blindly loyal and not buying on merit. There seem to be poeple on this forum who either know things going on in sony, or get info from mates in sony. Can they offer any more info about Sonys strategy for future releases? Will they be looking to the flash market? Again, sorry to go on, I just needed to get it off my chest...I'm off to see how much I can get the 30gig HD5 for!